Half-Past Hoodwinked [Answers Posted]

[Damniel]

there may have been some sort of pattern for round 3 but my putty brain just did it through PoE

 

[Mick]

That was exactly the plan! He made forgeries and then swapped them with the real ones so that no one noticed.

Such a brilliant plan! If only he had been smart enough to do it during the daytime, when Blathers is asleep and the lasers are off. Nobody visits the art exhibit anyways.

brb, going to make some bells... >:]

 

[Damniel]

That was exactly the plan! He made forgeries and then swapped them with the real ones so that no one noticed.

is this why there's no forged flowery painting in NH since Mira confiscated it? some deep lore here

i figured the flowery painting had to be it since there was pretty much no other item of value mentioned that he couldve tried stealing

 

[Chris]

Such a brilliant plan! If only he had been smart enough to do it during the daytime, when Blathers is asleep and the lasers are off. Nobody visits the art exhibit anyways.

brb, going to make some bells... >:]

Goose visits the art exhibit. He's a sophisticated chicken.

 

[Red Cat]

Had "red-handed" been submitted on it's own it would have been incorrect. We asked for the method used to catch the crook. I realise English is a second language for both* of you so I'm not sure if this could have been misinterpreted in translation.

*I think it is in Mick's case, anyway!

British English is a second language for me, so thank goodness "realise", "favourite", or "centre" were not in any of the messages since I would not be able to decode those.

 

[Hanami]

I'm glad that all my answers were accepted because I'm an overthinker haha
Thank you staff for this fun event!! This was one of my favorites and I hope it returns in the future

I think it should be, I put my answer as "red handed using a passive infrared laser system" because technically, red handed could also have been the answer to the question "How did the superheroes catch the crook?" and it was accepted

I had the same mindset and answer! I'm happy that the staff accepted it. I think the prompt asked how the crook was caught and I couldn't determine whether to interpret it as (1) in what manner he was caught (adjective- red-handed) or (2) what was used to catch him (noun- infrared laser system).. so I submitted both/the whole phrase

 

[Mick]

British English is a second language for me, so thank goodness "realise", "favourite", or "centre" were not in any of the messages since I would not be able to decode those.

Fun tip from a non-native English speaker: if you put the letter u between brackets, as in, "colo(u)r" you can upset both sides at once

 

[Alienfish]

Fun tip from a non-native English speaker: if you put the letter u between brackets, as in, "colo(u)r" you can upset both sides at once

LOL yes.

I'm more used to British English(spelling) though since that was what we got taught in school so I mostly write things with an "u", colourful for example.

 

[loveclove]

The questions were worded in a way that required some reading comprehension skills to answer. Like an assignment or test in school, the goal was not to just regurgitate the exact text of the decoded message, but to demonstrate you understood what was going on in the messages. I can see how this event could be rough for people who don't speak English as their first language, but I'm sure there was a reasonable amount of leeway given for the answers. I didn't copy exact text from the messages for the first two questions, but got both answers accepted because I knew what the questions were asking for and what amount of information was necessary to completely answer the questions. There probably could be improvements for next time, but I don't think the questions were "unfair" as they were worded.

I agree...
English is not my first language and I got all 3 correct. The answers required basic text comprehension skills, for any language... I just read both text and questions a couple times after decoded and the answers were very clear. I tried not to rush to it and really comprehend what the question was asking

Naturally, we have already discussed this at length as a team and already know what we can do to make this clearer in future if we choose to run an event like this again. It was a lot of work for @dizzy bone, @Kaiaa, and I to put this together and we are glad to see that it has been such a popular event!

Please do, it was so much fun tysm

Post automatically merged: Sep 11, 2020

It’s a Cesar cipher. I’ve watched enough Gravity falls to know one on sight lmao

What is that? lol
I just decoded all of them looking for the more common letters first, like A, E S, any single letters, common doubles, and went from there...

 

[Alienfish]

Also, yeah I loved the event, it gave me some nice code-crackin' time. But yeah I agree the actual answers to the questions could be clearer within the code, as i think a lot of users got English as their second language and might not be used to the idioms

 

[pochy]

I managed to get all of them - this event was tons of fun! but I didn't actually manage to figure out the logic behind the third one - I just figured out obvious words and filled in the gaps from there. was there an obvious logic I was missing?

i couldn't find any logic behind it either ! i was just breaking my head over it untill i pieced together the first sentence, 'it's me, mira' and from then on it went smoothly.

 

[~Kilza~]

What was the pattern for puzzle 3? I never figured the code out

It used a substitution cipher, where I had jotted down the following substitutions:

Spoiler

+ = d
# = e
5 = a
4 = r

÷ = I
< = t
¢ = s

X = m

> = y
2 = o
£ = u

3 = g
- = h

$ = l
> = y
* = p

€ = b

9 = w
6 = n
7 = k
8 = c
@ = f
( = v

So the decoded message ended up being:

Spoiler

dear heroes,

it's me, mira. you might be wondering why i'm
writing a letter... well, i accidentally dropped
my nookphone in the ocean. anyways! the operation
was a success! that sneaky redd fell for my
passive infrared laser system. we caught him red
handed, cottontail!
see you back at the slumber party!

 

[cornimer]

It used a substitution cipher, where I had jotted down the following substitutions:

Spoiler

+ = d
# = e
5 = a
4 = r

÷ = I
< = t
¢ = s

X = m

> = y
2 = o
£ = u

3 = g
- = h

$ = l
> = y
* = p

€ = b

9 = w
6 = n
7 = k
8 = c
@ = f
( = v

So the decoded message ended up being:

Spoiler

dear heroes,

it's me, mira. you might be wondering why i'm
writing a letter... well, i accidentally dropped
my nookphone in the ocean. anyways! the operation
was a success! that sneaky redd fell for my
passive infrared laser system. we caught him red
handed, cottontail!
see you back at the slumber party!

Ahhh I figured it was something like this but I didn't spend enough time with it to figure out all the substitutions I guess. Thank you!

 

[Mars Adept]

I’m still mad about Round 2’s question. I figured out the whole message after hours of working on it but because the question was confusing I didn’t get any tickets. :’(

 

[LadyDestani]

To everyone who worked on this event, thank you so much for putting it together! It was one of my favorites to participate in. I loved it when something would click and all of a sudden the puzzle made sense. It was presented in such a cute way, too. I hope this type of event returns in the future.

 

[seliph]

im too tired to sift the thread but was there any specific way to solve #3? i got it by making a wild guess that the first word would be "dear" and that let me decode the rest lol

 

[Mick]

im too tired to sift the thread but was there any specific way to solve #3? i got it by making a wild guess that the first word would be "dear" and that let me decode the rest lol

From what I've seen in the other posts, this is exactly what the rest did, either by deciphering the word "dear", the first sentence "it's me, mira" or maybe even the "cottontail" catchphrase. It's pretty much the only tactic that works for a substitution cipher like that one if you don't have any other clues to start with.

 

[Damniel]

im too tired to sift the thread but was there any specific way to solve #3? i got it by making a wild guess that the first word would be "dear" and that let me decode the rest lol

that's what i did too, and i think codes like those are just PoE

 

[SensaiGallade]

im too tired to sift the thread but was there any specific way to solve #3? i got it by making a wild guess that the first word would be "dear" and that let me decode the rest lol

I searched for Mira's catchphrase then deciphered from that, slow but it works!

 

[Matt0106]

Yeahhh I got them all right!
i put full sentences for my answer like “That sneaky redd fell for my passive infrared laser system”

That's exactly what I did, and then I boded the answer to be extra sure because boy, was I ever anxious.