@dcfyj nope, I've not had any further insights

Even with my edits?

Well, Steganography was sort of assumed already, and I haven't found anything useful with that, nor have I found anything that seems more likely to be anagrammed than anything else

What part is eluding you?

(other than the answer obviously)

I mean, you see where I am in my partial answer, I've deciphered the encoded message, and mapped the letters back to keys on the console, but nothing I've tried from there has gotten me anywhere that feels useful

The decoded message has what you need

I would give you a clue, but that would pretty much give away the answer :(

"The first brown fox jumps over the hazy dog"

it's become a very strange sentence, I don't know what exactly a hazy dog is

It sort of implies that the second brown fox took a different path, or was caught by said dog, but I don't think that's where you're going

As far as I know there is nothing called a "hazy dog"

it could maybe be kinda cryptic-crossword-y (hazy dog = anagram of "dog", first brown fox = bf or bfox or something)

the changed letters 'firsth' can be anagrammed to 'firths' but that's a pretty obscure word that doesn't have much meaning

though that's not exactly super-convincing

no one has yet found anything using the steganography and anagram tags

presumably those inscriptions have useful info in them

maybe indicating some path through console keys or something

Before you go much further down that path, I chose the 3 puzzle types on the walls fairly randomly

@Sconibulus This should be 'jumped' rather than 'jumps'

'Dgo' an anagram of dog could in theory be the bottom three letters of the pad

and the five letters immediately above that include b and n, but there's nowhere near enough information to fill in anything else from that

Aside from the obvious typing requirements there's no keyboard in this puzzle

I'm not quite sure what that means

but I've been staring at this off and on for days and haven't gotten anywhere

Basically you're thinking the wrong way, the decoded sentence has nothing to do with the keyboard.

@Sconibulus I know, I'm trying to think of a way to clue it without just giving it away

What do you currently think the instructions are?

I don't really know

I haven't parsed an instruction set that seems plausible out of the text

Ok, most of the decoded sentence is the way it is so that it could be easily decoded.

a.k.a. most of it isn't needed

right, one of the first things I tried was only playing with the changed stuff, the most obvious interpretation is 'first h'

That's mostly on the right track

but the first h's in the inscriptions were something like letters 46, 20, and 19, in words 11, 4, and 4 (don't exactly remember) which didn't seem to mean anything

Those instructions are 50% correct

(technically more than that though)

You'll need two words

Does that give you more ideas?

first 'hazy dog'->god? But that's kind of unknowable

That's 3 words, you only need 2

@Sconibulus that's OK, god is notoriously unknowable :-)

Too true

God is pretty much enigmatic.

Well, actually, First God pretty much has to be Yahweh, right? Thou shalt have no other gods before me (in the timeline)

Quite true, but that has nothing to do with this puzzle haha

ah, but people had other gods well before He Who Must Not Be Named (out loud) was worshipped.

@Sid clearly God is also a [riddle], and according to atheists he is also a [cipher].

Oh no, I come in and we're talking about religion...

"God works in mysterious ways"

... actually "in writing" is exactly backwards, sorry

gnitirw ni?

I mean, Hydrogen was almost certainly the first element to exist, but it probably wasn't the first one to be discovered

(earlier comment amended to be slightly more accurate)

@BeastlyGerbil blame dcfyj :)

Not my fault you're trying to use an anagramed dog

@Sconibulus I think it's pretty clear that YHWMNBN either (1) doesn't exist, in which case the only relevant comparison is to the "discovery" dates of other deities, or else (2) is the only one to exist, as claimed pretty much unanimously by his worshippers, in which case "first" is true but kinda misleading :-)

That commandment implies pretty strongly that other gods exist

they just can't be placed before him

In fairness, it probably doesn't actually mean chronologically

I think it just means don't worship other things as though they are deities

@LukasRotter I was expecting a Blues Brothers gif or something...

well, you have to distinguish between (1) actual deities, if any there be, and (2) believed-in ideas of deities. The commandment in question says "don't worship any other #2 ahead of me" and that makes reasonable sense even if there are no other #1. Or, for that matter, if there are no #1 at all; I claim atheists are keeping that commandment perfectly.

