You Are Games:
Letters In Boxes #7
It's no secret that really unique challenges tempt. That's why for this week's Letters In Boxes puzzle, we're trying something different. We're giving you all the information you need to solve these puzzles upfront. In fact, you're reading through that deluge of information in this very paragraph. We hope you don't rail against us when you realize these puzzles might be a bit easier than normal, but we still want the experience to be gratifying. | For example, did you know that the average Letters In Boxes challenge takes 8,267,101 milliseconds to create? Also, did you know that the first random fruit I can think of is a lemon? But that's only because it was in last week's series. Anyway, that's probably enough information to crawl through, let's get on with the actual puzzles, shall we?
You've got all the information you need above, and now here's some information on how to play. Click on the starter puzzle below to open it up in a new window. Once you've fiddled around with it enough to think you know the answer to the puzzle, focus your attention on your browser's address bar (which in this case reads "http://images.jayisgames.com/lettersinboxes/startofseven.gif"). Change the filename (namely, "startofseven") to your answer, using all lower-case letters and no spaces (make sure you use the same extension and directory). If your guess is correct, you're on to the next puzzle. If not, you'll likely get an error message, but you can feel free to go back and try again.
This batch of puzzles contains four puzzles to solve. On the fourth puzzle, you'll find the email address for sending your final answer. We'll hand out a prize to the first correct entry we receive, plus ten additional randomly-selected correct entries. Please include your Casual Gameplay account display name with your entry. You must be at least 13 years of age to enter. Only one submission per participant, please. Offer void where prohibited. Your deadline for submitting your answers is Monday, July 18th at 11:59 PM (GMT-5:00). Good luck, and don't forget that everything you need to solve today's puzzles are at the top of this post!
Update: Congratulations to these 11 winners! :D
All eleven winners were given a choice of prizes or an entry into a GRAND PRIZE drawing to be held at the end of August! Congratulations and thanks for playing with us! Look for another Letters in Boxes again soon!
- ThemePark ...First!
- BobBobBobson
- ajslama
- metacom
- bluemoose19
- OtherBill
- sillyme2
- Binks
- DAM
- Nigma
- lemonsaurus
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
You pretty much had all the answers already, but in case you missed them, here's a walkthrough:
Puzzle 1
Puzzle 1 Answer
To solve this first puzzle, you had to look at the very first sentence of the paragraph. Even though the boxes faded out so that you couldn't see the length of the words, you would hopefully figure out that the words in the first sentence could fit into the boxes vertically. From there, the answer would appear in the first letters of each word, spelling INSTRUCT.
Puzzle 2
Puzzle 2 Answer
To solve this puzzle, you simply had to find a five-letter word immediately followed by a six-letter word. This happened with the phrase "first random". If you put those words in those boxes and read between the brackets, you'd find your next filename, STRAND.
Puzzle 3
Puzzle 3 Answer
This puzzle happened in three steps. First, you had to figure out what the numbers in the picture meant. The first number in each pair indicated what sentence to look in, while the second number indicated the word to select. So, the fifth word of the fifth sentence was RAIL, and so forth. But what to do with these words? Once they were in their boxes, the second part of the puzzle was to realize that these words formed a word math puzzle, where each letter represented a different digit in an addition problem. If you want a further breakdown of how to solve this puzzle, read this spoiler:
To start, the only way a four-digit number added to a five-digit number could result in a six-digit number is if the five-digit number started with a 9, and the six-digit number started with 10. So, you've already got C=9, D=1, and E=0.
Note that the E not only appears in the second column, but also in the sixth column. The only ways for a number added to itself to equal 0 is if the number is 0 or 5. Since the 0 has already been claimed by another letter, the L must equal 5.
Since a pair of Rs has to equal more than 10 (to make the 9 turn into 10 in the C=DE portion of the equation), R has to be more than 5. Therefore, R has to be 7 (such that 7+7=14, plus another 1 from the preceding column to make 15).
This leaves us with five unused digits: 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8. Here's where the deductions get tricky. Since you know two As has to equal more than 10, the only possible choices for A are 6 and 8. If you try letting A equal 8, U must then equal 6. BUT, there is no possible solution using I, W, and G to equal 2, 3, and 4. Therefore, A must equal 6.
Now, U could equal 2 or 3. If you try to make U equal 3, you're left with 2, 4, and 8 for the remaining three letters. And, it's possible to let 8+4=12, which would fill out the remainder of the digits... except we've already got the 5s in the very first column which already turn it into 13! So with no possible solution where U equals 3, U must equal 2.
For the final step of this problem, we have to find a way to spend the remaining three digits in the tens column of the equation so that no "one" is "carried". This can be done with 3+4=8, remembering the one carried from the 5+5 part. And yes, it's true that the 3 and 4 can be interchanged, so there are technically two solutions to this problem, but that doesn't make any difference in how you solve this puzzle.
So once you've got the math out of the way, it's time to look at your results. You now have ten letters that represent ten digits, but how could we use that? Remember the "8,267,101 milliseconds" it takes to write a review? That's a lie. (It's actually about three or four times that amount!) But, converting those numbers to letters gives you your next filename, GUARDED.
Puzzle 4
Puzzle 4 Answer
The final leg of this series made use of that random | symbol in the middle of the review. If you counted each of the letters before the mark (no spaces or punctuation), you'd find there are exactly 360 characters. The numbers in the final image are actually fractions that tell you exactly where to pull each letter from that portion of the text. For example, the first letter is 4/9ths of the way through the section. So, you'd find the 160th letter, which happens to be the P in the word "puzzles". You'll notice that the last fraction was an improper fraction, meaning that you had to go eight letters beyond the symbol to find the final letter. The final solution was PARSNIP. And for those who complained that this final puzzle was tedious, did you consider putting the letters of the text into boxes (say, a 10x36 or 20x18 grid) to make counting easier?
Winners will be announced soon!
Posted by: Steve
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July 19, 2011 1:09 AM