"Recursive word search" was the initial concept I wanted to build, hearkening back to a very similar puzzle from one of the early Microsoft Puzzlehunts I played in. (That one had you finding animals in a grid, the smaller grid was composed entirely of apes/monkeys, and the final answer was MIKE NESMITH, one of the Monkees.)
The purple devil was a clear indication that CG_EVS_469 was JOKING.
It's a sarcasm tag disguised as an emoji. Get it?
sigsig was guessing something that others had guessed on page 1. sigsig wasn't bothering to even read the thread. Of course CG_EVS_469 was going to take sigsig down a peg.
The purple devil was a clear indication that CG_EVS_469 was JOKING.
It's a sarcasm tag disguised as an emoji. Get it?
sigsig was guessing something that others had guessed on page 1. sigsig wasn't bothering to even read the thread. Of course CG_EVS_469 was going to take sigsig down a peg.
This thread here is why I love the internet. People coming together to do something for no other reason than they are interested in some obscure subject. Even the Bile and ungreatfullness. Classic internet and I love it.
Congratulations - y'all got it! Hope you guys had fun with this one - I've already got some Ideas for next time.
- EVS-469
So...for event timing, does the “notification” start now, or when the puzzle was first posted? Because we should get at least a week advance notice, so this Thursday would be too soon...
But crumb said that is was stuff that wasn’t on the leak....the Falcon clearly was. Great puzzle and great community interaction, but disappointing result.
If I were to give you my best guess, Bounty Hunter ships just became farmable a few weeks ago and Slave 1 is the login reward... If this is a legendary event then probably gonna need 5* BH ships to unlock... Not sure how many of them though. The Chimera was legendary and you needed 5 rebel ships and the Home One to unlock. But that was back when Ships started as 5v5 and now it's 3v3 at the start. So maybe just 3 BH ships at 5* but I wouldn't be surprised if we need all of them due to the recent increase in difficulty for legendary events. Not sure which capital ship will be needed for this event. Also possibly need Lando's Falcon or Episode 7 Falcon.
They'll probably tell us the actual requirements soon enough.
But crumb said that is was stuff that wasn’t on the leak....the Falcon clearly was. Great puzzle and great community interaction, but disappointing result.
Maybe we're getting all the ships listed in the second grid.
Some maybe marquees.
I've been up over 24 hours and I guessed it would be the falcon from the first clue but it was great fun to solve. Thanks to those who helped looking for characters, coming up with cipher results, theories (C/L/D took us too long to get lol).
@CG_SBCrumb@CG_EVS_469 Thanks for such a fun puzzle! Can we take anything from the clues as to what specifically will be required?
Failing that, how about we get some of those wordsearch characters into the game *cough* Ki Adi Mundi *cough*
Also I’m sure there were several others but with the rate of 1000 post and emojis per min it was hard to tell the rest of the actual load bearing helpers but thanks to them as well
"Recursive word search" was the initial concept I wanted to build, hearkening back to a very similar puzzle from one of the early Microsoft Puzzlehunts I played in. (That one had you finding animals in a grid, the smaller grid was composed entirely of apes/monkeys, and the final answer was MIKE NESMITH, one of the Monkees.)
- EVS-469
Retrospective - This was definitely harder than the last couple. I'd say the one for Dark Bastila was about a 1/5, Revan should have been about a 2/5, but the formatting made it more challenging. C3PO was about a 3/5, though it would have been a 5 if there wasn't a text log of the notes, and I still think I may have gotten insanely lucky in finding a way to quickly decode the solfa cipher. This one ratcheted it up to about a 5.5/5 though. There were a couple of really nice lateral steps in there, especially using the Light/Dark/Cantina characters to index into. If there was a weakness, I'm not sure the Bacon's cipher was clued enough - without the hint, I'm not sure how long that would have taken to arrive at, since I was definitely stuck.
(for perspective, I'm more familiar with the Australian puzzle hunts than the MIT/Microsoft ones, mostly because they were more of the online variety, so I know a fair bit of what to expect from them)
"Recursive word search" was the initial concept I wanted to build, hearkening back to a very similar puzzle from one of the early Microsoft Puzzlehunts I played in. (That one had you finding animals in a grid, the smaller grid was composed entirely of apes/monkeys, and the final answer was MIKE NESMITH, one of the Monkees.)
- EVS-469
Retrospective - This was definitely harder than the last couple. I'd say the one for Dark Bastila was about a 1/5, Revan should have been about a 2/5, but the formatting made it more challenging. C3PO was about a 3/5, though it would have been a 5 if there wasn't a text log of the notes, and I still think I may have gotten insanely lucky in finding a way to quickly decode the solfa cipher. This one ratcheted it up to about a 5.5/5 though. There were a couple of really nice lateral steps in there, especially using the Light/Dark/Cantina characters to index into. If there was a weakness, I'm not sure the Bacon's cipher was clued enough - without the hint, I'm not sure how long that would have taken to arrive at, since I was definitely stuck.