(I don't claim that very seriously, though.)

Anyhow, back to puzzles :P

yeah, good idea

Much better idea

In conclusion: Every rational person knows that the flying spaghetti monster is the only true deity.

I don't mind discussing that particular subject, but to some it's offensive

For the sake of the meta I really want my piece solved, but I'm not sure how much more I can say without giving it completely away...

of course maybe we can do the metapuzzle first and then reverse-engineer the vowels of your puzzle and perhaps everything will become obvious then. (Vowels or embedded IVXLCDM or whatever it turns out to be; I think vowels are distinctly more likely at present.)

With only the vowels it could be rather difficult to reverse engineer

Although, whoever's doing the engineering might notice a key feature and do it very quickly :P

At some points the diagram in the metapuzzle is completely ambiguous about what "wires" run where.

I believe GPR made a color coded graph of it though, and Deusovi didn't seem to argue it's accuracy

@dcfyj I don't think that is offensive. What is offensive is when a few people begin to talk about what "God" wants from his "children" or something like that.

@Sid How is that offensive? (example, please?)

So much for going back to puzzles lol

@Sid It does. The correct answer should be obvious (in a "damn, why didn't I think of that earlier" way and possibly a "damn you Rand, you sneaky bugger" way) once you see it. Perhaps I should add another hint ...

@PuzzlingMeta On the one hand, I want to know all the things; on the other, I don't know if I approve of the practice of trying things in the court of public opinion

@LukasRotter well, what gives a few people the right to claim what God wants? Also, how do they even know what God wants? It insults the intelligence of people. At least, that's what I feel

@Sconibulus Let me know if you want any more help on my puzzle

@Sid Well, it's just what they believe. As long as they don't force/hurt/make religious laws/take rights away/etc. I personally don't care (but I can see your point).

@dcfyj I'm sure I'm not the only one working it, but I still feel stuck

I'm sure you're just overthinking it, This part was supposed to be easy and straight forward :(

@dcfyj I think I might have something, but not sure. Are the first six emoticons in the solution all 2-character ones?

If you write it all in the same case yes

really? My two-character letter list is 'ifdmxwbgo'

Although, come to think of it, you don't have the other case so, I guess it doesn't matter haha

the only thing from that that steps out is 'digimon'

lol

You're missing letters from that list

oops, yeah, missing j

more than that

I think there are also 5 we don't know

Okay, gonna post an answer, then.

@Sconibulus You were also missing n

@GentlePurpleRain ok, I'll see if it's right ^^

I have a feeling @Sconibulus is going to be hitting him/herself on the head

Isn't 'n' :-v?

oh, wait, no, I just messed up in my mapping back to the pad

yes and no, not sure how you even noticed that considering the cipher has :v

:-V is N

Finally solved at last

@dcfyj Wow, quick accept!

No upvote, though... :(

Poor @Sconibulus has been insanely close to solving this for a week

Was just missing the steganography bit, I guess.

I prefer to check correct answers and upvote good ones

So my answer isn't good? :P

Originally I didn't have the anagram or steganography tags

good ones that aren't correct :P

Gotcha. That would have made it more difficult.

Although I think steganography was pretty obvious even without the tag.

I'm surprised the metapuzzle lasted this long, to be honest. I expected you all to get it several days ago at the latest.

@Deusovi Working on a possible solution.

Hmm, I did do a bunch of stuff to the first letters of each sentence individually, didn't think to combine the inscriptions

@GentlePurpleRain You used a capital N in your enciphered answer?

also, this doesn't tell me the most important thing...

