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Post by stercox on Jul 18, 2021 14:23:03 GMT -5
Congratulations to the super solvers!!!!!
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Post by whispa on Jul 18, 2021 15:32:17 GMT -5
The full solution is posted here. I hope this works. My electricity just went out so I am doing everything on my phone! Geneticblend.imgbb.com Worked for me, thank you!
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Post by GeneticBlend on Jul 18, 2021 15:34:38 GMT -5
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Post by stercox on Jul 18, 2021 15:52:02 GMT -5
GENIUSLY FABULOUS!! But if I never see the word WIDDERSHINS again I will not be heartbroken!
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houstontxdave
New Member
Active in the Secret: A Treasure Hunt since 2005
Posts: 26
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Post by houstontxdave on Jul 18, 2021 18:40:17 GMT -5
Congrats.
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 19, 2021 6:02:29 GMT -5
Darn, so close. Just yesterday (pre hint) I thought of F for fish, B for bee, M for mouse but didn't get anywhere. I also thought LEARN indicated 50 numbers (25 letters) because if you add the number representations you get 50.
We'll see if I was right about:
Address of the bakeries being used (very clever) Ccw spiral of the poly letters (besides pinwheel rotation and widdershins, the side of the blowing seeds from the two plants indicate the wind blowing in a ccw circle) Calendars--use the date numbers "around noon" Extra card meaning to add in an extra letter.
Will be very interested to see how 3454 was the only possible solution to the number pyramid (2545 also has only poly digits) and what Opposite meant.
What a fantastic puzzle! This must have taken so much planning.
Thanks to Beth and congrats to the winners! Bill, Fandango and now this. You're the puzzle master for sure.
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 19, 2021 6:03:16 GMT -5
Ah, I just saw that the solution was posted.
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 19, 2021 6:32:18 GMT -5
We'll see if I was right about: Address of the bakeries being used (very clever) Ccw spiral of the poly letters (besides pinwheel rotation and widdershins, the side of the blowing seeds from the two plants indicate the wind blowing in a ccw circle) Calendars--use the date numbers "around noon" Extra card meaning to add in an extra letter. Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Lol i have more things I was wrong about than right. Early on I used a spiral of letters in the poly grid. But was sure we needed a ccw rotation and that opposite indicated the next step. I thought the 1 tile on its side to the left (a ccw rotation) meant the first step is to use a ccw rotation of the grid, which meant the second step was Opposite somehow (tried atbash for instance) followed by Anagram. Then I got stuck thinking we needed to rotate the entire poly grid instead of spiraling. Both Puerto Vallarta and St Louis have a bakery called Pie in the Sky. And both of their street addresses use only the digits 1-5. I thought Beth's hint "Did I mention I love pie" confirmed this. At first I used 3114 for the cards but then changed my guess to 311114. Beth's hint One Four could apply to either, and I thought maybe she meant four ones. So Beth, curious about the title of the hunt. Also what did one mask being important mean? Was that because the objects in the picture were a mask for the poly grid?
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Post by artofhiddenmessages on Jul 19, 2021 9:35:37 GMT -5
susb8383, and everyone else,
Originally, I hadn't given my hunt a title. So when I saw that other hunt setters were giving titles to their hunts, I had to make one up, and quickly. So just off of the top of my head, I came up with "Pie in the Sky" because of the prominent moon in my painting. I have often heard of people calling the moon a "pie in the sky" or a "pizza pie in the sky". The phrase, "pie in the sky" originally comes from a song, and my final phrase also comes from a song. And the meaning of "pie in the sky" is something that is difficult to obtain", like a pipe dream. So I thought that was fitting as well, as there are many people trying to solve the puzzles, but there can only be one winner!
The number pyramid can only have one correct answer because once you have your grid with the letters filled in, only one combination of numbers will produce a word. You can narrow your choice down to numbers that fall between 1 and 5, but only 3-4 and 5-4 will give you a word, which in this case, was, "BY".
