New contest!

[TheKid965]

Frankly, I'm still stuck on Part 3. I suck. --;

[A.J. Franzman]

There doesn't appear to be any obvious meaning behind the different colors.

 

IMO, there was no logical reason in Puzzle #5 to look at the CX numbers either, especially since you went out of your way to use Sears titles, which aren't generally associated with CX numbers.

 

These toughest puzzles all seem to have that trait in common - a leap must be made without logical foundation. When I saw this puzzle, the first thing I thought was, "Great! A picture. Maybe this will be like the infamous Pitfall puzzle that I saw online." So far, it doesn't seem to bear any further resemblance...

[Room 34]

There doesn't appear to be any obvious meaning behind the different colors.

 

Red, green, and blue don't have any obvious meaning to you?

[A.J. Franzman]

Well, if you put them together you get white, as in a color television or monitor, but what the &$%# does that have to do with the price of tea in China? I think the trouble here is those colors can mean too many different things. There isn't enough info given to narrow down how we're supposed to apply them.

[Room 34]

There is order in what you see in part 7, but also chaos.  Create order from the chaos, chaos from the order, and you may find a solution.

[vb_master]

Stuck on part 2.

[video game addict]

I'm a little late jumping in here, but I decided to give it another go. I tried a few weeks back & must of missed a letter somewhere as I was stuck on the very first one. Gave it ago day before yesterday & it took my answer after I redid the thing, going back over each.

 

Then I passed #2 with easy... sort of. I screwed up a letter on it too, & had to hand write down to see my error. I had one too many letters & my last one wouldn't go. Now on to #3...

 

 

And it is seriously kicking my ass.

 

I can see some similarity between a few of those titles, but I don't where to go with it. I think maybe I think too hard.

 

Maybe I'll come back & see it differently later

[TheKid965]

Finally, someone else who's stuck on that part.

 

I still can't figure that one out at all. I know it has something to do with a pattern established by California Games, but I can't really find any connecting link between the remaining games (and one of them doesn't even appear to exist, at least as far as AtariAge is concerned!). My latest thought was to think of each "line" of cartridges as a string of binary code, but again I can't quite figure it out - do the CG cartridges represent 1s or 0s? And should I count rows or columns as strings, and in what order? And there has to be some relation between the other games in that picture, because there's no way it can possibly be random.

 

What's truly scary to me is that this is only the third puzzle, and there's five more on the other side - and based on what I've heard already about what's to come, I shudder to think about #5 and #7 if I can't even figure out #3!

[A.J. Franzman]

Finally, someone else who's stuck on that part.

 

I still can't figure that one out at all.  I know it has something to do with a pattern established by California Games,

Nope.

 

but I can't really find any connecting link between the remaining games (and one of them doesn't even appear to exist, at least as far as AtariAge is concerned!).

Yes it does, look again. I'm new to Atari collecting and I found them all fairly quickly.

 

My latest thought was to think of each "line" of cartridges as a string of binary code, but again I can't quite figure it out - do the CG cartridges represent 1s or 0s?  And should I count rows or columns as strings, and in what order?

You're making it more complex than it is. Big hint: There's no particular reason for all of those California Games to be there, others could have been used in place of some or all of them.

 

And there has to be some relation between the other games in that picture, because there's no way it can possibly be random.

There are relationships between many of them, but aside from a certain aspect there is also much randomness.

 

What's truly scary to me is that this is only the third puzzle, and there's five more on the other side - and based on what I've heard already about what's to come, I shudder to think about #5 and #7 if I can't even figure out #3!

Good luck! Maybe if enough of us get to puzzle #7, some one among us will have the same sort of non-sequitur of thought patterns that its creator did...

[Room 34]

CLUES FOR PART SEVEN

 

Clue #1:

 

Listen to track one.

 

 

Clue #2:

 

[Room 34]

Nuts, should have previewed first... screwed up the BBcode.

 

CLUES FOR PART SEVEN

 

Clue #1:

 

Listen to track one.

 

 

Clue #2:

 

[Christophero Sly]

Can't get the second link to work. Don't own that Radiohead album.

[Room 34]

Can't get the second link to work.  Don't own that Radiohead album.

That was a mistake... I wanted to embed the images in the page, but I screwed up the BBcode. I also screwed up the link itself for the second image in the first post; it's a GIF, not a JPEG. My follow-up with the images is correct.

 

You don't really need to hear the song...

[Christophero Sly]

Can't get the second link to work.  Don't own that Radiohead album.

That was a mistake... I wanted to embed the images in the page, but I screwed up the BBcode. I also screwed up the link itself for the second image in the first post; it's a GIF, not a JPEG. My follow-up with the images is correct.

 

You don't really need to hear the song...

 

Sorry. I realized right after that post that you would quickly fix the problems and that I didn't need to actually hear the song. I want the edit button back!

 

Thanks for the clues. Hopefully, they'll help narrow down the various ideas I've had. I'm still pretty lost though.

[aimeric]

The new clues....hm....

