Hello all,

The previous big Puzzlemania event was held almost a year ago. Since then, I made a couple of mini puzzles and a teaser for this event. I also contributed to the amazing Down the Rabbit Hole group event. And now I finally feel like it is a good time for a new large Puzzlemania puzzle.

I would like to dedicate this event to the memory of my Grandma who passed away two months ago at the age of 75. She was an amazing woman and I will never forget time spent with her. There is really the endless number of moments to remember. Rest in Peace, Grandma.

Besides this truly sad fact, some good things are also happening in my life. First of all, I finally moved to my new awesome house! Then, I am switching jobs, so that I am starting my new job from the 1st of July. I will be working at an awesome position in a really well-known company, and I feel very excited about it!

This event is also to celebrate several big milestones related to Steam and SG:

  • Last month I added a 2000th game to my Steam library.
  • By the end of this event I will probably win my 1000th game at SG.
  • By the end of this event I will give away my 250th game at SG.
  • By the end of this event I will be level 9 at SG.
  • By the end of this event there probably will be 100 people who whitelisted me.
  • By the end of this event there probably will be 100 people who blacklisted me.

Hints and updates

  • UPD #1 [17.06] Hint = 51
  • UPD #2 [20.06] 51 = hint
  • UPD #3 [21.06] 2 giveaways were added to the piggy bank
  • UPD #4 [23.06] To open the red door you need to use all 7 keys from brutal doors. Also, pay attention to the structure of the dungeon and to clues about directions you may find on some walls.
  • UPD #5 [23.06] To open the elven door you need to insert a space in the previous answer. The word 'elven' was already pretty much obsolete by the beginning of the 20th century and was revived by J. R. R. Tolkien in his works..
  • UPD #6 [23.06] To open outer doors you need to pay attention to the structure of the dungeon.
  • UPD #7 [23.06] 4 giveaways were added to the piggy bank.
  • UPD #8 [25.06] 2 giveaways were added to the piggy bank.
  • UPD #9 [26.06] Hints will be revealed when the piggy bank reaches 150/250/300 points instead of 300/500/600.
  • UPD #10 [26.06] 3 giveaways were added to the piggy bank. We reached 150 points in the bank meaning that new hints will be reveled later today!
  • UPD #11 [27.06] Here are the hints, I am sorry for the delay!
    • Hint for the brutal doors: as the name of these door suggest you should just brute force the answers. The numbers written on these doors are quite helpful though. They represent the sum of letters for corresponding answers. For example, the previous hint that was given can be re-written as follows: h + i + n + t = 51.
    • Hint for the red door: the dungeon before this door is a crossword! Except for the rooms with treasure chests.
    • Hint for the elven door: rings of power really had their own names.
    • Hint for the outer doors: try to apply word 'outer' to the structure of the dungeon again when you know that it is a crossword.
  • UPD #12 [30.06] 1 giveaway was added to the piggy bank.
  • UPD #13 [01.07] 1 giveaway was added to the piggy bank.

Overview

In this puzzle, you will have to return into the Game of sWords and solve the riddles of a new dungeon I created for you. There are multiple doors in this dungeon and trying to open each door will consume energy if your answer is wrong. The amount of energy wasted varies from door to door, so please pay attention to the door descriptions!

Good luck and have fun!

Rules

This is individual event meaning that normal rules apply: you must not share answers, give hints, ask for help anywhere. I reserve the right to blacklist users and ask for rerolls in case I find out that the rules are not respected.

Almots all giveaways are for lvl1+ users. The last two however require lvl2+. All GAs end on the 3rd of July, 18:00 CEST.

Hints piggy bank – 187 points gathered

Hints will be revealed once we reach 150/250/300 points. To put points in the piggy bank you should create invite only GAs and send links to me. I will then add them to the treasures. Your GAs must finish on the 1st of July or earlier. 1 SG point = 1 piggy bank point. Only games please, no software.

You are eligable for the piggy bank GAs only if you opened at least one brutal door. If it is the case, follow the link and enjoy those extra GAs.

The following GAs are now in the piggy bank:

  • Mushroom Wars (10 points, from me)
  • Splice (10 points, from ABoss)
  • Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting (8 points, from yukulele53)
  • Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night (6 points, from yukulele53)
  • Fergus The Fly (6 points, from yukulele53)
  • Cubicle Quest (5 points, from yukulele53)
  • Maize (20 points, from urbanus)
  • Her Story (6 points, from urbanus)
  • Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition (20 points, from kinkami)
  • Sins of a Solar Empire®: Trinity (40 points, from kinkami)
  • Space Hulk Ascension (30 points, from kinkami)
  • Her Story (6 points, from Cornpops)
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY (20 points, from DarkX13)

The list of the games that are given away

  • Hitman: Absolution
  • Kimmy
  • Steamworld Heist
  • HoPiKo
  • Okhlos
  • Flat Heroes
  • Morphblade
  • Western Press
  • Neon Chrome
  • GoNNER
  • Slime-san
  • Steel Storm
  • Kingdom: New Lands
  • PixelJunk Eden
  • Mother Russia Bleeds
  • Ashes of the Singularity
  • Project Highrise
  • Space Run Galaxy
  • RIVE
  • Plague Inc: Evolved
  • Mordheim City of the Damned
  • One Piece Pirate Warriors 3
  • Undertale
  • Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
  • Dark Souls III

Solution

Please see the attached image that contains the answers for all the brutal doors. These answers form the word 'herring', which is the answer for the red door. If I insert a space into this word, I would get 'her ring', therefore the answer for the elven door is 'Nenya' (it is one of the rings of power from Tolkien's legendarium and the only one that belonged to an elven woman - Galadriel). To open the outer door you needed to pick the most outer letters from the crossword (SSIDEAE) and anagram them. Actually, there are two ways to do it: seaside (terrain) and disease (not terrain). To open the third door you needed to pick third letters from each of brutal answerd (TAOALEM) and again anagram them: oatmeal.

