Judge Peter Smith who presided over the case of Baigent and Leigh vs. Random House, concerning alleged plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code, embedded a puzzle in his ruling. The full text of the ruling can be found here. Some industrious slashdot poster has already taken the first step in solving it.
The “chess” puzzles appear to be getting more challenging by adding more pieces. If you’re playing by answering the questions, it’s probably no more difficult. But if you’re playing according to the way suggested by the puzzle’s designer, Wei-Hwa Huang, (thanks to Derrick for mentioning this in the comments) more peices means more possible moves to consider adding considerable complexity to the puzzle.
The puzzle for day 10 is the second “observation” puzzle. This time around, the video is the “Meet Silas” video. Oddly enough, all of the questions can actually be answered by watching the video and, more or less, actually require you to watch the video. In the last “observation” challenge, two of the questions could be answered without watching the video, if you had seen the movie.
These “observation” challenges may be the least interesting of the challenges in the quest. It’ll be interesting to see if, in future weeks, we’re asked to look for things that are more truly hidden.
Warning: The comment section of this post contains answers to today’s challenge.
The second “curator” puzzle was about the same difficulty as the first. There were some hooks that didn’t need to be used, which added a little bit more complexity but not very much. There are still very few ways that you can fit large rectangular objects in a fixed space.
The trivia question today was peripherally related to The Da Vinci Code. The one that I answered concerned a real person mentioned in the book, though I don’t believe the answer can actually be found there. But that’s what wikipedia is for.
The second time through the “restoration” puzzle was significantly more difficult. There was more debris on the painting requiring you to think ahead a little more. It’s probably best at this point to start thinking about strategies for solving this puzzle and practicing the puzzle a couple more times after solving because these are only going to get harder.
The trivia question today requires you to find a book by ISBN. (Wow! I bet Google Books would be perfect for that.) Hmm… I wonder if more trivia questions this week will be so well suited to a specific Google service.
For the second “symbol” puzzle, the sudoku is larger–a 5X5 jigsaw sudoku. Perhaps by the end, we can expect a 7X7 puzzle or a very difficult 6X6 puzzle (since the quest seems to only be making use of 6 symbols.)
The trivia question had nothing to do with The Da Vinci Code and, instead, asks you to do a conversion between some of the more obscure units of measurement.
Still not too difficult, but I like the direction we’re going in now.
The “geography” puzzle is a jigsaw puzzle and a plug for google maps (should have seen that one coming.) After assembling the pieces of a satellite map, you’re given a hint about what city it is and then you have to identify it. (Of course, the biggest hint is the google maps text in the lower right corner.)
So, Silas was the character today even though the phi is not his symbol. But again, we are not asked to identify a symbol to finish the puzzle. Prusumably, the next round will feature more difficult versions of the same puzzles.
Today, a “chess” puzzle with Sir Leigh Teabing that’s really a disguise for more trivia questions about the book. The puzzle features a chess board with with an end game position on it. You want to get it to a check mate position. In a column on the left is a trivia question with four possible answers. When you mouse over each answer, a different move is demonstrated on the chess board. When you select an answer, that move is executed. Of course, only the correct answer will get you one move closer to check mate.
So there are really two ways to solve these puzzles. The first is to just answer all of the trivia questios, which you will know if you’ve read the book (or if you can use google effectively.) The second is to figure out how to get the chess match to check mate. (Or you can combine the two, which is sort of what I did.)
Interestingly, we weren’t asked to name a symbol today. This is odd, since that’s been the theme all week. I have to say, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s puzzle the most. First, to see what character (if any) is associated with it. And second to see how it relates to phi.
The “curator” puzzle, as one might expect, involves hanging paintings on a wall. (I was hoping that, since it was related to Sophie Neveu, it would be a cryptogram.) There are different paintings of different sizes and shapes and they all have to fit on the wall. The only other twist is that there are hooks on the wall in a specific pattern and loops on the paintings that must be matched up.
