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Post by dmikester on Feb 22, 2019 13:19:00 GMT -5
So I haven't seen anyone post about this puzzle, which is connected to the diary. There are multiple steps to this, but I wanted to discuss the final step, so only read the spoilers if you've figured out what's really going on here and what the seating chart represents. Has anyone confidently figured out the answer to this? I'm baffled by what the problem is that's being posed. Narratively, you wouldn't be trying to checkmate anyone, and I'm not sure what you'd even be trying to do in two moves.
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Post by amanda on Feb 22, 2019 13:48:15 GMT -5
So I haven't seen anyone post about this puzzle, which is connected to the diary. There are multiple steps to this, but I wanted to discuss the final step, so only read the spoilers if you've figured out what's really going on here and what the seating chart represents. Has anyone confidently figured out the answer to this? I'm baffled by what the problem is that's being posed. Narratively, you wouldn't be trying to checkmate anyone, and I'm not sure what you'd even be trying to do in two moves. I'm having the exact same issue. It's driving me crazy Same spoiler warning: following spoiler is for final step, and contains spoilers for earlier steps. it's compounded by the ambiguity of what is meant by "the most powerful" piece. That and the movement language implies they are queens not kings. Which makes the "what to solve" even more intractable. Unless it is to find a way that no piece is threatened (everyone is unhappy)? But they aren't all threatened at the start.
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Post by stupidstupiddan on Feb 22, 2019 13:53:34 GMT -5
I haven't tried this one yet, but already did a bit of thinking about it. I feel that the point is to make sure no piece is threatened. And they consider the most powerful piece the king?
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Post by dmikester on Feb 22, 2019 13:54:00 GMT -5
So I haven't seen anyone post about this puzzle, which is connected to the diary. There are multiple steps to this, but I wanted to discuss the final step, so only read the spoilers if you've figured out what's really going on here and what the seating chart represents. Has anyone confidently figured out the answer to this? I'm baffled by what the problem is that's being posed. Narratively, you wouldn't be trying to checkmate anyone, and I'm not sure what you'd even be trying to do in two moves. I'm having the exact same issue. It's driving me crazy Same spoiler warning: following spoiler is for final step, and contains spoilers for earlier steps. it's compounded by the ambiguity of what is meant by "the most powerful" piece. That and the movement language implies they are queens not kings. Which makes the "what to solve" even more intractable. Unless it is to find a way that no piece is threatened (everyone is unhappy)? But they aren't all threatened at the start. Yes exactly! There's so much ambiguity. It's also unclear which side is black and which one is white; if that's not important, then the order of movement of the various pieces wouldn't seem to matter, which is bizarre. That knight on the very bottom of the grid far away from everyone else is also super strange. I also thought about it being symmetrical positions between the two sides or something, but not sure how that's possible with there being an unequal number of pieces. Super confusing.
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Post by wortelboer on Feb 22, 2019 13:56:56 GMT -5
I am also stuck. I thought maybe I could try having the white be queen and the black a king and trying to checkmate him....but so far that hasn't worked either.
I know there is a letter to Betram with a chess puzzle. I haven't had time to look at it. Is that a separate puzzle...or could that be a clue to solving this?
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Post by dmikester on Feb 22, 2019 14:02:11 GMT -5
I haven't tried this one yet, but already did a bit of thinking about it. I feel that the point is to make sure no piece is threatened. And they consider the most powerful piece the king? Yeah, that makes sense, though that's not a traditional chess puzzle format. Also, I think the most powerful pieces here are queens because of the description saying they can move almost anywhere; while a king can move in any direction, they don't have anywhere close to the freedom and power of a queen. I'll try it out later today.
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Post by distantsmoke on Feb 22, 2019 15:01:36 GMT -5
Yes, in chess the most powerful piece is the queen.
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Post by kite on Feb 26, 2019 13:07:43 GMT -5
That was fun right up till trying to figure out what the "problem" actually was... and when we got frustrated enough to check the hints page, it leaps clear over that to simply state the answer. It sounds like the comments above are correct, but by then we'd been spoiled. We really enjoyed finding the references that let us identify the ranks of the people involved, though.
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Post by dmikester on Feb 26, 2019 13:13:28 GMT -5
That was fun right up till trying to figure out what the "problem" actually was... and when we got frustrated enough to check the hints page, it leaps clear over that to simply state the answer. It sounds like the comments above are correct, but by then we'd been spoiled. We really enjoyed finding the references that let us identify the ranks of the people involved, though. I still haven't figured out what the "problem" is; I'm tempted to email George directly and ask him. I agree; this puzzle is especially frustrating because until the final step, the steps to figure out the setup were really great and memorable, but then it just grinds to a halt.
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Post by iorlas on Feb 27, 2019 4:55:56 GMT -5
I haven't tried this one yet, but already did a bit of thinking about it. I feel that the point is to make sure no piece is threatened. And they consider the most powerful piece the king? I do not think so Logical is that this is an ongoing game. Then the kings must be present and the task is to make our side happy, i.e to win. It is possible to deduce which way the pieces move to be able to mate in two.
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Xorin
Assistant
Posts: 98
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Post by Xorin on Mar 6, 2019 21:49:59 GMT -5
Anyone made any headway here? I'm assuming: Since it's a seating chart and we want people happy, we don't want to take any pieces. I'm also assuming two moves is two for each side. Edit: I have a solution that I don't like because I moved two of the same color pawns in different directions.
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Post by adelindanne on Mar 29, 2019 21:34:40 GMT -5
Anyone made any headway here? I'm assuming: Since it's a seating chart and we want people happy, we don't want to take any pieces. I'm also assuming two moves is two for each side. Edit: I have a solution that I don't like because I moved two of the same color pawns in different directions. I honestly gave up trying to make it all make sense and instead concentrated on just answering the question asked
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Post by phraca on Apr 21, 2019 19:17:40 GMT -5
Wow. This puzzle is bad on so many levels, likely broken. Has anyone properly solved it? Here are my thoughts: Spoilers ahead... As others have stated, figuring out it was a chess puzzle, and figuring out what the pieces were was fun. Here are the problems: The basics of chess would tell you there has to be a king on each side. Their descriptions would support this: "He," "most important," "big cheese," "the head," "top guy." But the hint page says they are queens. The hint page walks you through the steps to identify every piece, but as someone else said, once the pieces are identified, it jumps right to the answer, with no discussion on the actual moves. It is also ambiguous which way the board is pointing, whose turn it is, and what constitutes a "move." Is it a proper chess move, or just moving a piece somewhere else on the board. Is it a pair of moves (one for each color)? Even knowing the correct answer, I am unable to come up with two moves that eliminates all attacks. I need a minimum of three. Rant over, moving on...
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Post by karangela on Apr 22, 2019 19:48:52 GMT -5
My group has solved this puzzle. I’m happy to help with hints.
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Post by dmikester on Apr 22, 2019 20:27:22 GMT -5
My group has solved this puzzle. I’m happy to help with hints. I think what's really needed here is an explanation of the logic your group used to solve this (in spoilers of course). As far as I can tell, this is a broken puzzle (phraca highlighted its issues very well) so I'm curious as to how you solved it. This is also one of the puzzles that made me give up Wilson Wolfe, so if a clear explanation could be provided, it might inspire me to pick it up again.
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