Togetherness

[hypervalent_iodine]

Thought I might share another favorite from last year's CiSRA puzzle comp. This one is a little easier than the last one I posted here a while back, so I expect some answers (imatfaal and Phi, I'm looking at you both).

 

The puzzle is called 'Togetherness'.

 

 

• Colloquially, non-main characters of an MMORPG player
• Silver
• Backside in Britain
• Strait separating Russia and Alaska
• Near; beside; through the means of
• Hardened skin, such as found on the soles of the habitually shoeless
• Metal currency
• Unchanging
• A table for reading or writing on
• Ran away from danger
• A rood screen, or Australian jelly-like confection
• Misplace something, or come last in a competition
• Administer, run, or handle something
• Female horse
• Defeating someone at chess
• Relating to the mind
• Inert gas used in lighting
• From; belonging to
• Insistently encourage
• Small container for liquids, usually medicine

 

 

 

 

 

There are three hints, which are as follows:

 

Hint 1

 

 

 

Some of those answers look suspiciously similar...

 

 

 

 

 

Hint 2

 

 

.. but it's what top and bottom don't have in common that matters.

 

 

 

 

 

Hint 3

 

 

Pair answers between the top and bottom sections, and extract the difference. Then keep only what varies – the result is somewhere between left and right.

 

 

 

 

 

The first two are a bit enigmatic, but the third one makes it pretty obvious what you have to do.

 

 

 

[imatfaal]

oh no - pressure is on.

 

I have decided this should be a team effort - so I will put down my initial thoughts of the top diagram - pre-internet and before looking at the hints

 

 

The letter U

 

berU*

calcUlus / dehUsk / jUjUbe

aUthority / oeUf / bUoy

aroUse / neUron / flUked

???? / aleUtion / ????

manUre / UrU / matUre

coUsin / argUment / visUal

loUise

 

*this was Luke's aunt - dunno about the building part

 

 

 

edit spoilered

Edited February 24, 2012 by imatfaal

[Phi for All]

But...

 

 

the differences are more than just U. From calCUlus to callus you drop CU, from ag (silver) to agE you drop E, and from viSUal to vial you drop SU. Will all those dropped letters (the difference between top and bottom) present a jumbled word or phrase, perhaps something akin to TOGETHERNESS, the title?

 

 

edit: I just realized that your "authority" might be "sage", which throws a couple of my other answers off.

[imatfaal]

two sets of answers

 

 

 

 

alts / aleuts eu e

Argent/ argument um m

arse /arouse ou o

bering /????

corn /????

coin /cousin us s

constant /????

desk / dehusk hu h

escaped /???

lose/ louise ui I

manage ?????

mare / manure nu n

mate / mature ur r

mental / ????

neon / neuron ur r

of / oeuf eu e

urge / uru age ua a

vial / visual su s

 

 

if you put the letters spare back in the top diagram you get

 

 

 

a middle column of *hereami - which could well be where am I

 

 

 

 

 

by / buoy uo o

calus/calculus cu c

 

 

Edited February 24, 2012 by imatfaal

[Phi for All]

 

LOUISE - LOSE = UI, COUSIN - COIN = US, BUOY - BY = UO

 

 

I SO wish I could just sit down and work straight through this but my Fridays are full of many little jobs....

 

imatfaal, I think you're on the right course with that second spoiler, last post. Perhaps the left and right columns answer the Where Am I? question?

[imatfaal]

Got it

 

#Stuck in the middle with you!

 

to explain:

clowns to the left of me and joker to the right

here I am

stuck in the middle with you

 

 

 

 

top section

 

beru wing (pure guess - never heard of it but it has to be)

calculus / dehusk /jujube

consultant / oeuf / buoy

arouse / neuron / fluked

????/ aleuts / menu et al

manure / uru age / mature

cousin / argument / visual

louise

 

second section

 

• Colloquially, non-main characters of an MMORPG player - alts
• Silver- argent
• Backside in Britain - arse
• Strait separating Russia and Alaska - bering
• Near; beside; through the means of by
• Hardened skin, such as found on the soles of the habitually shoeless - calus
• Metal currency - coin
• Unchanging - constant
• A table for reading or writing on - desk
• Ran away from danger fled
• A rood screen, or Australian jelly-like confection - jube
• Misplace something, or come last in a competition - lose
• Administer, run, or handle something - manage
• Female horse mare
• Defeating someone at chess mate
• Relating to the mind mental
• Inert gas used in lighting neon
• From; belonging to of
  
