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Letters In Boxes #25
Grab your party hat and a plate of hors d'oeuvres, it's time for a double milestone! Not only is this the 25th Letters In Boxes challenge, but it also contains our 100th puzzle! In this extra-tricky bunch, you'll have to put all your word-sleuthing skills to the test, so try not to get too dizzy playing Pin the Tail on the Pinata. Oh, and everyone write your name on your cup so we don't get them mixed up. And use a coaster! And you, get off the coffee table! Where did you even get that hideous lampshade from anyway?
If you're familiar with Letters In Boxes, you can jump right to the challenge by clicking on the image to the right to open up your first puzzle. If you're new to our game, you can read a full tutorial on how to play here. 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, December 12th at 11:59 PM (GMT-5:00). Finish these puzzles quickly and you can have another slice of cake! Good luck!
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!
- Mattbert ...First!
- snowmoon
yay! #1 done :)
now very stuck on #2 :P
How dare you! I have no clue for 1!
1 was surprisingly easy! (usually i have problems with all these puzzles, and need to read the hints in the comments thread :$)
hint?
look at the puzzle, then look at a digital clock
Man! I give in and up! Sleeping.
I'm wondering... is it possible for me to get a wrong answer, and end up going to a puzzle from a previous LiB? (coz I skipped a few LiBs in the past, and I'm not too sure of my answer to #2 for this week... it brought me to a puzzle, but i dunno if it's an 'old' puzzle, or if my answer was actually right)
Yes, you can. It happened to me once.
argh :( let's hope i'm not busy-ing myself solving an old puzzle then :D
I hate the puzzles where you can solve the whole thing and still have to figure out how to get a word out of it, or if I've got a mistake! #2!!!!!
And by "hate" I mean "hate the frustration, not the puzzle". :)
While you're solving, type winnipeg.
Wow. So many possibilities for #2
well.. I've sent in my final answer... hopefully I wasn't solving an old puzzle #3 and #4 lol!
I've got 99 problems, but a .gif ain't one.
(Sorry. So sorry. So very, terribly sorry.)
Is solving #2 related to 100? Does the grid on the right make a meaningful pattern?
I tried lots of possible answers that makes sense and one of them even gave me a previous puzzle.
I hate these type of LIB puzzles, so many possibilities :(
From now on, couldn't we at least get a hint to confirm if the words on the left grid are correct?
@cams
I took it to mean that we needed to use 100 to solve the puzzle too, just as we have to use the 99 in the previous one. I got all kinds of answers, anagrams, and more words and anagrams from the solution. None of them take me to another puzzle though.
Oh dear... I'm not too sure if my answer is right or not (perhaps I got an old puzzle without realising it?)... but my answer was
related to 100 (think of an ancient civilisation's numbering system)
(really hoping I'm not sending you all on a wild-goose chase, in the case that my answer was actually wrong and led to an old puzzle :$)
Got #2. Had a word wrong after all. Once it was fixed the answer was just sitting there. :)
Yeah, I quit. There are just too many possible combinations on #2. Not a good puzzle. Especially considering you need a very advanced knowledge of English, if you're a foreigner. I managed to look them all up though except for number 2. But it doesn't matter, I quit.
@thomstel: what does your #3 look like? XD I'm still trying to figure out if my answer was right or not lol
My #3 had a top hint is "And so, back to #1..." and was super easy.
Here's the first letters of my left grid, are they correct?
H S U M A T
Sorry, I meant to spoiler tag the letters but I forgot. Steve, you should do that.
yay! mine was same, thomstel :)
@cams:
2 of them are wrong
@cams
Second and fifth letters are not correct.
Question for #2
Please tell me if I am correct:
For each word, the mystery letter is placed somewhere, not necessarily at the end, to create a new word. The mystery letters give us the answer.
hm... nope.
the mystery letter is added, and all the letters are jumbled to form the new word.
the mystery letter is the same for all the words :P ...and so the mystery letters don't form the answer :)
Got #2; thanks, snowmoon. :)
@snowmoon...
I always have issues with the first one or two too and then I get going.
With #1 and your clue, I don't get the correspondence. Any hint would be fantastic :)
Judging by snowmoon's post, what I'm struggling to do now should be correct.
But my previous 5th word made sense with the hint, and adding the question mark also makes sense.
How was I supposed to know that was the wrong word?!?!?!?
I also struggled too much on last LIB's 4th puzzle by using wrong words that makes sense with the hints. Could this type really be considered as a good riddle? :(
Further hint for #1:
like I mentioned, think of 99 as it would appear on a digital screen/display (doesn't have to be a clock, I guess my previous hint was a little misleading :$)... then 'connect the dots'
What kind of cake is it? [A lie. >:D< —Steve]
For #4
"It takes a real mastermind to solve this!" -- okay, obvious clue is obvious. But the R column and W column confuse me a bit.
@ray9na: I assumed they represent
colours. (try wikipedia, and look at the picture they've got :D) I was a bit confused at first too, coz the ones I'm used to are B and W instead of R and W lol
I need some help with "come to a point". Can't think of a 5 lettered word for that.
