You Are Games:
Letters In Boxes #20
Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
Letters In Boxes challenge the brave
To find the secret words you crave.
Nightmare nouns and vicious verbs,
And also some prepositions and adjectives and other stuff.
Three witches knew how to cook in rhyme,
But when you paint yourself into a corner trying to rhyme with really hard words, it all falls apart pretty quickly. I'm no Shakespeare or Poe, but... Oh, hold on.
</poetry>
I'm no Shakespeare or Poe, but this puzzle challenge contains some wicked words to worm through! Take a look at the starting puzzle below. Click on it to open up the image in a new window. When you think you've found the answer, hover up to the address bar and change the image's filename (in this case, "hallotwenty") to your answer, making sure your answer is all lowercase and without spaces, and that you stay in the same directory and keep the same filename. If you're right, you'll spirit away to the next puzzle. If you're wrong, you'll see the frightening sight of an error screen, but you can always run back to the last puzzle.
This batch of puzzles contains four puzzles to solve. On the fourth puzzle, you'll find the email address for sending your final answer. We'll hand out a prize to the first correct entry we receive, plus one additional randomly-selected correct entry. Please include your Casual Gameplay account display name with your entry. You must be at least 13 years of age to enter. Only one submission per participant, please. Offer void where prohibited. Your deadline for submitting your answers is Monday, October 31st (OOH, SPOOKY!) at 11:59 PM (GMT-5:00). Be sure to save some candy for later!
Update: Congratulations to the following winners! :D
Both winners were given a choice of prizes. Congratulations and thanks for playing with us! Look for another Letters in Boxes again soon!
- cendare ...First!
- GlixD
That was pretty awesome. Yay for not needing hints!
That being said, I will leave just one for the fourth puzzle:
It isn't a bassoon, tempting though that was. The boxes should've told me otherwise.
I concur, cendare. This LIB was damn easy! But still the puzzles were well thought out. And there was no doubt in my mind that I had found the right answer for #4. So that's a great puzzle.
And a partridge in a pear tree. That was my first thought on #1. XD
pretty easy this time, I thought. No hints needed for me! Good thing to, because I'm in a rush, and I really shouldn't have spent any time with this right now.
I don't know if it's because I'm not American, but I have no clue about #1... =|
@Rgandum:
I'm not American either, you don't have to be to understand #1.
As long as you...
don't let the numbers 17-25 distract you.
Once you ignore those, it might become a bit easier.
I found a ghost in #3 as it suggests
but it doesn't seem to help me at all!
@TaylorB:
Take the text literally.
Never mind, solved 3 and 4 in the same go.
TaylorB:
Look around.
I must be missing something obvious on #1, any chance of a hint?
Hints for #1:
First:
Like someone said, ignore the numbers that look like fractions.
If you are interested to know what they are:
there are two boxes that contain clues as to what these numbers mean
Now:
Notice the arrows
Next:
ignore the numbers that look like fractions
Finally:
I'm counting on you to figure out why I wrote the same clue twice
Same here, sheepgomeep.
Why is it the "easy" ones that always stump me? Eliminated the "total quantity" numbers and tried a few options, but still haven't gotten anywhere on #1.
I need help with #4.
I don't know if my answer for the first row is correct. I am pretty sure the last 3 I got correct, because there is only one 4-letter instrument that I found and the last two are easy.
Once I find the correct answers for all four should it be obvious what the answer is?
Got it, thanks!
Nevermind on #4. solved it. nice one!
im failing at 3. i found ghost. I guess I'm not "looking around" enough. is there a pattern there?
Hint for #3:
first part is plainly written out
Then:
the 2nd part is also written out, but remember to leave no "man" behind.
donhuando, thanks for your help with #1, I completed the rest by myself (first LIB i've completed!)
As for #4:
Notice anything in common with the letters in the answers you already have? I did use my thesaurus to find the right word.
#1
Ignore the numbers between the boxes that look like fractions, it's the numbers in front of the words that are important
Got #1. Geez, maybe the reason the easy ones are so hard is that I make them hard. If you haven't gotten 1 yet:
literally everything you need is in the boxes, save the arrows of course.
Wow, that was the easiest #4 yet! Thanks for making it up to me. ;)
OK...for me, easy schmeasy until #4...for some reason, I am just NOT seeing anything. Is it an answer to the question?
