My Atari Halloween Story (and Contest)

[church]

My guess as to why its superman .. Because he too wears a costume which ties nicely into halloween.

[+cvga]

Nope: let's see if we can speed this along a little. Here's another hint to get you going in the right direction:

 

There's a reason why I had a specific number of trick-or-treaters. Remember that I also said the same trick-or-treaters could have come in a different order while still representing the same cart but they could not come in the same order and represent a different cart. Oh yeah, I also nearly forget that Superman is an eight letter word.

 

Good luck! There's still another cart to be won!

[bcprs1]

You might just need to spell it out. I swear once I hear the answer I'm going to feel like an idiot for not getting it.

[+cvga]

You might just need to spell it out. I swear once I hear the answer I'm going to feel like an idiot for for getting it.

 

I'll give you a new clue.

 

- Asteroids and E.T. did not have to arrive together. They could have come separately or in the opposite order and the answer still would have been Superman. Heck, either one of them could have come dressed as Combat and it still wouldn't have changed the answer.

 

I was sure someone would get it within an hour once the answer was given (Superman).

 

I'm glad someone is still trying. I thought this thread might quietly die since no one had responded in the past couple of days.

[church]

Ok heres my guess. Theres 12 trick or treaters. but theres 14 listed because of the repeaters. The 12th one is asteroids. Since supermans homeworld was destroyed by an asteroid he was sent as an extra terrestrial to earth. Using powers of deduction that are beyond my simple mind someone might have been able to come up with this in the first place.

[+cvga]

I'll be out of town for a couple of days and probably won't have internet access. I'll spell out the solution when I return (on Wednesday) if anyone wants me to.

[bcprs1]

Please do. This one is driving me crazy.

[bcprs1]

ummm.....what's the answer?

[lonesome_pa]

Yeah, I was wondering too.

[+cvga]

ummm.....what's the answer?

 

You know the answer...it's Superman

 

I had trouble finding this thread. I leave (went to Houston) for a couple of days and when I come back the whole thread was gone. Luckily, I finally found the contests section.

 

OK, here's the answer. Of course, this means that I will win the prize for the second half of the contest. Since I'm feeling generous, I'll probably offer myself a really great game Anyway, here is the solution:

 

If you look at the games and no shows you get (in order):

 

Berzerk

Cakewalk

Ice Hockey

Asteroids

E.T.

Inca Gold

***no one****

Universal Chaos

Video Pinball

Robin Hood

Donkey Kong

Oink

***no one****

Asteroids

E.T.

Taz

 

I've had 14 treaters, 2 no shows, and the answer is Superman.

 

As I mentioned before, Superman is an 8 letter word and the no shows are important to the solution.

 

Hmmm, since there are 16 total pieces of information and an 8 letter answer, maybe each two pieces of info represent one letter of the solution.

 

Now, why would I have picked some of the games I did (like Universal Chaos or Inca Gold) when they don't make particularly good Halloween costumes?

 

The answer is that 1) I wanted the first letter of each cart to spell "Atari Video Cube" when unscrambled to throw people off the right solution and 2) I needed to find carts which had the correct rarity according to the Atari Age guide.

 

Ahhh, rarity!!! Why didn't I think of that you're probably saying to yourself right now. What is the rarity of those carts....

 

The rarity is (in order)

1, 9, 2, 1, 1, 6, 0, 5, 1, 8, 1, 3, 0, 1, 1, 4 where 0 = no show

 

Now, since I have 16 numbers and an 8 letter solution, I'll group the numbers in pairs of two:

 

19, 21, 16, 05, 18, 13, 01, 14

 

If I let 1 = A; 2 = B; 3 = C and so on I get...

 

S, U, P, E, R, M, A, N

 

or Superman

 

That's how the riddle is solved...