First puzzle and a Dark souls 3 deluxe edition GA to win! [Ended with solution]

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Hello Steamgifters !

Enter here with no fear this is just a puzzle like others.
Xmas is coming os it's a perfect time for a gift.
And making a puzzle is perfect cause gifts are things for people who try their best.
Do this puzzle also for your own pride and for the fun to solve things.
Enjoy it, solve it and share your thoughts on this puzzle after you solved it to help me to improve my skill.
Claim your reward too after solving to join my whitelist.

It's time now for things that can help you :
Maybe read some guides can I help you( Zelgh's guide is like a Bible)
Also read things carefully and take your time. This is not a rush you have 2 weeks.

Let's go !

Here's something you will need to advance later : 424b425142425751425257425752574b0d0a

So now you'll have to solve the mysteries of this chess board with the hints below and access the final test before you can enter the GA.

1) There is 8 pieces to place on the board : White King, Black King, White Queen, Black Queen, White Bishop, Black Bishop, White Rook, Black Rook. All of them are on a black square.
2) Rooks are the pieces with the highest line number for their color.
3) Queens always come before kings in the alphabet when we refer to columns. And you won't find a rook in g column.
4) Three of the black pieces are on the lines 5 to 8 and three are on the columns a to d. At least King and Rook share those 2 properties.
5) None of the pieces you must place share the same line or column.
6) The white pawn is not near another piece.The piece you have to place in the first column is white.
7) There is a piece in e4 and f1 and they have the same color. The bishop of this color is in a lane between those 2.

There is no level restriction and the GA is in the top 20 wishlisted games by the steamgifts community.

Ga will end the 4/12/2016

Good luck !

Solution:

Step 1:
You have a chain of characters to decrypt 424b425142425751425257425752574b0d0a with hexadecimal. Hint for that was the first letters of the first part of my post (if you didn't realize already it was hexadecimal). Decryption give BKBQBBWQBRWBWRWK who is an order of chess pieces you have to place in step 2.

Step 2:
It's a logic puzzle that you can solve by following those steps:
a) Eliminate all white squares as pieces position. (hint 1)
b) place a piece in e4 and the piece in f1 (hint 7) and deduce there is also a pîece in d5 because D4 and F1 black squares are no longer possibilities (hint 5)
c) use (hint 6) to remove 2 other black squares. You now have only a6 as a viable position in first column and the same thing for b2.
d) You know from (hint 6) the first column piece (a6) is white so b,c,d are black and 5,7,8 are black too. With (hint 7) you also know e' and f1 pieces share the same color so they can't be black but are white. And the white bishop being in a row between those 2 pieces can only be in h3. And you als can deduce the 2 last pieces positions c8 and g7
e) (hint 2) mentionning rooks are the highest row number and knowing all white pieces you can deduce a6 is the white rook and c8 the black rook.
f) using second part of (hint 4) you can place black king in d5 and then using (hint 3) you can place the black queen in b2 and the white queen in e4. White king being in f1. Last piece is the black bishop in g7.

so we have now with the order:

BK in d5
BQ in b2
BB in g7
WQ in h3
BR in c8
WB in h3
WR in a6
WK in f1

Step 3:

Now you are searching how to access the final stage of this puzzle with no more real clue guiding you. Since you are here to solve the mysteries of this chessboards who have squares pretty messed up. Chessboard is an 8 by 8 squares so 8 characters for the ITH crypted in binary with black (0) and white (1) squares. so you had to convert all the chessboards in 0 and 1 and read your lines in the order you find starting from the piece position to the right side of the board and then from the left side of the board to the piece position. (that was the reading tricky part of the puzzle).

That give you:

00110010
01100011
00110110
01001000
01011000
01101011
01011001
01100001

you decrypt it and find 2c6HXkYa
And then you access here http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/2c6HXkYa to the final step.

Step 4:

The question is 1+0x1-0= ? a math equation with the 1 and 0 being the clues you had to use.
After using binary to come here you just have to count the number of 0 ( 36 black squares) and 1 ( 28 white squares) and then convert your equation

28+36x28-36= 1 000 (don't forget multiplication has the priority on addition and soustraction)

And you finally solve this puzzle. I hope you enjoyed it.

View attached image.

8 years ago*

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176 Comments

IAmZorglub

Passed the third step to find myself on what looks to be the last question - where only 3 succeeded until now. I can think of a lot of answers, but none seems to be the "right" one.

8 years ago