Friday, September 24, 2010

[Competition] OK, if I can’t trust you to keep answers secret, I’ll set the questions

(Not a proto.)

The Riddler will post three puzzles as comments to this post; one soon after this competition is posted, and the other two on separate occasions in the future.

In order to encourage Befuddled to join sooner rather than later if they join at all, when a Befuddled makes their first comment on this post, anyone may transfer 1 IQ from him to the Riddler for every full 24 hours this competition had existed when that Befuddled made the comment.

Befuddleds, other than the Riddler, may submit solutions to the puzzles the Riddler posts here via a) sending their purported solution privately to the Riddler via BlogNomic PM, IRC PM, or email at callforjudgement!yahoo.co.uk (replacing the ! with @); and b) commenting to this post with the fact that they submitted a solution, but not the solution itself. After a correct solution is submitted by a Befuddled on a given puzzle, further submissions by that Befuddled on that puzzle are ignored. When a correct solution is submitted this way, the Riddler will transfer IQ from himself to the Befuddled in question according to the following schedule: 3 IQ for a correct solution the first puzzle that Befuddled solved; 5 IQ for a correct solution to the second puzzle that Befuddled solved; 7 IQ for a correct solution to the third puzzle that Befuddled solved. Wrong answers are penalised via transferring 3 IQ in the other direction, from the Befuddled to the Riddler. The Riddler will post comments to this thread as to whether submitted solutions were correct or not (again, without revealing them).

Additionally, for each of the three puzzles, 5 IQ may be transferred from the Riddler to the first Befuddled to submit a correct solution to that puzzle. When either 4 days have elapsed with some Befuddled (other than the Riddler) having solved all three puzzles, or 9 days have elapsed with no correct solutions to any of the puzzles being submitted, then the Riddler can transfer 1 IQ from each Befuddled to himself for each puzzle that Befuddled did not solve; then if some Befuddled (other than the Riddler) solved all three puzzles, the first Befuddled to do so is awarded a Medal, and otherwise, the Riddler is awarded a Medal.

(Note: I already have all three puzzles I plan to set. I submitted the puzzles, but not the solutions, to a puzzle compilation (and two of them were accepted), so I’d appreciate it if you don’t reveal the solutions beyond BlogNomic, although obviously I can’t enforce this. I believe the puzzles to be rather difficult, except perhaps the first, but hopefully within range of what at least some Befuddleds should be able to manage. Feel free to cooperate on the puzzles if you wish.)

SSqoBCkkqnLceKRwGnAdenAoBCw0BCwnBC90tCAdBKHwh3HsGSHrh3AsGEHxDYGwBKF1Dn1jqKPw
GEHzqYj6hCAgBKPahdzcDfA0BKPxDYMce2AwhYNctZ1zh3FgtZRsGS4cV2ccq2AshE4lWcx=

Comments

ais523:

24-09-2010 12:02:58 UTC

And here’s puzzle 1:

The above image shows an 8x8 board of squares, some of which are black, some of which are red, some of which are blue. There’s a piece in the top-left corner (a8 in chess notation), and a piece in the bottom-right corner (h1 in chess notation). What you need to submit is a sequence of moves that allows the two pieces, between them, to move to every square on the board exactly once (i.e. 62 moves to cover 62 more squares).

The rules for moving are as follows: every turn, exactly one of the two pieces moves, and it must move to a square that’s adjacent vertically or horizontally (not diagonally). Additionally, the first and second moves (by the two pieces between them) must be to squares of the same colour; the third and fourth must be; the fifth and sixth must be; and so on. For instance, you could move the top piece to b8 then c8 (red then red), then the top piece to d8 then e8 (blue then blue); alternatively, you could move the top piece to b8 then c8 (red then red), then the top piece to d8 then the bottom piece to h2 (blue then blue); the colour pattern doesn’t care about which piece it is that moved. Finally, you can’t go back to squares that have already been moved to; not even if it was the other piece that moved there. So neither piece can ever move to a8, for instance, because a piece started there.

Let me know which piece moves where for each of the 62 moves, in some sensible notation. Good luck!

lilomar:

24-09-2010 17:02:16 UTC

hm

Thane Q:

25-09-2010 02:54:08 UTC

I have submitted a solution.

ais523:

26-09-2010 15:04:12 UTC

Thane Q’s answer is incorrect, rather obviously so.

scshunt:

27-09-2010 02:30:17 UTC

This comment serves to let me into the contest with no penalties. Hooray for idleness

ais523:

27-09-2010 16:30:39 UTC

Heh, that’s ingenious. I’m still not entirely sure it works; I’ll have to think about it more.