Even with the twist, though, this is another puzzle that can be solved in two minutes. At this point, I’ve done enough research on the web site that I can anticipate the answers to the questions as well. I’m still viewing this as a warmup round though and I’m hoping that the next time through the categories will be more challenging.
So the categories will not necessarily come in the order that they are listed. Today’s puzzle was an “observation” puzzle. It involved watching a video on Google video (yet another plug for a Google service) and answering three questions about the video. There’s a little bit of trivia that you need to know (which you might remember from reading the book) to get all of the right answers or you can find the answers with a little bit of googling.
But I was wrong about today’s puzzle being related to Sophie Neveu, because I was anticipating a “curator” puzzle today. But the characters and their accompanying symbols observation holds true. So, “curator” puzzles will feature Sophie Neveu and “chess” puzzles will feature Sir Leigh Teabing. By that reasoning, “geography” puzzles will not feature any characters–possibly featuring locations instead or the Louvre.
The second Da Vinci Code puzzle seems a bit like a logic game. To be completely honest, I didn’t understand it at first and solved the puzzle by trial and error.
The puzzle presents a painting with a question printed on it, obscured by blemishes. The object is to remove the blemishes so that the question can be read and answered. At this level, the question is easy enough to read because there are so few blemishes,but they must still be removed before the question can be answered. The playing area is a hex-grid and the blemishes are placed in individual hexes. Pairs separated by one space can be selected and they join together to form one blemish in the space between. When you’re down to only one remaining blemish, the puzzle is solved.
The question was similar to yesterday’s and, if you’re watching the web site, you’re certain to notice a pattern emmerging. The six symbols for the six different categories also correspond to symbols for the six different main characters on the site… almost. The Cross is used to represent the character Silas from the movie and is not used for a puzzle catagory. A phi is used instead to represent the Geography puzzles, and I have not yet found a phi on the site. I guess I’ll find out what’s going on on Friday. Still, I’m expecting the character related to tomorrow’s puzzle to be Sophie Neveu.
There are definitely some interesting things going on with both the site and the movie trailer. It’ll be interesting to see if these play into the quest at all.
It’s a sudoku! Except with symbols instead of numbers (hence the “symbol” category.) It’s a very basic 4X4 sudoku with four symbols. (Here’s hoping the puzzles get more challenging as the quest goes on.) After I solved the puzzle, I was asked a question about the symbols which I was able to answer after visiting the Da Vinci Code movie website.
It seems like there may be quite a few tie-ins between the puzzles and the movie web site, so I’m expecting more of that in the future.
I said in my post yesterday that I had no idea what kinds of puzzles will be part of The Da Vinci Code Quest on Google, but today I got an idea thanks to an image I found on Steve Rubel’s blog. The image shows what the widget for your Google personalized home page will look like. The widget asks the question: “You have proven yourself worthy so far, but do you have what it takes to finish the Quest?” Beneath the question is a button that says: “Play the next puzzle” and beneath that are 6 words with 4 symbols next to each. Some of the symbols are filled in and one is highlighted. It doesn’t take a genius to see that 4X6=24 and that most likely the 24 symbols represent the 24 puzzles. It’s a good bet to assume then that the 6 words are six categories. They are: symbol, restoration, curator, chess, geography, and observation. Here are the kinds of puzzles we can expect.
A new puzzle challenge is taking place to promote the new move The Da Vinci Code and Google personalized homepages. It’s called The DaVinci Code Quest on Google and will feature 24 puzzles over 24 days starting on April 17th and then a final puzzle to determine a grand prize winner. The grand prize is a trip for four to Rome, London, Paris, and New York.
To solve the puzzles, you have to have a google personal homepage. The contest site will allow you to add a widget to your page that will present you with a new puzzle every day. The winner will solve all 24 daily puzzles and then the final puzzle in the shortest amount of time.
It’s unclear what kind of puzzles will be featured, but I’m guessing a variety of logic puzzles. And possibly some will require the use of a google search.
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