Why is the dog hazy!

hazy was to clue the anagram part

He used my pad, which screws up the N translation because I'm a dumdum

ah ok

I can complete your pad if you like, just not right this second

(or correct however you want to look at it)

@dcfyj Whoops. Yeah. I was using @Sconibulus's pad.

wiNdow shoppiNg :P

:-S :/ :V :D 8) :S o_O :'( 8) |:o |:o :/ :V :(

With the capitals and everything ^^

You forgot to fix the second "n" haha

@dcfyj Edit history disagrees. (Got in under the time limit, so it merged the edits.)

nice

I guess someone doesn't like my puzzle, just got a dv :(

I'm still surprised this puzzle lasted a week

Well @Deusovi, now people have all the pieces they need to solve yours

I've gotten something that looks like it might be valid symbols, that might have meaning to someone, although not to me (on the metapuzzle)

@deusovi Am I entirely off base to have something involving an emoticon and old video game sounds?

@Sconibulus The former, yes. The latter is not entirely off base.

I threw my logic up, if that's right then I feel very odd :)

So my cipher, by pure chance, is directly related to the meta? hahaha

@Sconibulus: Only your first word is wrong.

Hmm, so I probably misinterpreted Ground

...Wait, did I make an arithmetic error? D:

Nah, you got that.

Nope, diagram error. Shit.

Far left wire of layer 2 is supposed to be connected to gate D, not A.

Time to make a new image?

My testsolver missed that apparently. >:/

Yeah, I'll fix it.

On mobile right now, though - give me a few minutes.

So F is supposed to be D and ground?

I think that would get us VIVID MIDI MIX?

Oh, well I'm sure I would have had it days ago if the diagram was correct! :P

I first read that as Veni Vidi Vici haha

@Sconibulus Yep, that's it! (Fixed the diagram and edited your post - hope you don't mind)

So, thoughts? It was fairly simple because I wasn't sure how many people were going to sign up.

I believe his post is deleted so that doesn't really mean much lol

Ah I guess it got undeleted

@dcfyj ...You mean the one I just accepted?

Ah, alright.

I don't think I deleted it?

I don't think I would have figured the permutation thing out on my own

I swear it disapeared

Caching?

It was there, I reloaded the page and it was gone...

Yeah, I see that happen sometimes on Stack Exchange, I think it's caching's fault

shouldiblamecaching.com

Right I'm stuck. I've got to the final stage - descrambling the letters 'ldhdicdbsuerac' but can't make any sense out of it. Any help?

Hmm, Chess goes into Overtime

Heres what I know: Related to either Harry Potter, Divergent, Life of Fred, Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. Its a short word, a medium word and a long word

the Hoobit? :P

Thats a better name but typo :P

DHC SCUBA Riddle

I know that the words don't contain 'riddle' or 'clues'

So it's definitely not I am Voldemort :P

Oh yeah and the words aren't 'I' either..

DDL IRED BACCHUS

BTW @Randal'Thor, if you don't post the evidence on meta, please also mail it to me ([email protected])

:P

Christmasgoose?

Its Lukas Rotter's real name!

damn it, I got exposed

We've been talking to poultry this whole time?

I actually read it at first as chris tmasgoos. Thats a valid name :P

@BeastlyGerbil Short for Chris Thomas Goose? or CTG? :P

:P

Ah crud, I go to sleep, and when I wake up, the metapuzzle is solved -.-

Nice work @Sconibulus!

I think GPR solving the last piece helped tremendously towards that solve

Thanks! And that it did, before that brought me to 1000 and 9, I was convinced the 500 I got from B and C was very wrong

@BeastlyGerbil It's on this list, but the words are in a different order.

What list?

I linked it.

Oh dear didn't see the link...

Heading to bed. Have it solved by morning, please :P

Mayhaps you're colorblind and didn't know it?

