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Post by dmikester on Apr 25, 2018 10:53:53 GMT -5
For (iv) Put the list in numerical order.... then notice that each group of three (plus one group of two) are connected... ...and assign each group to one room. You are looking for the book from (iii), which room is it in? Thank you. As usual, I was WAY overthinking this. Now feeling pretty confident moving forward, though that's often a short-lived feeling with CPP!
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Post by squirrel on Apr 25, 2018 11:31:21 GMT -5
Jack's been particularly fiendish and clever this month.
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Post by Geodus on Apr 30, 2018 2:47:14 GMT -5
I'm finally done with year one and hoping to catch on on year two. I could use a nudge to get started on parts (i) and (ii) for March 2018? I have some interesting words from (i), but I'm not sure what to do with them or if they help solve (ii).
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Post by craigrj on Apr 30, 2018 3:03:34 GMT -5
Sending you a PM...
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Post by dmikester on Apr 30, 2018 10:26:59 GMT -5
So I have to confess, I've lost the enjoyment and interest that I typically have with CPP with this installment. I have no complaints about challenge per se, but this one has questionable elements (the word used to distinguish between the wolves is extremely iffy for example), and I'm finding translating vi to be not fun at all but instead dreadfully tedious due to how many letters are missing from each section. I've translated three of the eight but it's felt like pulling teeth. I kept trying to do it this weekend and would just get annoyed and walk away to do other things, and I have very little desire to keep working on it. I obviously will since I'm committed to CPP (heck, I'm named on the envelope as a Patron), but I'm worried that Jack is struggling to come up with new ideas and is making things needlessly tedious to increase the solve time and improve the "value" of the product. This is now I think the third or fourth time we've had to do these translation puzzles, and this one is by far my least favorite of the bunch.
If a kind soul would like to PM me regarding translating vi (especially regarding whether or not you actually need to translate all of them to move forward to vii), I would appreciate it. Note that I've translated the main one highlighted by iv and v, so I definitely have a basic sense of what needs to be done to get the answer to vii.
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Post by craigrj on Apr 30, 2018 13:14:31 GMT -5
So I have to confess, I've lost the enjoyment and interest that I typically have with CPP with this installment. I have no complaints about challenge per se, but this one has questionable elements (the word used to distinguish between the wolves is extremely iffy for example), and I'm finding translating vi to be not fun at all but instead dreadfully tedious due to how many letters are missing from each section. I've translated three of the eight but it's felt like pulling teeth. I kept trying to do it this weekend and would just get annoyed and walk away to do other things, and I have very little desire to keep working on it. I obviously will since I'm committed to CPP (heck, I'm named on the envelope as a Patron), but I'm worried that Jack is struggling to come up with new ideas and is making things needlessly tedious to increase the solve time and improve the "value" of the product. This is now I think the third or fourth time we've had to do these translation puzzles, and this one is by far my least favorite of the bunch. If a kind soul would like to PM me regarding translating vi (especially regarding whether or not you actually need to translate all of them to move forward to vii), I would appreciate it. Note that I've translated the main one highlighted by iv and v, so I definitely have a basic sense of what needs to be done to get the answer to vii. PM sent
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Post by craigrj on Apr 30, 2018 13:17:08 GMT -5
The Wolfy bit annoyed me too, but au contraire on the ciphers, I actually enjoyed doing them all precisely because each one had a different cipher. I enjoyed the challenge that each one only really had a small set of words to work with beyond the initial one we were given, but I felt all of them were manageable. The earlier month which had a single cipher but loads of text I didn't like as much so I guess each to their own on this one!
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Post by squirrel on Apr 30, 2018 19:27:09 GMT -5
TBH, I’m pretty impressed that it can still take weeks for us to work through the puzzles. Most of the other monthly puzzle deliveries (or at least the ones I get) can be solved in a few hours. CPP generally confounds me for several days before I figure out how to start.
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Post by dmikester on Apr 30, 2018 21:40:28 GMT -5
All right, I was FINALLY able to solve this tonight. I actually found the final gimmick pretty neat, but overall too many questionable things in this one to me. And yeah, I don't know why I found vi so frustrating; I love the idea of each one having its own cipher, but there was something about the number of missing letters that made it feel tedious as opposed to challenging or interesting. Oh well, there's always next month.
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Post by dmikester on May 1, 2018 11:49:10 GMT -5
So I wrote Jack last night submitting my (thankfully correct) answer for this, and gave him extensive feedback. He wrote back in kind and his response was interesting enough that I thought it worthy of posting here. I'm going to put it behind a spoiler tag because there's one line in it that's a spoiler for an aspect of one of the puzzles (and actually clarifies something that I still find sketchy but at least now more understandable): Hey Michael,
Thanks for the feedback and sorry to hear this issue wasn’t as enjoyable as previous ones. I had it in my head that this would be a mid-difficulty issue but so far the feedback I’ve received suggests otherwise.
I think in part this is because I tried to cram so much in - I put a lot of pressure on myself to make the March issue good because it was the first of a new year and I knew I was keeping people waiting. Perhaps this meant I overworked it or complicated things unnecessarily.
So far I’ve had feedback of just about every kind on this issue - from gleeful relief at having finally made it to the end, to frustration to simple answer submissions from ambivalent players! It’s one of the more interesting parts of the project seeing the different ways each new issue goes down with different people.
Anyway, I think it would be a slightly redundant exercise explaining my puzzle-design decisions (except to briefly clear up that “spacer wolf” means the wolf at space R!) because whatever the reasons may be for their design aesthetically, functionally or narratively, the intention underpinning all of them is that they’re engaging and fun. So sorry it missed the mark for you this time around.
Here’s hoping the next issue won’t disappoint!
-Jack
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Post by Geodus on May 1, 2018 14:30:04 GMT -5
While I was stupidly stuck on part (ii), it wasn't because of the SPACE R WOLF -- I actually got this part What I completely failed to understand was that the drawers were the square bits with the finger hole at the top, and the plaques weren't part of the drawers.
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Post by dmikester on May 1, 2018 14:48:02 GMT -5
While I was stupidly stuck on part (ii), it wasn't because of the SPACE R WOLF -- I actually got this part What I completely failed to understand was that the drawers were the square bits with the finger hole at the top, and the plaques weren't part of the drawers. I did exactly the same thing, and it of course completely messes up the puzzle. I noted that in my feedback to Jack, as while in retrospect it's a bit silly to do that given what the picture is depicting (and what the page is asking you to do), when solving and trying to figure out the logic it's very understandable to take that approach.
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Post by Geodus on May 1, 2018 15:47:37 GMT -5
Do I need to decipher more than one of the riddles on (vi) to solve (vii)? I have the one solved that I think I need, but it seems like it might be referencing another riddle.
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Post by squirrel on May 1, 2018 15:53:09 GMT -5
Do I need to decipher more than one of the riddles on (vi) to solve (vii)? I have the one solved that I think I need, but it seems like it might be referencing another riddle. Nope - You only need the one
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Post by Geodus on May 1, 2018 23:11:10 GMT -5
Just for fun, I decided to translate everything in part (vi). I'm having some trouble with Bravery and Arrows. Would someone be willing to check all my translations? Or at least confirm that they aren't all translatable?
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