The Sphinx's Lair

12:34 AM

@bobble I think it's ok? Some of the interpretation are wrong

@AncientSwordRage then why are so many of them upvoted, even highly upvoted? That indicates a degree of correctness, usefulness, and general community acceptance.

@bobble *the

AncientSwordRage

@bobble because paradoxes are confusing (doubly so when they aren't actually paradoxes) and many people are wrong

bobble

2:55 AM

Calling for CVs here: puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/109964/69582

The questioner seems to be saying that anything goes since lateral-thinking. That's uh not how the site works

msh210

4:25 AM

In the C4, I wonder whether "castle with black on black" can clue BOOK. (Both B and K are used as abbreviations for black, the latter in "CMYK".)

oAlt

Maybe not, but "BOO? ?K?"

cuz TakingNotes seems to imply that it's not OO

Idk either

@oAlt not simply OO*

Sphinx

4:47 AM

-2

Q: One wanted peace while the other wanted war. What are the name of the 2 brothers?

There once were 2 brothers. These brothers were polar opposites. One wanted peace while the other wanted war. What are the name of the 2 brothers?

TakingNotes

7:22 AM

@bobble C4 Hint 2: The word "castle" isn't always a verb in chess terminology...

Please, I can't take that poker anymore...

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Does that mean that castle means rook?

That could mean the letter R

Jafe

9:37 AM

that seems likely

Jafe

10:47 AM

opinions on cryptic clue correctness wanted

if i have an &lit. clue with the structure "foo getting bar", with wordplay like FO(BAR)O and definition which is a "bar" that sometimes gets "foo"

is it better to word the clue with or without the hyphen?

option A: Foo getting bar!
option B: Foo-getting bar!

in option A the definition is arguably misspelt, and in option B a natural reading would have the wordplay elements in reverse order, as in it'd be BA(FOO)R or something

i'm leaning towards B with a slight suspicion of option C which is "it's not a very good clue structure because of this issue"

msh210

@Jafe So am I. B is better than A because the definition must be written exactly but the wordplay can have an extra hyphen.

(Which it does, in B.)

Jafe

yeah that makes sense, you can add extra punctuation but not remove any that would be required for the straight reading

Sphinx

11:17 AM

0

Q: Cipher puzzle, but i cant find the name of cipher

Im in a room with a puzzle, there is a sign that says "T=19" and i have to encode the word "ACED" but i cant find the name of cipher so im stuck, tried A1Z26 cipher and caesar cipher but neither gave me the right code, there is a keypad wich includes numbers: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 so it has to be n...

cipher

Jafe

@Sphinx given the above question, i'm wondering if this was an original question after all

and by wondering i mean "pretty sure it's not"

Stiv

11:37 AM

Good catch @Jafe - the subsequent question posted just now makes it clear this is from an existing game, so you're spot on with your analysis.

New question for reference

Jafe

i guess they didn't realise there's a wiki page with the correct answers to every room

Sphinx

0

Q: Room Puzzle, containing chess and ciphers. Can someone help?

I Have to force checkmate black king in two moves only its white turn. And the keypad Someone also asked this question here like a month ago, but the answer was wrong i tried alot of things but didnt work

cipher chess

Jafe

11:57 AM

also the "clever trick" of putting the board upside down in the previous puzzle seems to have been just a copying error as the screenshot shows the board the right side up in the actual game... how about that

Stiv

12:10 PM

Ha! (shakes head) Option a: Laugh, Option b: Cry, Decision: Unsure

Jafe

:P

oAlt

12:41 PM

@Jafe oof, it's the second (i think) time they didn't give proper attribution :/

Jafe

also the correct answer was found so i'm sure this one will be back with the next room they get stuck on

oAlt

oof

Jafe

decided against using the clue i asked about above... here it is

A bug-eating rook? (6)

oAlt

@Stiv (oh, it became a 10k link)

Stiv

@Jafe Nice

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

12:55 PM

@Stiv I don't get the wordplay though

Jafe

yup that's it :)

Stiv

R (rook) in COVID (bug), all making a 'bug-eating rook'!

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Oooooh, clever

oAlt

true

Stiv

(See the earlier exchange re Jafe's concerns)

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

12:57 PM

I know that it was an &lit, just the rest of the wordplay

Jafe

of course, the question mark in this case indicates definition-by-example as not all corvids are rooks

in the c4 if castle really is ROOK it would have to be the entire first word, no? can't see how rook (something) would mean racist attacks...

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Searching for "Bug eating rook" got me Corvid, I just didn't get Covid

Sid

@Jafe would castle -> Rook -> R be too indirect?

Jafe

i don't think so? castle is an existing term for the piece and even if you call it castle it's still abbreviated R in the notation, right?