View attached image.
7 years ago*

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up

7 years ago
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^

7 years ago
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UPD #10 [26.06] 3 giveaways were added to the piggy bank. We reached 150 points in the bank meaning that new hints will be reveled later today!

We're waiting for those hints >_>
Still stuck at brutal doors...even though I've solved some very difficult puzzle here on SG this one got me really stumped ç_ç

7 years ago
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I am really sorry for this delay :(

7 years ago
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Thanks for the puzzle! It was enjoyable, once I got pointed in the right direction. I read a little too much into the clues and first hint, and didn't discern the dungeon structure correctly. But after that, much more doable. And it was quite clever.

7 years ago
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Bump

7 years ago
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The hints have done their job and I can finally do it:
Bump for solved!

Thanks for the fun, albeit a bit brutal, puzzle :)

7 years ago
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lol, red clue didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

Thanks for the puzzles anyway!

7 years ago
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Ah, okay, the new hints make it extremely easier. I wasn't getting it because I was trying to find a logic between the numbers when there isn't one (it's just bruteforce). :P

7 years ago
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As soon as I knew what the brutal doors were looking for, it didn't take long :) thanks for the hints. Still on the last door, but I'm sure I'll figure it out before too long.

7 years ago
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Wait, so the brutal doors are supposed to be brute forced?

Too brutal "puzzle" design for me - already spend too much time on taking guesses for those ones and opened none of them. I guess I might just skip the rest of the event this time...

7 years ago
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How do you "bruteforce" something?

7 years ago
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Once you know the "51 = hint" rule you just try to make guesses for the words that would fit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack

7 years ago
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Isn't that a little too... complicated?

7 years ago
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I mean, it could be literally any word

7 years ago
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Yes, it can be. Prepare to lose time.

7 years ago
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not really, the pool of words is quite limited, it took me less than 30 guesses to get all brutal doors correctly...

7 years ago*
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I already spend like 3 (combined) hours thinking about different words, got a bunch "matching" ones but still unlocked only one brutal door so far...

7 years ago
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I think if you google you could find some sites where you can set up word length and sum of letters and get list of all words matching with these parameters. Then it would be easy to check them all

7 years ago
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Thanks for the tip! I didn't think that I would find a good site for that so I didn't even try! Now I'm already at the outer door :)

7 years ago
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And done. I was stuck at the outer door. I had the idea on how to proceed, just did not have the elements with me. The last hints made it pretty clear that I was on the right track. Thanks for the event ercalote.

7 years ago
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Well, I somehow opened another brutal door. Just 5 more doors to continually headbutt until something happens. Because that's fun, right?
Did find some sort of pattern, but its still a specific needle in a haystack full of needles.

7 years ago*
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hmm im still stuck on the outer door - I dont really get how I should fit "outer" inside the crossword as there is only space for 4 letters..

7 years ago
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Levitate for solved. :D

7 years ago
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bump for solved!

7 years ago
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Question concerning this hint:

try to apply word 'outer' to the structure of the dungeon again when you know that it is a crossword

What do you mean by "again"?

7 years ago
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My guess is that you have to use the same crossword like we used when solving the red door. But the word outer is too long or too short to fit inside. So I am stuck there too

7 years ago
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By saying 'again' I meant that you need to pay attention to the structure of the dungeon one more time.

7 years ago
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Ah, okay, the way you worded it made me understand that I had already applied the word "outer" before.

7 years ago
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I am stuck at the last door. I got the others but I'm stuck at one and I just can't figure it out. I know I'm probably going to facepalm when I get it, my brain just feels mushy after all these puzzles, lol.

EDIT: got it! To anyone struggling, just take a break and come back with fresh eyes, it helps a lot.

7 years ago*
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Does capital letters matter? After all night I can only think of one word that fits the outer door but failed...

7 years ago
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Ah, I got another idea... I'll try that after recovering to 100 EP :P

7 years ago
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Finally made some progress. Not all solved yet but I will be back...soon!
Bump :)

7 years ago
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Bump for solved.
Whitelisted for no chess puzzle ;P

7 years ago
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100th whitelist!

7 years ago
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I don't get the hint at all. If you're going by addiction of the letters then you can literally use any combination of letters to do 51 by doing an alphanumeric code.

7 years ago
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You can't use any combination of letters, since there are limited number of words for each door :)

7 years ago*
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All the answers are meaningful existing words, not random letter combinations.

7 years ago
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Eh screw it. It's not for me. It would take me way too long to do that.

7 years ago
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Bump! :)

7 years ago
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Finally done! Now that I've suffered through beating my head against the wall to solve this puzzle I feel prepared to beat my head against the wall to play Dark Souls, should I be so lucky as to win it.

Awesome puzzle, although perhaps a bit light on direction at the start. :D

7 years ago
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First hint was enough in my opinion since puzzle is not really that hard. Some doors can be a bit tricky (outer and maybe red) but they were really doable with no additional hint.

7 years ago
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After a good night's rest, I finished it!

To everyone who's stuck: you can do it!

7 years ago
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Bump for solved. Thanks for the great event! I always feel silly after figuring out the puzzles, but it's fun once I figure out what's needed.

7 years ago
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