Code puzzle thread +_+

[Thrasybulos]

part 7:

Spoiler :

The occuring 4 is very suspicious. Assuming a letter substitution code, the following words have the same structure as 4-letter word. Starting from there the code is easy to solve. My result:
"First solve the code.
Identify a 4-letter word.
Look everywhere.
Maybe it's very obvious."
The way I interpret this is that the code may be any 4-letter word on this card (everywhere), so maybe GIFT (very obvious?) or CARD.

Spoiler :

Yes, decoded it the same way.
But your interpretation isn't correct. It's much more straightforward than that (a classic).

 

[Kyriakos]

This is biased towards people who actually use English for Christmas stuff, though ^^
Anyway, I tried 5, no real progress yet, and I think 1 should be

Spoiler :

rime

.
I don't get the card design, though (final challenge). What do the different parts, where letters from previous answers can go, represent?

 

[Thrasybulos]

Anyway, I tried 5, no real progress yet

5 is tricky (when I did it, I only solved the first part, although that was enough to infer the word).
Maybe start with 4?

I think 1 should be

Spoiler :

rime

.

Spoiler :

3 correct and in the right spot, one incorrect.

I don't get the card design, though (final challenge). What do the different parts, where letters from previous answers can go, represent?

Well, figuring that out is part of the challenge.

 

[Kyriakos]

Spoiler :

3 correct and in the right spot, one incorrect.

Spoiler :

I must be blind - or rather dysanagnostic. I read 18 instead of 20

 

[Thrasybulos]

How is that possible?

I meant as in the earlier code puzzles: 3 letters correct, one incorrect. Not "letter number 3" or "letter number 1".

 

[Kyriakos]

Damn it, couldn't you have waited 2 seconds?
Dysanagnosia confirmed - not that I didn't know it.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Damn it, couldn't you have waited 2 seconds?

 

[Kyriakos]

At least now we know how to answer which three letters can be preceded by two different ones that differ by a value of 2, to make a word commonly associated with Christmas.

 

[Kyriakos]

Partial work on #5 (ie the two last cases)

Spoiler :

Maybe TR and EE or HA and ND can be inferred for the first two cases, but I can't be sure. We don't even have such here, but it seems to be popular in part of the Anglosphere (?)

 

[Arakhor]

One of those is right; the other isn't even close.

 

[Kyriakos]

I will retry, but this kind of puzzle really isn't my thing ^^

 

[Thrasybulos]

Told you, start with n°4: that one's in your alley.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'd be very surprised if 4 - or any other in this - involves polyonymic function graph analysis (which atm is in my alley).
And while I am responsible for straying away from code digits, I hope the next one won't be word-based...

 

[Kyriakos]

I am currently not looking at the puzzle, but is this still active?

 

[Thrasybulos]

I don't know whether anyone is still trying to solve it.

The solution can be found here: https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news/xmaschallenge2023

Spoiler :

For question 3, I had checked the names and found them to be in Yorkshire. Having spent a few months there long ago, I knew Yorkshire Pudding to be a thing, and so is Christmas Pudding.
But I had that one with a big question mark associated, and only the final puzzle confirmed it for me.

For question 6, the trick is that you're given too much information. White notes are 0s, black notes are 1s, and it's straight binary. The rest is either superfluous or misleading.

For the final puzzle, I've only understood today what "pattern" the solution is refering to: if you download the pdf with the full puzzle, there's an illustration on the side. The "patterns" can be found there (sorry for thus providing an incomplete puzzle: I hadn't used that to solve it, didn't know it was useful).
I solved it in a more brute-force fashion: I gathered each symbol refered to a question, and that the numbers had to be a letter in the corresponding solution.
Only two words have 6+ letters, so the 6s refer to either Stocking or Pudding.
Etc...

But I would suggest people have a go at least at question 4 before checking the answers, as solving it uses the exact same processes as those for the "code puzzles" posted early in the thread.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well I may have a look at 4, later today

 

[Kyriakos]

@Thrasybulos , is it

Spoiler :

3600, ie... Tree

?

Anyway, here is what I did...

Spoiler :

 

[Thrasybulos]

Correct.

You can check the "offical" answer I linked to: that's basically how I solved it too.

Spoiler :

For instance, for MI x MI = MAA
M has to be 0 or 1.
M = 0 doesn't work (no single digit squared results in a twin digit number).
12² = 144 is the only one with the proper "shape", so M = 1, I = 2, A = 4.
Etc...

 

[Kyriakos]

It was a nice puzzle. So (not asked for)

Spoiler :

D=9 and S=5? And O I suppose can be either 7 or 8.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Should be spoilered.
But yes.
Although I suppose the fact we can infer those values is actually a weakness in the puzzle, since I believe the idea was to show you don't need to solve everything to get at the solution.