Chain Puzzles

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Bubbler

00:47

OK, got a working puzzle, now to fill in the clues for the true answer...

1 hour later…

Bubbler

02:02

Q: Chain Puzzle: Tabletop Games #06 - So Sorry

This is the fifth Chain Puzzle in the Tabletop Games series, in which all puzzles are themed around board games, card games, tile games, and the like. The answer to this puzzle is a thematic word or phrase. The solver whose answer is awarded the green checkmark has first refusal on the opportunit...

grid-deduction

2 hours later…

oAlt

04:09

epic

2 hours later…

jafe

05:59

very nice @bubbler

Graylocke

hm - I'm not sure what to do next o.O

Mainly because I don't know how Sorry works as a game! <studies rule set>

Bubbler

06:18

Hint: there's a link to a specific section of the rules

Graylocke

Yeah - that's the bit I was reading :) Just trying to work out if my solution to the Hitori is correct based on whether it makes sense with the list.

Graylocke

06:30

... and if I'm reading this correctly, the third player is going to get beaten up by the other 3...

Graylocke

07:21

I have 92 open squares after my hitori solve which seems a lot. I also am not sure if I should have 6s and 9s. :/ I think I will just sit back and admire other people's amazing abilities. :P

Bubbler

At least the count is correct, but I guess I'll wait a day before giving away more hints :)

Maybe I can clarify this now though: 6 and 9 can be ignored after solving the Hitori.

jafe

clearly you have to have at least some 9s... there are spots with three successive 9s and they can't all be shaded

Graylocke

Oh right - I was wondering if that was implied by the "6s and 9s were omitted" in the ruleset... or if I was meant to replace them with Sorry! cards :D

jafe

oh and also three 6s

i can post my solution if you want to cross-check?

Graylocke

Yeah - I am reasonably confident that my solve of that part is correct - though I guess I shouldn't post half a solution anywhere.

jafe

07:29

(of the hitori, i have no idea what to do next)

Graylocke

Oh sure :) I don't know how to post it in chat. lol

jafe

Graylocke

I was trying playing the game with the card flips being the numbers in the grid.

uhm. yup that's my solution too :)

jafe

ah, with the actual board?

Graylocke

yeah - I tried it on the hitori board and got confused so I tried the actual game out too

Bubbler

07:30

The hitori is correct.

Graylocke

(also the game board is 16x16 and the hitori is 12x12 :/

how did you post that?

jafe

there's an "upload" button (on desktop, not on mobile i think)

Graylocke

oh! ....I am an idiot....

Just because I wanted to show how insane this has made me ... have a Sorry! board.

jafe

hah, nice

Bubbler

mumble I said "read the rows", not "read by rows"... mumble

^ is really the last hint for today.

Graylocke

07:42

"Sorry!" for making you give hints ;p

Stiv

Just woken up - @Bubbler nice-looking puzzle!

Bubbler

Thanks, and I hope you didn't already saw the half-spoilers here :P

Graylocke

I think I am going to leave this to greater minds. :P My process so far has been to quietly solve the tiniest portion of the puzzle, stop and wait for people to be awake, then come back to see what I should have understood! :D

Stiv

I get the feeling @Graylocke and @jafe have got this one - I'll try solve it myself later! :)

jafe

08:37

"It's up to you to find out how to apply the rules on the completed grid." - sounds like it should be the hitori board after all...

jafe

08:52

hmm, there's a four-letter board game LIFE whose letters are all in the 1-12 range numerically: 12, 9, 6, 5

although the hint says we can ignore the 6s and the 9s so i don't see how we'd get those numbers...

Stiv

Has anyone tried superimposing a Sorry board onto the Hitori and playing out a turn-based game using the numbers you land on? Could the number of turns to reach home be our letters? (Or am I overthinking this?!)

Other 4 letter games include LUDO and RISK. And higher letter values like in RISK might lend themselves nicely to this...

jafe

09:10

something like this?

so first player draws 8 and skips, second player draws a 2 and moves one from the start... but which one is the first player's start?

Retudin

09:49

Just an observation, that did not get me anywhere: If you omit the 12 sixes and nines, 80 numbers are left. This is exactly the number of squares on the sorry board.(20 save,60 unsave).

jafe

huh, interesting

4 hours later…

Stiv

14:18

Anybody made any more progress?

jafe

nope

Stiv

But we have confirmation at least that your Hitori solve is correct

Braegh

15:08

I wonder if the wording of "Every single rule counts" is significant - are we perhaps supposed to use the frequency of numbers in either the shaded or unshaded grid, ignoring 6s and 9s?

oAlt

15:49

It is required that no two answers in a Chain are the same, right?

jafe

not required i think, but i'd be surprised if it was the same as an earlier one

oAlt

Maybe in very special cases

E.g. chess could be used twice because more than one type of puzzle could be created from it

But then again, uniqueness feels better to me

jafe

16:05

i don't get the difference between "read the rows" vs "read by rows"

which apparently is important

could it be rows of the poem? although that'd be lines, right?

Retudin

I'm not a native speaker, but to me it suggests that each row is an individual result (to be used for something), you should not continue on the next row. Does that make sense?

Anthony Ingram-Westover

16:41

So something that just dawned on me (don't see it mentioned here yet) but there are 92 unshaded squares in the solved Hitori, and there are 92 playable squares on a sorry board

oh, wait, no 96 playable squares... damn

TheRubberDuck

16:54

Interestingly, every 12 is left unshaded. I don't expect that's on purpose, though?
ACTUALLY! there are 12 12s. One in each row/column. Hmmm...

Anthony Ingram-Westover

Counts of each number left:

1 - 12
2 - 2
3 - 8
4 - 8
5 - 8
7 - 5
8 - 12
10 - 5
11 - 8
12 - 12

So 1, 8, and 12 all have one in each row and each column

Seems purposeful that there are so many 12 and 8, but then I wonder why 5,5,2 instead of 4,4,4 for the remaining three?

Traditional sorry card deck has equal numbers of the cards, +1 extra 1

Anthony Ingram-Westover

17:16

Also, if I did my calculation right, starting at the top left 8 if you just assume there's an active pawn and follow all the rules (ignoring 6's, 9's, and shaded squares) you land exactly on the bottom right 3.

8 -> 1 -> 3 -> 12 -> 11 -> 8 -> 3 -> 12 -> 11 -> 11 -> 3

Anthony Ingram-Westover

17:46

Actually, the 2nd, 11th, and 12th rows are the only ones that do not perfectly land on the final square when you start with the first non-shaded square in their row

Alan Hoover

18:25

What if rather than trying to play Sorry on the resultant grid, the grid is a vigniere (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher) or autokey (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autokey_cipher) type cipher where the rules of Sorry tell us how to find the key for the next letter

jafe

i imagine there'd be a cipher tag in that case

Alan Hoover

good point, just a thought.

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