(for perspective, I'm more familiar with the Australian puzzle hunts than the MIT/Microsoft ones, mostly because they were more of the online variety, so I know a fair bit of what to expect from them)
Appreciate this. I was personally shooting for roughly a 3 or 4; my guess for the community's solve time was about six hours. I think there were a few things that knocked this up from there. First, as you noted, the lack of Bacon cluing really delayed you guys. A large part of that I think can be chalked up to the fact that a properly-encrypted Bacon cipher *doesn't look encrypted at all*, so y'all ratholed on it for quite a while.
Second, the sheer *weirdness* of Star Wars character names makes 'em harder to find in a grid without a list to work from - and made it easier to inadvertently include short ones I didn't recognize. (For the record, all the names I used were either used in-game or came from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_characters - all current canon.)
Third, the fact that it was encrypted as an interim step led to errors in the initial grid, which wreaked all sorts of havoc as you guys continued to solve, particularly without the availability of mid-solve checkpoints. (And I think one or two of the nodes might've changed between when I wrote the puzzle and today, too, which didn't help any!)
All that said - again, you guys did a great job persevering through all the above, and I had a blast watching and rooting y'all on from the sidelines.
Replies
It's like inception except with a word find.
"Recursive word search" was the initial concept I wanted to build, hearkening back to a very similar puzzle from one of the early Microsoft Puzzlehunts I played in. (That one had you finding animals in a grid, the smaller grid was composed entirely of apes/monkeys, and the final answer was MIKE NESMITH, one of the Monkees.)
- EVS-469
Maybe we can see some of these classic ships in the game (like the Y-Wing and B-Wing) in the near future as well?
Soooo......the Falcon was on the leak......is there more???
The purple devil was a clear indication that CG_EVS_469 was JOKING.
It's a sarcasm tag disguised as an emoji. Get it?
sigsig was guessing something that others had guessed on page 1. sigsig wasn't bothering to even read the thread. Of course CG_EVS_469 was going to take sigsig down a peg.
Good! Y'all had me going there for a second.
Ovaltine
No it confirmed what was suspected. And like modes in the game some enjoyed it and others didn’t, I guess.
Good job!
So...for event timing, does the “notification” start now, or when the puzzle was first posted? Because we should get at least a week advance notice, so this Thursday would be too soon...
If I were to give you my best guess, Bounty Hunter ships just became farmable a few weeks ago and Slave 1 is the login reward... If this is a legendary event then probably gonna need 5* BH ships to unlock... Not sure how many of them though. The Chimera was legendary and you needed 5 rebel ships and the Home One to unlock. But that was back when Ships started as 5v5 and now it's 3v3 at the start. So maybe just 3 BH ships at 5* but I wouldn't be surprised if we need all of them due to the recent increase in difficulty for legendary events. Not sure which capital ship will be needed for this event. Also possibly need Lando's Falcon or Episode 7 Falcon.
They'll probably tell us the actual requirements soon enough.
Pod racer is gonna be sweet in space fights lol
@CG_SBCrumb @CG_EVS_469 Thanks for such a fun puzzle! Can we take anything from the clues as to what specifically will be required?
Failing that, how about we get some of those wordsearch characters into the game *cough* Ki Adi Mundi *cough*
Such a disappointing finish to a spectacular journey
Bring it on !
Scoundrels almost ready
Retrospective - This was definitely harder than the last couple. I'd say the one for Dark Bastila was about a 1/5, Revan should have been about a 2/5, but the formatting made it more challenging. C3PO was about a 3/5, though it would have been a 5 if there wasn't a text log of the notes, and I still think I may have gotten insanely lucky in finding a way to quickly decode the solfa cipher. This one ratcheted it up to about a 5.5/5 though. There were a couple of really nice lateral steps in there, especially using the Light/Dark/Cantina characters to index into. If there was a weakness, I'm not sure the Bacon's cipher was clued enough - without the hint, I'm not sure how long that would have taken to arrive at, since I was definitely stuck.
(for perspective, I'm more familiar with the Australian puzzle hunts than the MIT/Microsoft ones, mostly because they were more of the online variety, so I know a fair bit of what to expect from them)
Journey before destination
Cheers. It was fun, it just got manic all of a sudden
The panic farming is gonna get manic soon too
Appreciate this. I was personally shooting for roughly a 3 or 4; my guess for the community's solve time was about six hours. I think there were a few things that knocked this up from there. First, as you noted, the lack of Bacon cluing really delayed you guys. A large part of that I think can be chalked up to the fact that a properly-encrypted Bacon cipher *doesn't look encrypted at all*, so y'all ratholed on it for quite a while.
Second, the sheer *weirdness* of Star Wars character names makes 'em harder to find in a grid without a list to work from - and made it easier to inadvertently include short ones I didn't recognize. (For the record, all the names I used were either used in-game or came from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_characters - all current canon.)
Third, the fact that it was encrypted as an interim step led to errors in the initial grid, which wreaked all sorts of havoc as you guys continued to solve, particularly without the availability of mid-solve checkpoints. (And I think one or two of the nodes might've changed between when I wrote the puzzle and today, too, which didn't help any!)
All that said - again, you guys did a great job persevering through all the above, and I had a blast watching and rooting y'all on from the sidelines.
- EVS-469