"Nice to meet you! Do you know your A-B-Cs?"

"A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z"

"Terrific! You do indeed. Now, instead of telling you what I think, I'll do something better, I'll invite you to The Alphabet Train! 26 wagons, one for each letter of the alphabet! You need to be Level 3 or more to board it, and you can get on it until next Sunday 10th of May, at 10AM UTC."

(...)

"Oh, right, I'm sorry, here's the ticket."




This train and puzzle are over! Nothing to see here!

(except the solution below if you're curious)

The train ticket included 5 images, so first of all you needed to figure out that each one corresponded to an alphanumeric character, and combining them all together you'd obtain the relevant part of the URL to the first wagon of the train.

Now, I said several times in the discussion that there was some common theme to what you needed to "extract" from each image. And, this being The Alphabet Train it kind of made sense to be something related to the alphabet. Or, maybe, AN alphabet?

Indeed, the thing in question was the NATO phonetic alphabet, and each image corresponded to an element in this alphabet:
1: Victor Vran ---> Victor ---> v
2: A couple tango dancing ---> Tango ---> t
3: Charlie Sheen ---> Charlie ---> C
4: Juliette Lewis ---> Juliet ---> j
5: Sub-Zero ---> Zero ---> 0
All together: vtCj0, which gives us the URL of the first wagon of the train.

The relative sizes of the images was a clue of whether they were upper-case or lower-case. I also made Sub-Zero taller than lower-case but shorter than upper-case in order to indicate that he represented neither, but a number. Anyway, "Sub" doesn't belong to the NATO alphabet, so it was the "Zero" part what we wanted.

Finally, a couple of hours after the puzzle began, I edited the OP so the first letter of each paragraph spelled N-A-T-O, but I'm not sure anybody noticed it :P

4 years ago*

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Bump for Solved!

3 years ago
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OK, let's revive this a bit with some pointers for those who are still struggling with this one.

Like I said before, the 5 items displayed in the ticket share some common... link, theme, call it whatever you want. If you have guessed the theme from a few of them, you should be able to tell whether the other ones are right or not. Without a doubt. If you think you know the theme and still are unable to tell at once whether the one or two remaining items are correct, then I'm afraid you don't know the theme.

Having said that, I know for a fact that many of those that have solved the puzzle and boarded the train, did so without even realizing there was a common thing between the items in the ticket. So it's entirely possible to get into the train without actually "solving" the puzzle, but in that case chances are you'll have to try many different guesses before finding the right one.

Keep at it, and good luck!

PS: Please, please, PLEASE refrain from posting your current guesses here, as I'm not going to tell you whether they are right or wrong. What's more: best case scenario, if your guesses are right all you'll be doing is helping others solve the puzzle, so your chances at the giveaways will be lower.

3 years ago
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Finally got it.
Thank you, starporcasa.

3 years ago
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Thanks for the puzzle!

3 years ago
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Last call for the Alphabet Train! In 24h it will be gone for good!

3 years ago
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Bump for solved and thaks for the train!

3 years ago
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I did not expect to solve that on the first try, but I somehow managed. Thanks for some giveaways I've wanted to win for some time :). Bump!

3 years ago
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A -Bump - C

3 years ago
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Less than 12h to go!

3 years ago
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Bump!

3 years ago
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Tried a couple of guesses that seemed to make sense. Could you post the answer to this after the giveaways are over? :)

3 years ago
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Solution posted on the OP. 🙃

3 years ago
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Aw, nuts. I had vtCj, but I thought the last one was S (due to it being Sub-zero).

Thank you for posting the solution. :)

3 years ago
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Bump

3 years ago
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Bumf for solved

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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revisted the puzzle after many days only to solve it now at first go with 1h running... Man; why hadn't I thought of that simple reasoning earlier... :D

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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awesome!

3 years ago
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lol I got in
BUMP

3 years ago
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Nice giveaway :) Literally solved it 3mins to late lol

3 years ago
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Alright, the show's over! I've posted the solution in the OP for those who couldn't solve it.

Thanks to all the entrants and to those who tried. :)

3 years ago
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Nice. I overthought it, and got stuck trying to identify the people in the tango picture. XD

3 years ago
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damn, solved in my mind, but incorrect put symbols =/

3 years ago
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View attached image.
3 years ago
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Closed 3 years ago by starporcasa.