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Room 34

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OK so now I have 14 letters, but they're not working in original order. Is it another anagram? :ponder:

No anagram with the results this time... they should work in the order they appear in the puzzle.

955451[/snapback]

 

I'm a bit confused by this answer. Do you mean the letters should work in order and that's the answer? If that's the case, I've made a mistake somewhere because that wasn't working for me. I assumed there was still more to the puzzle.

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OK so now I have 14 letters, but they're not working in original order. Is it another anagram? :ponder:

No anagram with the results this time... they should work in the order they appear in the puzzle.

955451[/snapback]

 

I'm a bit confused by this answer. Do you mean the letters should work in order and that's the answer? If that's the case, I've made a mistake somewhere because that wasn't working for me. I assumed there was still more to the puzzle.

959845[/snapback]

Same problem I'm having. I assume that we missed another multiple-match item, for which Jeffy happened to find the correct match.

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The letters do work in the original order, from first to last, of the solved anagrams. And several of them have mutiple possible answers. I'm not a crytogram guy. Crytopgrams suck to me, but using a database of game names that can be sorted by the number of characters in the title, then looking for repeating letter patterns worked for me. And the ones that have the last letter given really help to eliminate typically all but two or three games. Also, Room didn't seem to get too abstract with the games, so there's nothing like Brazilian titles involved.

 

ò¿ó   smiling_to_atariage.gif

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The letters do work in the original order, from first to last, of the solved anagrams.  And several of them have mutiple possible answers.  I'm not a crytogram guy.  Crytopgrams suck to me, but using a database of game names that can be sorted by the number of characters in the title, then looking for repeating letter patterns worked for me.  And the ones that have the last letter given really help to eliminate typically all but two or three games.  Also, Room didn't seem to get too abstract with the games, so there's nothing like Brazilian titles involved.

I've solved all the cryptograms, but the letters I have aren't working for me. I found multiple solutions for 3 of them, but Room gave us the correct answers for those. As A.J. said, I suppose there must be another cryptogram with multiple solutions, but the odds of two or more games fitting the specific construction of one of the remaining cryptograms seems astronomical.

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Well we're all in this together now and it's just for fun, so here's what I know (or some of it)...

 

Activision

Atari

Atari

Activision

Panda

Atari

Atari

US Games

Zellers

P - Nothing else needed

Atari

Atari

Activision

Atari

 

ò¿ó   smiling_to_intellivision.gif

That's what I've got... except Panda? I've got XYPE there. However, I picked the closest Panda candidate and it worked even though it was a letter short.

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Well good luck because you guys will have a whole weekend. My Excel spreadsheet is at work. :sad:

 

Just working from memory, I believe that one is Exocet. Since I've also left all of my solutions in the spreadsheet and I've not worked on this at home at all, I can't get to the contest page to see the anagrams. That was the one that had the first letter and the next-to-the-last letter as the same, right? :?

 

Well, the daughter and I are heading back to W<3K. That's good stuff. :cool:

 

ò¿ó   smiling_to_games-2.gif

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Well good luck because you guys will have a whole weekend.  My Excel spreadsheet is at work:sad:

 

Just working from memory, I believe that one is Exocet.  Since I've also left all of my solutions in the spreadsheet and I've not worked on this at home at all, I can't get to the contest page to see the anagrams.  That was the one that had the first letter and the next-to-the-last letter as the same, right?  :?

 

Well, the daughter and I are heading back to W<3K.  That's good stuff.  :cool:

 

ò¿ó   smiling_to_games-2.gif

Yes, that's the one; only there are seven letters in the anagram not six. There is XYPE game that is a better fit. Thanks for the hint. I would have been stuck on that one for a long time without it.

 

BTW, I won't get anytime to work on the finale this weekend either.

Edited by Christophero Sly
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Well good luck because you guys will have a whole weekend.  My Excel spreadsheet is at work:sad:

 

Just working from memory, I believe that one is Exocet.  Since I've also left all of my solutions in the spreadsheet and I've not worked on this at home at all, I can't get to the contest page to see the anagrams.  That was the one that had the first letter and the next-to-the-last letter as the same, right?  :?

 

Well, the daughter and I are heading back to W<3K.  That's good stuff.  :cool:

Yes, that's the one; only there are seven letters in the anagram not six. There is XYPE game that is a better fit. Thanks for the hint. I would have been stuck on that one for a long time without it.

 

BTW, I won't get anytime to work on the finale this weekend either.