Ok so I'll just search through that 644. See you sometime... Maybe next christmas...

lol

Hagrid cuddled his crab

Too many i's :P

Cuddled His Crib

I lost patience already.... :P

I'm probably hurt by only having read Rowling and Tolkien from that list

I am pretty sure its one of those

Because I originally listed specific books and @Mithrandir said I should do series so its probably one of those

Isn't Divergent a series as well?

But he said I should expand on specific books, and those were the only specific books

@Sconibulus Yeah, but I've actually never read it...

So not that

JK

@Mithrandir we will know it when we see it won't we?

R

Cursed Child: Bad

Yeah I found that too

Harry Potter

Tryit :P

(never read it, but I think that's the prevailing opinion)

I gave it 1.5 out of 10.

What divergent?

No, CC

Whatever, you found the answer.

Good job.

Wait Cursed child is the answer?

...

I saw Bad Cursed Child a while back and thought that might be the answer, but didn't say because you said the words were in a different order and that seemed the correct order to me. Damn.

Okay

@Mithrandir I'll complete my answer and then tidy it up with the correct images

Put bad at the end :P

@BeastlyGerbil God

@Mithrandir there should be an equals sign after BeastlyGerbil in your last comment ;)

I'll have to finish tomorow

Missed that.

It wasn't tagged with the 4 C's.

Possible solution for @GarethMcCaughan's cryptic clue (seems a bit of a stretch): Casual = TEMP, actor = TATO, engaged with IN = TEMPTATION.

Can the "divider" of a cryptic clue be at an arbitrary point or does it have to be between two words? E.g. would "Casual act|or engaged in seduction" be valid? Not sure if the same applies in English, but "the act" in German can be a synonym of coitus. A more "casual" form of it might be temptation.

@GarethMcCaughan also Casual = TEMP, actor = TATI, engaged = ON, but Deusovi mentioned that "in" wasn't a valid connector, so that's probably not it.

@LukasRotter This sounds legal, but probably not the case here

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. (Near enough.) Volatility has it basically right, except that ON is clued by "engaged in" rather than just "engaged". And yes, "casual" = "temp" as an adjective rather than a noun.

I hadn't expected this to be anywhere near as hard as it was; I'm guessing Jacques Tati is less well known than I thought.

Incidentally, I've seen "in" used to link definition and wordplay quite often, but I consider it an unsatisfactory way to do it.

So, @Volatility, time for you to set the next one.

@LukasRotter Breaking in mid-word like that would be distinctly naughty. I would expect a clue that did that to have a "!" or "?" at the end as a little indication that there was something a bit nonstandard going on, and even then I'd regard it as pretty dicey.

Oh, was considering "engaged in" = ON, but wasn't entirely sure about it

Seems obviously reasonable to me. "What have they got you doing at work these days?" "Oh, I'm on customer support."

I suppose you could argue that that's more "assigned to" than "engaged in".

Finally! :P And yeah, I didn't even know who Tati was. But that's probably because A) I'm young, B) I hardly watch movies and C) thought "engaged in" is ION, therefore not googling TATI.

OED, "on (prep.)", sense 12a: With nouns of action (especially nouns derived from or closely related to verbs) or state, indicating the activity, state, or condition of a person or thing; = upon prep. 10. Also (with nouns denoting a subject of study, etc.), indicating the sphere of activity of a person.

but maybe it's a little bit of a stretch, in which case I do apologize.

Alright, this is probably too easy, but:

CCCC: Commander's generation: in short, real messed up. (7)

(n)?

And well done on finally beating Gareth. I can sleep again. ;)

whoops, forgot that, edited

GENERAL (def: Commander, GEN (short generation) ERAL (real anagram))

yeah, thought so

Ok, here's one I wrote the other day, it's possibly a bit rule-bending, because I was playing around with structural ideas... (though not rule breaking I think, and probably very easy):

CCCC: Redouble (-double) reaches (-ache's) innermost (-most) horoscopy (-copy) (4)

Methinks it's tail, but I'm terrible at cryptic clues...

Not tail