Codes and Cryptography
Welcome to Chapter 3! This is a tutorial on the how to solve different types of puzzles! Ready? Let us begin!
Next, I will share my personal tips to solve puzzles. Of course, people have different methods and tricks, but I hope you can put these to good use.
One thing I find useful when solving ciphers is to gather and analyse all the information. Taking an obscure clue (or clues) and breaking it down into chunks can make things far easier, and looking at the ciphertext can clue you in as to whether it is a substitution cipher (which would usually have proper punctuation and spacing) or transposition (which would have a huge chunk of gibberish).
Another thing I do is simply searching online. For example, an obscure reference to the puzzle's answer can be easily identified, making it much easier than randomly guessing. For some puzzles, relying on the Internet is in fact essential, as they would be impossible otherwise.
Also, using something known as 'rubber-duck debugging' can be incredibly useful. What that does, essentially, is to gather all the clues and discoveries already made by writing (or speaking) them out in a comprehensive summary, then coming to a conclusion from seeing or hearing everything put together. It sounds absurd, but it does actually work.
For logic puzzles, thinking out of the box is generally necessary, since having an alternate interpretation of a phrase (or the rules of the puzzle) is an incredibly common trope for such puzzles. Similarly, if you can't think of any way to connect or successfully use the information given regarding the puzzle, you're probably not thinking creatively enough - either that, or you're getting pranked by red herrings.
Here's an example to help explain:
'Hard, Bad, Rough? What are you going to write next huh?'
Answer: Sincerely, Me
What I did to solve this was to firstly break the information down - 'hard, bad, rough?' seemed to be one section, with 'what are you going to write next, huh?' being the other.
Additionally, d e and h are all bolded. By googling 'deh', I got two Departments of Environmental Health, Dealer Equipment Headquarters, and Dear Evan Hansen. Since the first two were rather unlikely, that left Dear Evan Hansen. Next, googling that suggested that it was a musical of sorts. Also, the words used sounded very slightly like lyrics.
What I did there was just googling things and coming to a possible conclusion. It might not be correct, but it is one theory. From there, I found the lyrics of the Dear Evan Hansen songs and ctrl+f'd the word 'hard' into them - I wasn't sure whether or not the words in the clue were rephrased, and being too specific could mean I missed things when searching.
Eventually, one song I found, called 'Sincerely, Me', had the words inside. Also, it was about two people struggling for the correct word to say, while writing a fake letter. That fulfilled all three of the information 'sections', and was the answer.
Here's another example to help explain:
The Yellow Emperor and the Flame Emperor fought in the battle. The year added with number of battles, which then multiplied with the number of likely locations will give you the answer.
Answer: 7509
The battle that is referenced is the Battle of Zhuolu. The year is in 2500BC, and added with 3 battles, makes 2503. Afterwards, by multiplying it by 3 likely locations give 7509.
Here's one for you to try!
Hermes turned out to be evil in 14. Maybe I would understand things better if I understood roman numerals...
The solution is here!
Well done! You finished Chapter 3! Click here to head to Chapter 4!