Puzzle Night – Season 2 Night 3

 

The journey through the newspaper concludes in the funny pages.

Code Sheet

Location Puzzle – Web comics!

Puzzle 1, page 1 page2

• Hint 1

  The pieces should fit together to form a 5×5 square, and all tracks are contained in the grid (nothing exits an ‘edge’).

• Hint 2

  Borders are indicated on the corner pieces and the middle-most side pieces, and a message circles the grid.

• Hint 3

  Once the grid is complete, you should be able to find the code name trade connections emanating from criminal nodes. Also, a somewhat obscure informal fallacy is a ‘Double-barreled question’.

• Hint 4

  The trade connection code names ‘theme’ each node that they connect with, and the border clue should hint at the criminal node names.

• Hint 5

  The nodes are all Batman villains, and the trade connections between each villain are a clue that relates to both of their names.

• Solution

  HUMOR

Puzzle 2 page 1 page 2

• Hint 1

  Listen carefully to the ‘Annex Mentions’, and try to connect with the night’s theme.

• Hint 2

  Wordplay has hidden some names of famous comic ‘gifted students’ in the list of annex mentions on the left. Their names should match with the first or last letters indicated on the right.

• Hint 3

  They are X-Men names. You should be able to complete the grid on the second page using tips on Corral/Cave puzzles. Also, for example, ‘prehensile octopus’ hides ‘Psylocke’.

• Hint 4

  Once you have completed the grid, there should be a large-ish ‘open’ space in the middle of the 4 connected grids, in the columns noted. You should be able to fit the names of the x-men vertically in this space, in the order given in the list of blanks on the first page.

• Hint 5

  The X-men names are:
  Professor X
  Jean Gray
  Psylocke
  Beast
  Colossus
  Ice Man
  Wolverine

• Solution

  HUMOR

Puzzle 3 page 1 page 2

• Hint 1

  Each strip has had a set of letters substituted by symbols, and these letters compose a word (a word that is clued by the content of the comic strip).

• Hint 2

  The comic name ‘minus’ the word composed of the removed letters should result in a new word, a word that is also clued by the content of the comic strip. As an example, Mary Worth is missing a ‘Flowchart’.

• Hint 3

  After you have all of the comics’ ‘minus’ words and their resulting short words, you can fill in the list on the second page, and create an additional ‘minus’ word based on indexed letters from those words (based on the symbols)

• Hint 4

  Once you perform the operation using those the previous words and subtract the indexed word, you should have the name of the last comic strip, featuring ziggy.
  You just need to repeat what you’ve been doing all along to get the final answer.

• Solution

  DRAG

• Walkthrough

  Mary Worth minus FLOWCHART = MY
  The Far Side minus FEATHERS = ID
  Doonesbury minus DEMONS = BURY
  Peanuts minus REPUBLIC = ANTS
  Garfield minus FRIDAY = GEL

  $[6]&[4]&[5]#[4]@[2]^[6] = SUBTLY (indexed into previous ‘minus’ words)
  MY ID BURY ANTS GEL minus SUBTLY = MID RANGE

  MID RANGE minus MINUSES = ‘DRAG’

Final Puzzle page 1 page 2, Comic book cover

• Hint 1

  The heroes on the cover should be identifiable, and the second page has snippets of dialog from villains.

• Hint 2

  The villains can only be defeated by abilities of specific heroes. The top section should be relatively straightforward.

• Hint 3

  When heroes team up, their abilities can be combined. And if it’s not clear by now, the heroes’ ‘abilities’ come from their names.

• Hint 4

  To combine two heroes abilities, you take the sounds from one hero’s ability at the beginning, and the sounds from another hero’s ability at the end. Also note that each team-up will always feature one of three specific heroes.

• Hint 5

  An example: PortMan and WitMan teaming up have the power of WART.

• Solution – step

  CUBES IN MATH OR GRANTS CHARGE TO

• Solution – final

  POWERS

• Walkthrough

  The characters, in order of answer on second page:
  TUB-man
  TRUE-man
  PORT-man
  PEARL-man
  NEW-man
  SAND-man
  COUGH-man
  MOLE-man
  WIT-man
  FREE-man
  LEATHER-man
  PULL-man

  The teamups:
  PULL + TUB = PUB
  SAND + WIT = SIT
  PEARL + PULL = PURPLE
  NEW + WIT = KNIT
  TRUE + COUGH = TROUGH
  PULL + MOLE = POLE
  WIT + PORT = WART
  TRUE + LEATHER = TETHER
  TRUE + FREE = TREE

  Taking the ‘page’ for each answer and filling in the letter blanks on the cover, you get the clue:
  CUBESINMATH
  OR
  GRANTSCHARGETO
  Cubes in math; Grants charge to.

  The thematic answer to these two clues that matches the enumeration at the bottom is POWERS.

 

Season 2 Finale Puzzle page 1 page 2, ‘Classified’

• Hint 1

  Each of the classified ads clues a famous person or character who has placed the ad

• Hint 2

  The candidates can be ‘classified’ according to shared attributes.

• Hint 3

  The lists of enumerations on the second page is listed in alphabetical order – and the stains should help you classify the candidates

• Hint 4

  The phrases on the left of the second page are anagrams of the stain categories.

• Hint 5

  One of the categories has only one item in it! But your answer clue will be constructed from the sequence of 39 letters taken from candidate and category name enumerations.

• Solution – step

  NEWYORKPAPERFINALEORAPOCALYPSETHREEFIVE
  New York Paper or Apocalypse (3, 5)

• Solution – final

  END TIMES

• Walkthrough

  Through the gradual process of identifying characters and attempting to group them with other characters on shared attributes, there should be a back and forth process of character identification. The alphabetical listing of the characters also should make things a bit easier.
  in general, the categories should be identifiable once most of the characters are identified, and unscrambling the anagrammed category names shouldn’t be too hard, presuming you have figured out the general meaning of the categories.
  The list of candidates:
  1 ADELE
  2 AGENT K
  3 AUSTIN POWERS
  4 BILLY PILGRIM
  5 BLACK WIDOW
  6 DONNIE DARKO
  7 ELTON JOHN
  8 EMMA PEEL
  9 ETHAN HUNT
  10 GEORGE SMILEY
  11 HERMIONE GRANGER
  12 JAMES BOND
  13 JOHN LENNON
  14 PITKA?
  15 ROSE TYLER
  16 SHERMAN
  17 SHREK?
  18 SIMON?
  19 TINA FAY
  20 WAYNE CAMPBELL

  The list of categories:
  ENGLISH PEOPLE
  GLASSES WEARERS
  INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY
  MIKE MYERS CHARACTERS
  SECRET AGENTS
  TIME TRAVELERS

  The final message:
  NEWYORKPAPERFINALEORAPOCALYPSETHREEFIVE
  New York Paper or Apocalypse (3, 5)

  The answer to this message, which should fit in with the clue of the entire season and the nature of this finale puzzle (being the last page of the newspaper), is:
  END TIMES