960499[/snapback]

@ both: Change "anagram" above to "cryptogram" - there's a big difference!

 

@ Jeffy: Thanks for the fix, got: Oystron = out, Exocet = in

 

Now I'm at the finale, and without actually attempting to divine what instructions Scott is trying to send us via telepathy, I've tried every 13-letter Atari 2600 game I could manually find in the AA database (including several imaginative interpretations) without success. So I believe the solution is encrypted or anagrammed somehow, and not the actual game name in plain text. Or it's less than 13 letters, with additional space in the answer field as a way of "throwing us a curveball".

 

Thinking of things to do with the first 8 solutions, word search seems to be out since there are 129 letters, which factors as 3 x 43 - a bit too narrow a rectangle to be effective. OTOH, I seem to recall there was a single "null" in the first word search, so padding this one to 130 letters would make it either 10 x 13, or 13 x 10 - much more reasonable.

 

Ignoring that possibility for now, perhaps eliminating "real" words might be a better way to start, but should that include 1- and 2-letter words? There are an awful lot of "a"s in the first 8 solutions.

 

Picture stripes seems to be out. ;)

 

Not sure about Atari/Sears swaps, CX numbers, or maker names; something along those lines might be an intermediate step(s) somewhere along the line.

 

Running out of ideas now...

Edited by A.J. Franzman
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Hmmm... looks like I goofed.  Make that ASDGAH.

:ponder::dunce:

Well, welcome to the club. :P Just when I thought things couldn't get any more confusing, they did. I've looked at the contest page and my Excel document and I have no idea how I picked 'Exocet' for that slot. The cryptogram has 7 letters, but I used a 6 letter word that worked. Maybe dumb luck, but...

 

There are no games that start with "E" and have 7 letters, much less that have the first and next-to-last letter as the same. :?

 

And as far as the grand finales, it's tough. Not sure how to get to where I'm supposed to be. :sad:

 

ò¿ó   smiling_to_games-2.gif

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Just submitted my answers, but I don't know if I deserve the prize, since I totally guessed on the last one. Interestingly enough, it was my first guess!  :D

 

Now to figure out how I was supposed to do it...

961525[/snapback]

You did? I didn't get any email from you.

 

EDIT:

 

I checked the logs in my ISP's spam filter, and it turns out I DID get an email from you.

 

Keir's message did not include the UNSCRAMBLED answers to the first 8 puzzles, so the contest is still on. But hurry!

Edited by Room 34
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THE CONTEST IS OVER... WE HAVE A WINNER!

 

Keir has correctly solved the puzzle and provided all of the unscrambled answers. I think he might have taken a shortcut at the end since he used the brute force method to arrive at the final solution, but since my requirement was simply to provide the unscrambled answers to each step plus the final answer, his submitted solutions do qualify.

 

Here are the unscrambled solutions to each of the parts:

 

1. Basic Programming Four

2. Stellar Track Six Eight Eleven

3. Street Racer Three Five

4. Outlaw Seven

5. Star Ship Ten

6. Demons to Diamonds Two

7. Defender Nine

8. Pele's Soccer One

 

Each game represents a letter in the solution, and the numbers represent its position. So we have...

 

Pele's Soccer

Demons to Diamonds

Street Racer

Basic Programming

Street Racer

Stellar Track

Outlaw

Stellar Track

Defender

Star Ship

Stellar Track

 

Now what? Well, you could pretend each game is a "letter" and decipher the cryptogram from here, but what I INTENDED was this...

 

Identify the last 2 digits of the CX number of each game. That gives us:

 

16 15 12 20 12 19 5 19 9 3 19

 

These represent the corresponding letters of the alphabet. That gives us:

 

POLTLSESICS

 

This is a cryptogram which deciphers to:

 

YARSREVENGE

 

There's your answer, Fish Bulb. ;)

 

The input box on the page was designed to accept the name of the game in its full form, Yars' Revenge, hence 13 characters. But I also designed it to be lenient regarding capitalization, the space, and potential misplacement of the apostrophe. So anything that boils down to yarsrevenge is acceptable.

 

Keir is the lucky winner of a $20 credit in the AtariAge store. The rest of you are winners of my unending appreciation for participating! :P

Edited by Room 34
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I didn't even notice that I had put the apostrophe in the wrong place. :lol: Good job making the last one so accomodating!

 

Also, thanks for a fun and challenging contest. You obviously put a lot of thought into it, even if there were some mistakes near the end.

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