17
$\begingroup$

I've made an interactive 3D cube puzzle in CSS, The puzzle is fully solvable from the images below, but the fully interactive version is here: https://codepen.io/chengarda/full/RwyKvwz

The empty cube has nothing in it, the aim of the puzzle is to fill it with everything that it lacks.

The puzzle is designed to be easy to guess, but hard to solve - i.e. you may well be able to guess the answer to all 6 faces after solving only one (or none!), but properly solving every face is more of a challenge.

enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

Knowledge tag: Relies on some external knowledge, where there may be a discrepancy Wikipedia is used as the source.

Hint:

Everything is a clue.

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ I know you've already accepted my answer, but any chance of an extra hint for the unsolved parts so that I (or someone else) can finish it off? $\endgroup$
    – fljx
    Commented Oct 3, 2022 at 9:49
  • $\begingroup$ Sure, the labels for each face provide a general thematic clue towards solving the face, since you have the answers already, you might try r13(Jbexvat ... ... Onpxjneqf) $\endgroup$
    – Chengarda
    Commented Oct 4, 2022 at 11:04
  • $\begingroup$ That should help you figure out how to read the first icon on the unsolved face. It is a sun, but there's another way to read it. $\endgroup$
    – Chengarda
    Commented Oct 4, 2022 at 11:08

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5
$\begingroup$

Solutions for five faces, and some ideas for where to go from there.
With some assistance from @Stiv and @wimi.

7:9BOJ: Not solved

At the top we have a sun, a red dragon (from Mahjong) and the Greek letter Beta.
The numbers look like colour temperatures, but haven't got anything from them yet.

7:41OC1:

These are all frequencies of notes at standard concert pitch (all relative to A4=440Hz).
Translating them into note equivalents gives us:
A4 E6 B6
A5 D7 C7
B5 A4 F6
B5 A6 G5

Just looking at the letters, that doesn't give us anything meaningful.

But... we can assign letters to notes, starting with A4 = A and ignoring sharps/flats.
So A5=H, A6=O, A7=V, up to E7=Z:

    A.BC.D.EF.G.
 4  A BC D EF G
 5  H IJ K LM N
 6  O PQ R ST U
 7  V WX Y Z

And if we now translate our notes we get:
A S P
H Y X
I A T
I O N

So the answer to this face is: Asphyxiation

6:1EG:

Time for some chemistry!
Replacing the various words with their symbol equivalents gives us:
O-H2
H
H4
OH-O2
O-H2
H-OH
HO ???
H2 O3
OH

Not sure what "TotallyRad" should be; but we have just two symbols, which makes Morse Code a possibility.
Taking O as - and H as . we get: 

 -..     D
 .       E
 ....    H
 -.--    Y
 -..     D
 .-.     R
 .- ???  A ??
 .. ---  I O
 -.      N

So TotallyRad is just Oxygen = - = T, and the answer to this face is: Dehydration

b21:3P2:

The numbers here are all elements.
Replacing them with their symbols we get:
S Ta Ru'
At I O
N

Taking the ' as an increment indicator changing the "u" to "v", we get the answer to this face: Starvation

61:7RP:

The image posted here is inconsistent with the live puzzle, so taking the RGB values of the colours of the two squares from the live puzzle gives us:
R: DE 4E
G: F1 43
B: C1 59
The values from the first square can be read as leet-speak giving us "Defici". The second square isn't so straightforward, but all the hex values are in range for ASCII letters, giving us "ncy".
And with the "&" being taken as an E (possibly from its origin as a ligature of e and t), the answer for this face is: Deficiency

1:2EG:

These look like co-ordinates, but translating to letters instead gives us:

 A, H
 I, A
 I, G
 M, E
 N, B
 N, F
 O, D
 S, C

And ordering those by the second letter gives us:

 I, A
 N, B
 S, C
 O, D
 M, E
 N, F
 I, G
 A, H

So the answer for this face is: Insomnia

Putting it all together:

Entering those into the interactive version of the puzzle doesn't do anything obvious, but...

The five faces solved so far are words for a lack of something:
Asphyxiation is a lack of air/oxygen, and air gave me a green light for that face.
Water works for the Dehydration face.
Sleep doesn't work for the Insomnia face, but dark does.
No obvious words for food or sustenance work for the Starvation face.
And a Deficiency could be a lack of a wide range of things.
Not sure where dark fits in, but Air and Water are two of the four classical elements (with Fire and Earth).

Trying those for some of the unsolved sides finds that Earth is the keyword for Starvation (not sure how that fits).
And Fire is the keyword for the unsolved Sun-Dragon-Beta face.
And looking again at the cube as a whole, we can see that Fire/Water are on opposite sides, as are Air/Earth. So maybe they form three pairs of opposites.
The Deficiency face is opposite the Insomnia/Dark face, and Light is the keyword that gets me the green light and a .COMPLETE. message from the live puzzle.

So in summary we have:

 7:9BOJ:  ???           Fire
 7:41OC1: Asphyxiation  Air
 6:1EG:   Dehydration   Water
 b21:3P2: Starvation    Earth
 61:7RP:  Deficiency    Light
 1:2EG:   Insomnia      Dark


And I have no idea what the coded title of each face means.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
10
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I got a different answer for u' '- I think this implies augmenting that letter by 1 so u' is actually v, and your answer is starv... which fits the pattern. $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 9:01
  • $\begingroup$ @Stiv That makes more sense. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – fljx
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 9:45
  • $\begingroup$ Very nicely done, you're past halfway! For 61:7RP I'm not sure your RGB values are correct? The two colours are defined in CSS as rgb(222 241 193) & #4E4359 $\endgroup$
    – Chengarda
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 9:54
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ rot13("Nve" naq "jngre" ner n fhofrg bs n jryy-xabja yvfg...) $\endgroup$
    – wimi
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 10:46
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Re 61:7RP, if the second square gives you 'NCY' then the first's hex codes looks a lot like leetspeak for DEFICI - if there's an E to put between the two, then that's another full word in the same vein as the rest of the puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 13:14
3
$\begingroup$

As a start, I have an answer for face 1:2EG:

INSOMNIA

Why:

Each number from 1 to 8 appears once in the second coordinate position. Ordering by the second coordinate, the list of the first coordinate values is $9, 14, 19, 15, 13, 14, 9, 1$. Take these as position numbers in the alphabet, with $A=1, B=2, \ldots, Z=26$, and the resulting eight letters spell "INSOMNIA".

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.