If you are a successful solver, please post a write-up somewhere and let me know so I can link to it on this page.
| Puzzle | Solution |
|---|---|
| 1 | The hidden theme of this puzzle was “GREENBACKs”. The two grids contain animals that are commonly known as “greenback”. The first hint was a US $1 bill, also a greenback. Identification of the two animals gives an order for the letters in each grid, which are “joined” together. That leaves the colours. They are html encoded web colors to ensure they’re the same for everyone. Of course, by this stage, solvers would have noticed that there are 32 letters, and by deduction hopefully realised they must be looking for a 64-digit hex private key. So taking the green values of the hex colours for the joined animals (GREENbacks), and reversing that string (greenBACKs) …. Voila. Solver’s write up with spoilers is here. |
| 2 | Solver’s write-up with spoilers is here. |
| 3 | Solver’s write-up with spoilers is here. |
| 4 | This puzzle is my favourite for its simplicity. It’s inspired by this unsolved Bitcoin puzzle by Trithemius (I’m sure it is unsolved because there is no fair pathway to a solution). My variation of the puzzle was to find a paragraph of text that was unintentionally steganographic (or almost was). Fittingly, I found an article from the New York Times. I changed a single word to make the puzzle work, and gave an incorrect date in the flavour text … |
| 5 | If you closely examine the dots, you will find 10 that are different to the others. Once a correct order is deduced, the rest of the puzzle should be easily solved. |
| 6 | ❓ |
| 7 | There should be a few clues from the puzzle that nudge solvers towards consideration of prime numbers. |
| 8 | The emojis are standard emojis, except something about each is different. ‘The [numbers>emojis] must remain single‘ should be enough of a hint for what must be done once the solver constructs the puzzle. |
| 9 | ❓ |
| 10 | ❓ |
| 11 | ❓ |
| 12 | I’ve posted a partial solution here, but there is a second chance prize available for the next solver. |
| 13 | The commonality between all the words in my seed phrase is that they are only three letters long. |
| 14 | The shade of the blue is Deep Blue. The hex private key is derived from the squares landed on in Kasparov’s final game against Deep Blue on 11 May 1997, but only those that are within hex range (0 to F). |
| 15 | I thought this puzzle would take a while to solve. Wrong! The first layer of obscurity is done away with when the solver delves into the world of Kcymaerxthaere, and particularly this. I won’t spoil the rest of it just yet because the puzzle itself is pretty neat and reasonably straightforward after that. |
| 16 | Solvers would have noticed the xkcd hints. The number for each comic is relevant. Solvers may have also noticed that Francis B., a con‘s cipher can be applied to the lettering “My Favourite Webcomics” to derive a hint also given by the first letters of each sentence of the text. There are allusions to something else associated with this hint. The solver may find themselves reading back over the list of webcomics to index something … |
| 17 | The pictures are randomly ordered, but solvers may have noticed that the flavour text is oddly worded: Solve to harvest entire Pepe coin crypto balance with deminimis0’s helpful clues. That could give: sword toddler ? ? ? coffee cross ? ? ? ? ? |
| 18 | Each of the words or phrases listed must have an anagram of TIME deleted from it, and another word (given by the puzzle) added to it … |
| 19 | Once the three relevant integer sequences are identified, solvers must take the first 22 integers that are common to all three sequences. A hexadecimal private key can then be derived … |
| 20 | If Felicia’s name was translated into English, it provides two seed words related to a card I played during this game of Scopa … |
| 21 | Solvers will notice some of the words in the captions are bold. They may be useful, along with various things depicted in the puzzle. The seed phrase for the prize wallet can be constructed by creating a chain of words. |
| 1 April Special | The trick with this one is all in the date … |