As for the cards, I picked this deck because I liked the art, and there were a lot of cards that had masks on them (Masquerade). In hindsight, the cards seemed to cause a lot of confusion for people, and if I had to do this over, I either wouldn't choose this deck, or most likely, not choose cards at all and find another method to deliver the 3-1, 1-4 and LEARN. But to answer your question about the mask...As I mentioned, I liked this deck because it had a lot of pictures of people wearing masks. So I used some of those cards as fillers to go around the mini puzzles. People were concentrating on those, such as the joker card, and the woman wearing the black death mask. They were not important. Only the 4 of Diamonds mask was important. It was the only mask in a mini puzzle.
One of the other cards I included is in the top center and shows a top hat. There is a top hat on the front of the Rush album/CD.
You didn't ask this, but I will throw this in too....Like the cards, the stamps were just thrown in as filler. I needed some "things" to hide or cover up areas (like the postcards, I had to cover up the Saint Louis Arch), or just act as filler for empty spaces. So to go along with the theme that PV and SL were traveling, I tried to find stamps that had rabbits/hares on them. And I tossed one of a mouse in there that went along with the Masquerade illustration.
I hope this answers your questions. And if anyone else has questions, I will be happy to answer them if I can. As always, this is a learning experience for me, and I try to take away what I can to make better hunts in the future.
Thank you to everyone who participated. Win or lose, you can feel good about donating to charity, while being entertained (and maybe frustrated) with puzzles!
There are still three more hunts remaining. So good luck to you all!
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 19, 2021 11:00:05 GMT -5
Ok everyone. It seems that every hunt I've ever worked on has had these little solutions that fit into the puzzle perfectly yet seem to be just coincidences. I think there being a Pie in the Sky Bakery in both PV and SL with street addresses that use the digits 1-5 fits into this category.
I think as treasure hunters we should come up with a term or an acronym to describe this. They aren't red herrings because they aren't misdirections intentionally placed by the creators. They're more just random coincidences.
Any ideas? Rancoins?
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Post by whispa on Jul 19, 2021 11:26:23 GMT -5
Ok everyone. It seems that every hunt I've ever worked on has had these little solutions that fit into the puzzle perfectly yet seem to be just coincidences. I think there being a Pie in the Sky Bakery in both PV and SL with street addresses that use the digits 1-5 fits into this category. I think as treasure hunters we should come up with a term or an acronym to describe this. They aren't red herrings because they aren't misdirections intentionally placed by the creators. They're more just random coincidences. Any ideas? Rancoins? Winepourers lol Edit: We found the same bakeries as well and went off on a pie tangent for a good few weeks lol!
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Post by artofhiddenmessages on Jul 19, 2021 11:40:38 GMT -5
That is funny! But as a searcher as well as a creator, I know what you mean!
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Post by beefaghetti on Jul 19, 2021 11:57:57 GMT -5
Congratulations to the solvers! Thanks for the great puzzle!
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Post by stercox on Jul 19, 2021 12:56:09 GMT -5
Ok everyone. It seems that every hunt I've ever worked on has had these little solutions that fit into the puzzle perfectly yet seem to be just coincidences. I think there being a Pie in the Sky Bakery in both PV and SL with street addresses that use the digits 1-5 fits into this category. I think as treasure hunters we should come up with a term or an acronym to describe this. They aren't red herrings because they aren't misdirections intentionally placed by the creators. They're more just random coincidences. Any ideas? Rancoins? The random coincidences....I think we should henceforth call them PIECRUSTS, as a nod to this hunt. From the wrong angle they may look like the real thing, in reality they are just empty shells, but also something you could snack on for days. I can see myself on some future puzzle saying, "Damn! I got so piecrusted on that clue!!"
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Post by susb8383 on Jul 19, 2021 15:07:44 GMT -5
The random coincidences....I think we should henceforth call them PIECRUSTS, as a nod to this hunt. From the wrong angle they may look like the real thing, in reality they are just empty shells, but also something you could snack on for days. I can see myself on some future puzzle saying, "Damn! I got so piecrusted on that clue!!" Oooo. I like that!
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