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nGord

Checkered Base

How well can you count?

Checkered Base
nGord, Jan 5, 2017
You, Divya, meko and 10 others like this.
    • Rating:
      4/5,
      Nemo
      Ya, tried all positions for the first drgble and got it. Too hard for me to use 16-base system, sorry ':c
      nGord likes this.
    • Nemo
      But I enjoyed and was especially happy to see white dot instead of red cross ^-^
      nGord likes this.
    • Rating:
      5/5,
      EL797
      Thanks for your hints.

      I had lots of fun with this puzzle, well done. :thumbsup:
    • Rating:
      5/5,
      meko
      I found it really interesting to
      put a letter
      in what should be a numerical decryption. If observed correctly, it was simple enough to understand. The hints are very well structured and they are the part that I liked the most, as if I had read a thriller with many twists ( in fact I needed to read them all :p ). The thing that surprises me is that logic connections are very different but of an impressive solidity because they fit perfectly with each other.
      The only (wrong :oops: :rolleyes: ) intuition I had was to associate
      b16
      with a chess move like a3 or h7 ... then I remembered that the chessboard is 8x8 big :rotf:
      nGord likes this.
    • nGord
      Thanks for the play and rate @meko. Not my proudest level as it had a lot of creator's bias that led to the impossibility of a player to figure out without the clues. I'm just glad that you enjoyed reading them. ;) Using chess notation would have been clever. :eek:
    • Rating:
      5/5,
      Ray Aznable
      ...

      this level squeezes my brain out
      ---------------
      most people who playing mekorama
      must be work as engineers

      or just by playing the game itself,
      moreover able to create mechanicly levels like this turn u into an enggineer
      ---------------
      base = 2 1 19 5 ?????
    • nGord
      @Ray Aznable - Nope, but you're on the right track that it has something to do with engineering, more specifically mathematics. Unfortunately I made this level too complicated; not my best work. If you want more help there are some hints in the Caption tab.
    There are no comments to display.
  • Album:
    First Levels by nGord
    Uploaded By:
    nGord
    Date:
    Jan 5, 2017
    View Count:
    4,836
    Comment Count:
    22
    Tags:
    code breaking
  • This is a basic code breaking puzzle. In case you could use a hint, here are a few:
    The code itself if a bit of a puzzle as it is obfuscated by the checkered pattern and under the water. You can thank @chemi for the word of the day: obfuscated means to deliberately make more confusing in order to conceal the truth.
    The code is written with metal blocks on the roof of the building.
    So depending on the orientation, the code can also be read from left to right towards B or away from B.
    The proper direction to read the code is as it is seen on the card image, i.e. towards B.
    Well if I told you that I think you'd find the puzzle too easy. I've heard people read it as 6-1-5 or 5-1-9 and even 6-4-6. One way you can look at the code is to strip out all the checkered pattern. I think then you'll at least see that the first character is not the same as the last character and there seems to be a gap between the first character and the second two further implying some difference. The keyword here is "character." Does that help?
    The first character is not a number, but a letter.
    The code is: b 16.
    Well the title is Checkered Base and the description is "How well can you count." The building is checkered with metal blocks and their purpose is to make the code difficult to read. The word Base coincides with the counting bit as it is used to indicate a number system.
    Counting from 0 to 9 is considered counting in base-10 as there are ten characters/symbols. Base-16 is counting from 0 through to fifteen more characters/symbols: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F.
    The code is the name of a numbering system. It also has three characters that correspond to the three draggables.

    So the title is Checkered Base, meaning that the code on the roof of the building, b 16, represents base-16. Even without knowing how to count in base-16, you might be able to infer that after counting from 0 through 9, 'A' may represent 10 and 'B' would represent '11.' Thus the draggables need to be pulled out 11-1-6 positions for B to reach the win.

    Another possible approach is that given that the draggables pull out thirteen spaces, the code may count higher than 9, so then the 'b' may be easier to deduce.

    Finally, if one does happen to guess that the last two characters are 1 and 6, there would only be eleven tries at the first draggable to get lucky with the solution.