 

Wait, I got it! The second picture is Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"! You have to play the album and the unknown Wizard of Oz Atari prototype at the same time and wait for the lion's roar!

 

Still stumped. But it has given me an excuse to listen to Radiohead for the first time

[video game addict]

Did everyone finally give up on this one?

[Room 34]

Did everyone finally give up on this one? 

835405[/snapback]

 

Maybe so... I even had almost forgotten about it.

 

I think it's time to call it. I'm going to gather up the solutions and post them here shortly.

[Room 34]

SOLUTION: PART ONE

 

This is a simple list of games. Here they are.

 

1. Kaboom!

2. Demons To Diamonds

3. Super Breakout

4. The Activision Decathlon

5. Golf

6. Skiing

7. Gremlins

8. Adventure

9. Stargate

10. RealSports Boxing

11. Sprint Master

12. Basic Programming

13. Space Invaders

14. Othello

15. Slot Machine

16. Brain Games

17. Pole Position

18. Mario Bros.

19. California Games

20. Fire Fighter

 

Taking the letter out of the title that is in the position indicated in parentheses (in the original puzzle) for each title gives you the solution to enter in the box:

 

aabcfiguringsomrpmor

 

Solution to Part Two coming shortly...

[Room 34]

SOLUTION: PART TWO

 

Ah yes, the word search without a list of words. At least this one doesn't feature maddening alternating-line overlaid puzzles a la Pitfall Harry. (However, I succeeded where he failed: Making a puzzle too maddening to be overcome by being interesting!)

 

All of the game titles start with the letter D. There's at least one prototype in there. (Only one, I believe, but it's been a while since I put this together.)

 

Once all of the titles are found, the remaining letters, reading left-to-right and top-to-bottom (shown in red in the attachment), give the solution:

 

aacgenteelershtetlskirlxiv

 

Coming soon, part three!

[Room 34]

SOLUTION: PART THREE

 

The big trick here was just figuring out what to do. The solution was to take the first letter, not of each game title, but of the name of the MANUFACTURER of the games. I thought the clearly legible "EPYX" at the top of the California Games carts might be a clue... but maybe not.

 

Anyway, the solution here is...

 

acheerierfretsretvet

 

Next up, part four...

[Room 34]

SOLUTION: PART FOUR

 

Match the sentences from the manuals to the game titles. Google is quite handy for any of these that are posted on this site (or ANYWHERE) in HTML format. Not so helpful with those only posted as scanned images, so was sure to include a few of those. The games are:

 

1. Adventure

2. Enduro

3. E.T.

4. Lock 'n' Chase

5. No Escape!

6. Up 'n' Down

7. Turmoil

8. Super Cobra

9. Vanguard

10. Oink!

11. Wizard of Wor

 

No tricks with the solution... just the first letter of each title:

 

aeelnutsvow

 

Next, the moment you've all been waiting for... the solution to part five!

[Room 34]

SOLUTION: PART FIVE

 

Here's where I got too crafty for my own good. (Whoever described this as a non sequitir hit the nail on the head, I think.)

 

The first part of this is simply to identify the games from the artwork slices. These are shown in order in the attached image.

 

Now the trick(s):

 

1. Determine the ATARI title for each game shown with a Sears box.

2. Use the Atari CX26xx number to assign a value 1-26 to each position (CX2601 = 1, CX2626 = 26).

3. Convert the number 1-26 in each space to its corresponding letter of the alphabet, A-Z.

 

The solution is:

 

ahensstript

 

I will stop here for now. I think this part was the hurdle few crossed. The remaining challenges are easier! So maybe we can pick up from here. I'll still honor the prize if anyone submits the correct final solution to the puzzle by midnight CDT Tuesday, April 12.

 

To recap the solutions that got us this far:

 

PART 1: aabcfiguringsomrpmor

PART 2: aacgenteelershtetlskirlxiv

PART 3: acheerierfretsretvet

PART 4: aeelnutsvow

PART 5: ahensstript

 

You can jump directly to part six of the contest with this URL:

 

http://room34.com/contest/ahensstript/index.php

 

Good luck!

Edited April 12, 2005 by Room 34

[+Nathan Strum]

2. Use the Atari CX26xx number to assign a value 1-26 to each position (CX2601 = 1, CX2626 = 26).

 

This is the part that threw me for awhile. I couldn't find the Atari CX numbers at AtariAge for the Sears-only titles. Finally, I checked AtariProtos and found them there.

 

Haven't gotten back to the contest though. Been too busy (and lately sick) to think straight for five minutes.

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

[tumbleweed] Has anyone made any more progress on this? [/tumbleweed]

ò¿ó   

[A.J. Franzman]

Has anyone made any more progress on this?

ò¿ó   

952178[/snapback]

The deadline passed many moons ago and nobody posted the final solutions or announced a winner, and now even the contest webpages are gone, so consider this the "Swordquest" of AA contests.

 

The unawarded prizes have been embezzled by Room 34 and are now displayed prominently above his mantel.

Edited October 21, 2005 by A.J. Franzman