My Da Vinci Code cryptex arrived today and it’s much nicer than I was expecting.  I knew they said that it had a retail value of $30, but somehow I was still envisioning something made entirely out of plastic.  Quite a bit of it is metal and it’s fairly heavy.  Here’s a picture:

The code for opening it was on on the bottom of the box.  Now, we’re all set for the final round.

And the final puzzle of the quest could be solved in minutes.  The final “observation” challenge was particularly easy if you had read the book, which would have given you the answer to the final question.  It also wasn’t hard to figure out which video on Google videos would be used today and watch it before the challenge was released.

Now, if you’re done, it’s time to sit back and wait to see if you’re in the top 10,000.

The penultimate puzzle is a “geography” challenge meaning that is the final round, the puzzles are played in order from top to bottom. I already had a strong feeling about which city would be featured today, and the four cities featured formed the set that I was expecting.

The final challenge was, however, not as difficult as the last two. The final question was a mathematical one and not a geographical one, which made it easier for me. They also manage to tie all of the geography puzzles together which is pretty nice.

Tomorrow, the final puzzle.

For all that’s been said about helpmates and such. The “chess” challenges still baffle me. I played a couple different boards today. I am convinced that some of the boards have multiple solutions. Further, for one board I played, a wrong answer on the first trivia question resulted in what I thought was a valid first move for the helpmate. If we do indeed see helpmate puzzles like these in the final challenge, I hope that there is a single solution or that all valid solutions will be accepted.

For the last of the “curator” challenges, the puzzle does become slightly more difficult because there are no paintings placed for you, but this still remains the easiest of the puzzles.  Now, we move on to the question based puzzles to finish up our quest.

The key to answering the trivia questions this round seems to be Google book search.  We’ll see what kinds of questions we get for the “chess” and “observation” challenges.

For some reason, the final “restoration” challenge seemed easier than the one before it. And there didn’t seem to be more particles of debris. I can see in soem ways this being the sort of puzzle game where you can just get lucky and stumble upon the solution faster.

The question today was a Leonardo related trivia question made for Google. I’m beginning to wonder how long it will take for 10,000 people to solve all 24 puzzles. Certainly, it seems right now that any of the puzzles could be solved in minutes.

The final “symbol” challenge is the 6X6 sudoku as predicted.  I had thought that the chalice would be the sixth symbol, but instead a key, which we’ve never seen before, was used.

The question today required intimate knowledge of a very specific passage from a book.  And provided a link to Google book search which was, in fact, very helpful.

The Yorkshire Post has an article today about a British Couple, Allison Carmichael and Martin Woods, who developed a Da Vinci Code themed board game for their kids. The Couple then sold the game to a firm in England who developed it further. It’s now available in retail stores across the UK.

The game’s website has quite a bit of information about the game including sample puzzles. The puzzles fall into four categories: Vitruvian Man Clues which are anagrams; Codex Clues which are general knowledge riddle couplets; Rose Clues which are geography riddle couplets; and Logic Key Clues which require a numerical answer.

The game is not currently available in the US. You can buy it and have it delivered overseas from the site. Or you can sign up to get an email when the game is released in the states.

It seems that the degree of difficulty for the jigsaw portion of the “geography” challenges will not be increasing. However, the map manipulations and questions that follow are getting more complex. Today’s challenge was the most difficult of the quest so far. the final question in particular took me a good amount of time and many wrong guesses. Ultimately, it was Google Maps that helped me to find the answer. In retrospect, I maybe should have tried to use knowledge from The Da Vinci Code a little bit more as well.

Warning: Comments contain answers to today’s challenge.

I definitely found it easier today to pay more attention to the chess board than the trivia questions.  I believe that all of the answers to the trivia questions may actually be found in The Da Vinci Code, but you would have to have read it very closely.  You’d be much better off if you were a history buff.  I’m still having difficulty seeing the solutions from the beginning of the challenge.  I think because they usually require black to make a really bad move, and I just have trouble thinking that way.

Again more hooks for the “curator” challenge, but the puzzles here aren’t getting any harder.  There are very few spots where the large paintings fit.  I don’t even notice the hooks when I try to hang the paintings.

The question today asked for a translation from English into another language, which is a more difficult question for native English speakers.  Still, web resources abound for this sort of thing.

The “restoration” puzzles are becoming more complex. While I managed to solve some of the early challenges just by trial and error, more bits of debris means more possible moves and it’s becoming difficult to test all possibilites. As a result, I’m starting to see the puzzle better. Particularly, I’m beginning to notice when a potential move would leave a debris cluster isolated with no possible future moves using that cluster. I think that “restoration” may be my favorite challenge.

The question today again involves translation, but of a code not a language. Here, you’ll be helped out quite a bit if you’ve actually read The Da Vinci Code.

Justice Peter Smith has explained the code that was embedding in his ruling concerning the plagiarism allegations against Dan Brown. Smith apparently has no love of crosswords or sudoku, but is a major history buff. The link above will tell you the full text of his encoded message, but it relates to the historic launching of the HMS Dreadnought, 100 years ago.

The second “symbol” challenge is a harder 5X5 sudoku, meaning that the last “symbol” challenge will probably be the 6X6 sudoku.

The question today asks you to translate a word. Wait… doesn’t Google have a translation service? Actually, I just happened to know what the word meant.

For the second “geography” challenge, the jigsaw puzzle isn’t particularly more difficult but the follow-up questions are. After assembling the pieces, we’re given an anagram to solve that reveals the location of a museum in that city. Honestly, the anagram is difficult and I didn’t solve it. I was able to guess the city because I have a pretty good idea which four cities will be featured and the available letters for the anagram really only lends itself to one of them.

After guessing the city, the anagram is unscrambled and I’m told to locate the location on the map which is marked by a hidden Greek Cross. It’s actually hidden quite well and I had to look on a tourist map of the city to get a general idea of where to look before I could find it.