Phurther Fantom Phlummoxing

Added another Halloween-themed puzzle last night: Ghostly Presents. Funny how you can spend ages trying to mull over a new idea, but then a completely different one just pops into your head, ready to go. I call this "the voice of the hidden setter" and am off to Tikitiki to track it down and bottle it.

 

New puzzle: The Monstrous Magic Square

With the demise of Perplex City and Alice is Lost, I've been a little detached from on-line puzzlers recently. So I was delighted when the esteemed Bookmore pointed me to the We Love Puzzles Halloween Haywire Puzzle Competition. (WLP is what remains of PXC for those not in "the know".)

There are some great little puzzles already submitted which I'm looking forward to going through at some point. I got back to grips with the temperamental WLP puzzle-creation system to come up with "Monstrous Magic Square".

Even though it's Halloween, I didn't feel like being too demonic, so this one's more treat than tricky. Enjoy!

Image Puzzle over at Ironic Sans

Hmm, so it's been a while since I posted here. With PXC out of the picture, I've been less active on the puzzling front. Still need to catch up with the last couple of episodes of Alice is Lost, in fact. Maybe that's just Summer for you.

Fans of hiding-stuff-in-images might like Ironic Sans' Puzzle. There are spoilers in the comments, but my only hint is that it reminds me of a puzzle from the NIN ARG. (Is that still going?) That shouldn't help too much...

Competition Time! Win a PXC Key and other random bits

(Update 3: It's all over! See this post for the winner and the solution.)

(Update 2: Two sets of hints have now been added: see the first and the second.)

(Update: Oops, forgot to set up the e-mail address for entries. Looking through logs, I can only see one entry, but if you sent me mail and I haven't got back in touch, then pleeeease send it again. Sorry about that... [goes off to weep] )

There's nothing better than a bit of altruism, except perhaps for some altruism that's been passed through a puzzle filter and made into a sweaty competition of brains and scissors. So, in celebration of season 1 of Perplex City, the start of season 2, and my feeble attempt to clean out my house before moving, I've decided to hold one of these adrenaline-filled contests. Think 300, but with more clothes and (hopefully) less pits.

This started out as a way to give out a spare key, as inspired by AgentLex, but in the true spirit of "I have too many things", I'm throwing in some other bits that newbies to the ARG may not yet be enjoying. Thus, the list for successful winning is as follows:

• 1 Perplex City Key, for use very soon over at perplex city stories


• 1 CD of the Viard album, The Silver City


• "24 hours in Perplex City", a short tourist's pamphlet introducing you to the city


• 1 lot of 4 stickers with the now outdated legendary "Lost. The Cube. Reward..." message on


• 1 copy of "Perplex", volume 0 - "the magazine of Perplex City", with all kinds of fun and games in


• Most importantly, 1 photo of Coxtin, Idlemichael and Dragonscales DJing at the recent end-of-season-1 party. Take it with you and get it signed by everyone you know!

Oh, yes! I can hear you leaking in anticipation already! So we need a puzzle to get things moving... OK.

Of all the fine people that have appeared in the first season of PXC, which one do these keys hold the key to?

There, that's all you're getting for now. Some handy rules to help you along:

1. E-mail your answer to ihavethesecret@exmosis.net on or before Wednesday 4th April Sunday 15th April.


2. You can e-mail me more than once, but only your latest answer will be used.


3. I'll do a random draw thing on the 16th, and the first one out will get the stuff.


4. If nobody's e-mailed me the right answer by the Monday, I'll post a(nother) vague and cryptic clue, and make it first-correct-wins, although any random guessing/brute force will be frowned upon...

Right. It's not that difficult. Stop reading, and go get on with it.

Get out of *that*!

OK, I admit it, I'm stuck.

Sphere - "Escape from the locked room" - is a simple point-and-click puzzle thing, with the object of the game being pretty clear. You can click on things to interact, use objects you pick up by clicking on them, look at them closely by selecting the magnifying glass, etc. I've got a fair way in (I think) but I've run out of ideas now. Thankfully, you can also save and load your position to come back to it later.

All in all, a great fun little game - very reminiscent of Myst et al, but any hints as to how to proceed would be greatly appreciated... ;)

New Puzzle number 2

I decided to give the Perplex City "Create-a-puzzle" engine another spin, so this new puzzle is up over there. It's rated a blue:

Countdown to...?

New Puzzle

Have put a new, fairly simple riddle up over here: Three of a Kind. No prize, no points, just for fun.

It's the third in a series, in case you want to catch up :) More to come soon...

Monitoring Progress

Just spent a fun few minutes going through Fields of logic, a game of, uh, logic - "work out what to do one each level" kind of thing. Took me less than a quarter of an hour, apparently, so nice little timewaster. On to its predecessor, next... Oh, and a big thoughtful post coming soon, I hope :)



(Via Jay is Games.)