• Insistently encourage urge
• Small container for liquids, usually medicine vial

marry them up and get the differences - then toss the Us

 

• alts - aleuts - S
• argent - arguments M
• arse - arouse O
• bering beru wing W
• by buoy O
• calus calculus C
• coin cousin S
• constant - consultant L
• desk - dehusk H
• fled - fluked K
• jube - jujube J
• lose - louise I
• manage - ????
• mare - manure N
• mate - mature R
• mental - menu et al E
• neon - neuron R
• of - oeuf E
  
• urge - Uru Age - A
• vial - visual - S

Put the spare letters in the rack from the first diagram and you get

 

• / W /
• C / H / J
• L / E / O
• O / R / K
• W / E / E
• N / A / R
• S / M / S
• / I

 

 

So the middle column does ask Where Am I? the left is clowns and the right is jokers. this is a clear reference to Jerry Raffertys (RIP 2011 - I wonder if near the time of the competition) song Stuck in the Middle With You

 

clowns to the left of me

 

jokers to the right, here I am

 

Stuck in the Middle with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2012 by imatfaal

[hypervalent_iodine]

That'll be it (and in great time, too). It took us a bit longer at the time because we were working on all of the other puzzles as well. Though that being said, the team that won the competition had it out within less than half an hour.

Anyway, well done to you both. There are some cookies in the mail for you.

[imatfaal]

HyperV I Thanks for posting - it was a nice puzzle. I guess I spent an hour on it which seems worse than par. It is very different working as a physical team around a table rather than being connected via the web.

 

Where is 2012? I might have to go along to spectate if it is in Europe

 

Edit / to get rid of iPhone corrections

Edited February 25, 2012 by imatfaal

[Xittenn]

I don't understand how to do the puzzle?

[Xittenn]

Could someone pretty please tell me how to do the puzzle . . .. o.o

[hypervalent_iodine]

Imatfaal: The competition is all online. From memory, team registration is in June or July and the competition is shortly after that. If you go to the page I linked in my OP, they give more details there. You can access the puzzles without registering a team and have a look at all their archived ones for an idea of the sorts of puzzles they dole out.

 

Xitten: Not having instructions is part of the fun! Some of the harder puzzles have you sitting and staring for a good amount of time with no clue how to start. When you do a few of them, you start to develop a feel for what to look for and what you have to do. The answer itself is always pretty obvious when you eventually get to it, it's the journey that's the difficult part. For this particular puzzle, the idea is to treat everything as a kind of crossword clue. From there you should be able to notice a pattern and how to link the table and the list together.

 

There are other ones that are much harder and require more than just word skills to solve. My two favorite puzzles from that year's competition are these:

Squares and Triangles

 

and

 

Art Heist

 

I would have used either of those in this thread, but to be honest it seemed a little unfair. The first one isn't one you can just do by looking at it on the screen and the second one contains an Australian culture reference that I'm not sure anyone outside of Australia would be at all familiar with. But hey, feel free to prove me wrong on that.

 

Then of course there are the ridiculously hard ones, such as the one I posted in my previous thread.

[imatfaal]

Art Heist looks brilliant - I think I have the idea, but I cannot test it out; I just need to leave my desk and head home. Squares and Triangles I am struggling to see what to do with - I presume from your text that you cut it out and stick together. Squares and triangles together can make some nice patterns - or perhaps even 3d ? But even so what do the letters/numbers and brlack triangle mean?

 

I will check out the website - thanks again

[hypervalent_iodine]

Art Heist looks brilliant - I think I have the idea, but I cannot test it out; I just need to leave my desk and head home.

 

Oh, it's great. The concept behind what you have to do is fairly easy to guess at. The hard part is actually doing it.

 

Squares and Triangles I am struggling to see what to do with - I presume from your text that you cut it out and stick together. Squares and triangles together can make some nice patterns - or perhaps even 3d ? But even so what do the letters/numbers and brlack triangle mean?

 

This one is kind of the opposite to Art Heist. Doing the puzzle is easy, working out what you have to do is not.

 

I can confirm that cutting them out is the first step, though.