Sid

I am stumped tbh. I have no idea of this C4. I kinda wanted a letter as a hint.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

1:01 PM

It is the only possibility though, as the latest clue said it wasn't a verb

Jafe

it's like king > rex > R which you see all the time

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Or Queen: Elizabeth: E

Jafe

or thousand > kilo > K

so if it's R we're looking for a term for racist attacks in the form Rxxx xxxxxS

oAlt

1:33 PM

@Sid same (to all statements) heh

Sphinx

2:56 PM

0

Q: A rhyming riddle: "Line them up in order..."

Line them up in order, And into teams as well. Each of them’s a character, Under someone’s spell. Some have foreign accents And put on different things: A cute hat, something grave, Tails and dots and rings. The leader might be biggest, Or they’re equal in one case. Some will often go alone And n...

riddle rhyme lateral-thinking poetry

Joe_AK

3:25 PM

Hi - I'm running some testing on 125 rhyming riddles that I've written. I'm trying to cut them down to 100 to go into a book. I need people to test them so that I can gauge the difficulty and identify any flaws.

I'm trying to control the test conditions carefully and make sure that the riddles get tested fairly evenly, so I have unique links for each person participating. If you email me at enigmata.riddles@gmail.com or send me a message on Reddit (Joe_AK), I'll send you a link which will give you 5 riddles to try.

Sphinx

4:57 PM

-1

Q: Open dice Problem

The following figure is folded to form a box. Choose from the alternatives (A), (B), (C) and (D) the boxes that is similar to the box formed. Source: YouTube Video In the above YouTube video while explaining the answer, he claimed that since 1,2,3,4 are clockwise in given question they will be...

mathematics geometry dice explanation

Sphinx

5:21 PM

0

Q: Largest pair of consecutive numbers, not greater than a million, that can be expressed with four fours

What is the largest pair of consecutive numbers, not greater than a million, each of which can be expressed using precisely four fours and an assortment of standard operators (including concatenation, exponentation, square root, factorial, gamma fuction, decimals, and periodical decimals)? In gen...

mathematics calculation-puzzle formation-of-numbers

Sphinx

7:23 PM

-2

Q: What is the solution to the matchstick puzzle as shown below?

I encountered this puzzle on a Chinese video platform and couldn't get a solution. I enumerated all swaps between numbers but could not make the equation hold.

calculation-puzzle matches

Sphinx

7:47 PM

0

Q: Chess Construction Challenge #6: One move royale

In chess, it is possible for a piece to have only one legal move. For example, in this positon the Black king can move only to h2. Given that: All 32 pieces are available for use. Construct: A position with as many pieces as possible have only one legal move. However, and this is the catch,...

chess optimization construction retrograde-analysis

bobble

9:14 PM

@Randal'Thor since you expressed support for closing old question, I'd appreciate help explaining to someone on meta that closing old questions is worth it, even if it sends a message to the person that their question is closed...

Their main gripe seems to not be that their question was closed, but that they were told about it and the message is unwelcoming

Not sure how to respond

Honestly don't have the emotional bandwidth to at the moment but also don't want to leave it hanging.

Beastly Gerbil

9:58 PM

@bobble not sure there's much point in removing the answer from the question, as it's not unanswerable anyways with edit history. The question will probably need to be closed either way I'd imagine

bobble

I removed it because it shouldn't be there. No matter what it shouldn't be there, if it is to be a question, so why not remove it?

Also, I made my edit and comment before seeing yours, for context

Beastly Gerbil

I guess so, and I also forgot not everyone has access to edit history, so worth removing

Oddly enough I don't think its actually closeable

bobble

Not everyone has access to edit history?

I read edit history as an anonymous user, for other sites, all the time

Beastly Gerbil

I may be getting my privileges mixed up in that case

bobble

Are you thinking about votes? Vote breakdowns can be seen by 1k+ users, or those with a userscript

Sphinx

10:13 PM

-2

Q: A Hot n Cold Riddle

What can keep heating up and then all of a sudden freeze? Source

riddle word

Beastly Gerbil

@bobble thats probably what I was thinking of

Don't think theres anything that can really be done with that ^^ question other than downvote tbh. Theres nothing about it that can warrant a close vote. I've flagged as low quality though

TakingNotes

@Sid Well the problem with doing that is that sometimes there are numbers involved as well...

(unofficial c4 hint??)

Sphinx

11:02 PM

0

Q: How do I solve a 1 to 9 puzzle?

I need help to complete this 1 to 9 puzzle. I have no experience with puzzles like this, and I really need help. I am supposed to complete a 1 to 9 puzzle, whereas if it was completed all the numbers in each row, column and diagonal would equal the sum connected. Please help, is there some techni...

mathematics

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