@donhuando I may just be thinking too hard about this.
ive tried
Going around the outsides and i get a few words but not many
i have also tried to take out all the 'ghost' letters and all the 'around' letters and even all the 'look' letters and it leaves me with nothing.
am i on the right track at all?
sunney444--you are sort of on the right track...
except there is only one word. a) find the ghost. b) look around
sunney444:
once you find the ghost, ignore it. just look around. and ignore the rest also.
the answer contains a lot of letters.
@donhaundo, i finally got it. i was working too hard there. is there a reason on #4 it says we've passed the deadline for this contest? the paragraph at the top says we have till next week...
@donhuando
oh no maybe i got the wrong answer! it only has 4 letters as opposed to a lot you said it had. and it went to another puzzle but the puzzle it says has ended.....
@drstrosy
Thanks for your help too!
just kidding. i found it! and its the correct one this time. :)
Thanks for the kick in the pants to get me past the first puzzle, sheepgomeep.
After that, the rest of the puzzle fell together quite nicely. *sends in answer, sits back*
Happy Candy Day, everyone. :]
Another easy week for me!
Hints for all:
#1
Ignore the fraction-like numbers in the middle. They're a red herring.
If you still need help, a certain vampire puppet might be of assistance. He'll tell you that the numbers inside the boxes are what count.
#2
Just follow the directions.
Yeah, that wasn't much of a hint.
#3
You'll probably want to turn around in a full circle to make sure there aren't any other scary critters lurking about.
#4
Boo sure is a scary word. Maybe you should get rid of it.
Yep, it sure was an easy week!
If someone needs hints:
#1
You need something from every house except from home. The things you got on your trick-or-treat round-a-bout will help you forward...
#2
Follow the instructions. Just like above, not a big hint, but you'll get the next one...
#3
First find a full ghost, then look around. Literally.
#4
Boo! Got scared? Calm down, and take out the things that scared you and you should be done...
I'm having trouble with #2, believe it or not.
When it says "move the first four letters to the right end of the row," do they mean "change BLACKCAT" to "KCATBLAC"?
@Ryusui:
They sure do.
And done. Thanks for the hint; I must have missed one of the directions. >_>
Thank you for the toothsome treat!
Paranoia setting in . . .
is there some kind of secret message that Steve is trying to send us about Halloween? Something about facial hair and misfortune, and aliens sneaking up on us? Should I be worried??!!
Nah. Pass the candy, please.
I've got the gist of #4, but:
Given that I'm supposed to end up with a seven letter word, I'm apparently supposed to come up with a five letter word that means "Lift" but has "boo" in it. "Raise" is the obvious five letter word for lift and I'm drawing a blank...
Ah, nevermind, thesaurus.com helped. But since I already typed this... ;P
ALL CANDY IS HALF OFF! Here are this week's answers:
Puzzle 1
To solve the first puzzle, you needed to study the map and note the quantities of candy given out at each house. The number given corresponded to the letter from each item's name for extraction. For example, in the first house, "1 marshmallow patty" meant you needed to take the first letter, M. "5 peanut butter cups" meant you needed to take the fifth letter, U, and so on. In the end, after making the rounds around the block, you could spell out MUSTACHES.
Puzzle 2
Puzzle 2 Answer
The second puzzle required you to follow the directions carefully to manipulate the given phrase, BLACKCAT, to your answer, BADLUCK.
Puzzle 3
Puzzle 3 Answer
To solve the ghost hunt in the third puzzle, you first needed to find the GHOST in the diagram. However, to find the answer, you needed to look at the letters surrounding that word within the grid. Starting to the right of the H and reading clockwise, you would find the next answer, EXTRATERRESTRIAL.
Puzzle 4
Puzzle 4 Answer
For the final puzzle, your goal was to find words that had the letters BOO in some order. The added letters, when read in order, spell out your final answer, STEALTH.
Winners will be announced soon!
Thanks, Steve. Although this may not have been the most challenging LIB so far, it was still fun and rated high on the Satisfying Smug Feeling Scale, so I give it 5 mushrooms!
Did you see my email? According to my mailbox, it says that it's sent but you didn't read it yet.
This is my first LIB submission so I'm not sure when you read the mails.
[Generally, I go through and read the emails right after the contest deadline. However, by the time this comment was posted, I would have gone through all the emails. Perhaps my mail server doesn't allow sending automatic delivery receipts? But yes, I did see your email. —Steve]
It seems you typo'd there, Steve, the first puzzle's solution is MUSTACHES.
[Yep, good spot! You have no idea how many times I was testing the puzzles this week and tried going to mustached.gif instead! —Steve]
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