@cams:
for a hint:
think of Scotch _____, or video ______, then add a letter to the end :P
if u just want the word:
taper
@snowmoon: One way to know if you've jumped to a previous puzzle is to check the text accompanying the final puzzle. With every final puzzle, save for two exceptions (and you'd know right away if you hit them), the text is changed to reflect the fact that the contest deadline has passed, and the email address for submissions is removed.
I can confirm that everyone who has submitted an answer up to this point is correct, so proudly hint with confidence!
oooh ok, thanks Steve! :) glad to know that!
What the...
I don't know that word...
Just leaving a couple of hints for #3 and #4, in case anyone needs them :)
#3:
should be pretty straightforward, check out the very first LiB puzzle if you need some help on how to solve it :D
#4:
it's based on the Mastermind game (google/wikipedia if you're unsure of the game rules? :P) ... I found it useful to start with the R=0, W=0 row
I also found it useful to use anagram-solving websites for the puzzles, the one I used was
http://www.solverscrabble.com/solver/ , because it allows wildcards (so you add a '?' to the letters if you want to add an additional, unknown letter to the letters you've already got
@cams, try thesaurus.com and type in
come to a point.
That worked for me!
was it just me, or was #3 scary easy? All I did was
add a letter to make a word for each vertical column
and voila! There it was.
I'm having a lot of trouble on #3
I have a list in front of me of all the multiple letters for each word and I cannot for the life of me get a word out of it. I thought I could get marmot for a while, then I realised 'amound' isn't a word :( - is it definitely an animal I'm after?
Turns out the power of posting is a real thing. How I didn't see that is beyond me, it's probably the letter from each of the most obvious words :(
I'm way behind the curve on this one. Stuck on #2. I think I have words 1,3,4,and 6 and I believe I know what the mystery letter is. Nothing in the right hand grid seems to have any significance. I've tried interpreting the mystery letter - all to no avail. Any suggestions would be most welcome ?
#2 - OK I may have word 5
Starts with L
@GlixD, you're on the right track. Try checking thesaurus.com for word #2. When you fill in all the new words in the right grid, you'll only have one real word for the solution.
Would I be correct in thinking that the final word
may not be right on the tip of a vegetarian's tongue?
Anybody want to compare answers for #4? Was it
the other white meat?
i give up please tell me the hint that i can use to pass #1 puzzle please (i'm have no idea right now i'm have NO IDEA NOW!!!!!!)
@zxcvbn23ful:
have you tried the hints above? I don't really know how to make another hint w/o giving it away straightaway... so maybe this hint might be a bit too 'obvious', rather than a hint:
try to write '99' in the grid of letters, just as you would on a digital screen
This is very frustrating. I'm fairly certain I've filled out the grid for #2 entirely correctly (took me a while to figure out the answer to 'wary'). Yet, I still don't see the key to the next puzzle.
I don't see any words or messages, not even when trying to look at it with various eliminations
And, I'm pretty sure my answers are right because:
note - if I'm right, this is a big hint
All of my answers in the right column start with the letter c - which of course is the Roman Numeral for 100
@nfields:
well if your grid is filled up right, and
the first letters are all the same, that means the first letter is pretty useless.. so what comes next?
Even looking up the mentioned game on wikipedia, I'm afraid I don't understand the rules and thus can't solve #4.
@snowmoon
absolutely nothing useful - is it possible I've stumbled onto a second possible solution? For 'wary' I did wind up using a bit of a weird (and in my mind, non-obvious) synonym. Even the other - more obvious - answer for wary doesn't fit either.
To be clear - for 'wary' I used:
canny and alert, which both can be fit in the right side to match up with the other words (cranny, and cartel)
How to play the game referenced in #4:
Each turn, the player would guess a sequence of 4 colors. Could be any of the available colors in any combination, so long as they didn't repeat. The Mastermind would then inform them how close that is to the correct sequence with a number of red and white pegs next to the guess.
A red peg indicated that one of the colors in the sequence was not only correct, but in the correct spot in the sequence.
A white peg indicated that a color was correct, but in the wrong place.
So, for example, if the color sequence was Blue / Green/ White / Orange, and I guessed Black / Green / Blue / White, that guess would get a red peg and 2 white pegs. I'd know I had 3 correct colors, but I wouldn't know which one was wrong. If, next turn, I guessed Purple / Black / Red / Yellow, I'd get no pegs, and would now know that Black was the color from my first guess that was wrong, so now I know that Blue, Green, and White are 3 of the 4 colors.
Hope that helps. *sends in guess on final answer*
Oh, and DAM? Maybe don't be so blatant in the future? :b
Something that bothered me about my means of solving #2:
My 2nd-to-last answer didn't start with a C like the rest of the answers did. Instead, I ended up with...well, a fairly dirty word, actually. An anagram of "claret."
Disturbing part? It worked. Ew, Steve. Ew.
@An Onyx Mouse:
Yes, thanks, that helps, assuming letters in place of colours. Unraveling the logic from there hurts my brain, but other comments lead me to the answer and I'm satisfied just understanding the methodology.
my 2nd to last word for #2 was not the same as yours, onyx and nfields :D
my word for 'wary' had a pair of repeated letters in it (hint!), and after adding the mystery letter, formed the name of a vegetable after I anagrammed it.
I'm honestly stuck in puzzle #2. I've got all other words but the third one, with the hint
Consumers
@TaylorB:
try http://thesaurus.com/browse/consumers
notice how consumerS is written, instead of just consumer? that should give u a pretty big clue as to which word on that page is the one you're looking for
@An Onyx Mouse
That could mean ANYTHING!
i give up really give up for that FIRST PUZZLE!!!! let just /give zxcvbn23ful 46 1 and /give zxcvbn23ful 259 1 and just place 46 in that first and right click that 46 with 259 and kaboom first puzzle explode and let's just go to next puzzle by walkthrough the page
(i mean i just wait and play until it's has walkthrough cause i have no idea now)
/give zxcvbn23ful creeper spawner and some test subject steve from minecraft and the page will explode and give me some walkthrough
c'mon zvxcbn23ful,
Make two nines on the grid that look like this:
xxx
x_x
xxx
__x
xxx
Then read the letters that are left
After getting through #2, solved #3 in under 30 seconds and now staring at #4. Phew!
Hah, 3 was pie and 4 was obvious and pretty easy to solve. 2 was the difficult one for me. Yeesh, those synonyms.
thanks @binks now i'm finally go to puzzle 2
then i just omg what the heck is this puzzle 2 but i'll try to solved it cause now i have my idea back thanks @binks
Ha! Got the last puzzle! I must say that
DAM gave a huge hint in his earlier comment.
Please help with #2.
Even after reading the hints I am not sure about some of my answers...
For the 5th someone wrote canny, but then you need to add an "r" and not a "c" to it like for the others.
for the last one I can't think of anything but "braid", but I guess it is wrong.
ok, nevermind about #2.
found the right answer for the 5th. and then solved it without the 6th.
The party's over, see you in another hundred! Here are this week's answers:
Puzzle 1
Puzzle 1 Answer
The first puzzle requires you to take that 99 and put it into the grid below. The letters not covered by the number spell out SENSITIVITY.
Puzzle 2
Puzzle 2 Answer
For puzzle 100, the additional letter to be used in each row is C (the Roman numeral for 100). All six words start with the letter C, and the second letters, reading down, spell HAULER.
Puzzle 3
Puzzle 3 Answer
Look familiar? Like puzzle #1, this puzzle is solved by completing six vertical words, so that the name of an animal reads horizontally in the second row. In this case, the answer is PARROT.
Puzzle 4
The final puzzle is played like a game of Mastermind, using letters instead of colors. The R column shows how many letters in each word are correct and in the right place; the W column shows how many letters are correct but in the wrong position. It can be logically deducted (with a bit of simple wordplay) that the answer is PORK. For a full explanation, please read the spoiler tag below.
To begin, none of the letters in the word SEND are correct (hence the 0-0 marking). The two words above it, PURE and SLOP, both contain one of these letters. Thus, it is known that two of remaining three letters in both words must be in the answer. The letter P appears in both words. If the letter P is not part of the solution, it must be assumed that the UR from PURE are in the correct positions, and LO from slop must be the other two letters. However, since neither LURO or OURL are valid words, it must be assumed that P is one of the letters in the answer, and that it is correct in the first position (as indicated by the PURE clue).
The first clue, word, WEPT, is marked as having only one correct letter in an incorrect position. Since we've already determined that P is a correct letter, the other three (W, E, and T) are not in the solution. Below, the word WOKE is marked as having two correct letters (one in position, one not). Since we've just eliminated W and E, we know that O and K must appear in our answer.
The last clue, HERO, indicates that two letters appear in the answer (one in position, one not). We've already determined that the letter O is in the word, but it can't be correct in that final position, as there are no words with a P??O pattern (with one of the middle letters being a K). The clue SLOP tells us that the O can't be in the third position either, so the only remaining position for the O is the second position, giving us PO??. Since this determines that the O in WOKE is in the correct position, the K must be in an incorrect position, meaning it is automatically the fourth letter, giving us PO?K.
The answer might be obvious to you by now, but in case it isn't, here's one final deduction: In the word ROAD, we know that the D is not in our answer (thanks to the SEND clue). The O, as previously determined, is in the correct position. Therefore, when trying to determine which of the two remaining letters (R and A) belongs in the third position, we must assume that the A can't go in the third position, as that would suggest a second letter in the correct position. Therefore, the third letter must be R, and our final solution is PORK.
Winners will be announced soon!
thanks steve for walkthrough i always waiting for that this is my first time that i pass puzzle 1 by myself (with some hints)
This got cut off. What was the one you used? I like https://www.crosswordsolver.com/anagram-solver because of the large database but I find sometimes other sites are more accurate.
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