[ENDED - Solutions added] Devilish Puzzles for Diablo IV Giveaway. Ends December 28th. (Level 2+)

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Happy Holidays!

Below are some puzzles (in the images) that I have made/reworked recently. I realize these puzzles/riddles (mostly word-based) are not for everyone, but if you enjoy lateral thinking and "aha!" moments, then I hope you find something here that you like! Feel free to work together, I think it is more fun that way!

https://www.2solve.me/quiz/00c1d883/it-a-coin-toss-who-will-win
Winner will have to accept my Steam invite.

Good job to the 3 people who were able to solve the puzzles. I hope you enjoyed them! Below are the solutions:

There was a bit of a recurring theme throughout the set, starting with “It's a coin toss who will win.“ Not only is the winner randomly picked, this was a reference to the many heads and tails throughout the puzzles and clues.

Puzzle 1 - Contronym Conundrum.

Q1: After straightening out the lights and replacing the non-working bulbs, Janus turns tail and heads to do what?
Answer: Trim Tree

This was essentially like making a word search puzzle. The goal was to take Janus words/contronyms and fit them into the grid based on the light pattern. Once you identified the words and filled in the grid (or at least the black boxes), you could have seen the message “Trim Tree", which also has contradictory meanings.

Puzzle 2 - Callipygous Communication.

Q2: Make a list and check it twice, making heads and tail will suffice.
Answer: Fruitcakes

It’s a bunch of pictures of well-known butts overlayed with fruit lol. Cake can be slang for butt. Also, every word you had to come up with was somehow related to a loom…. As in Fruit of the Loom, as in underwear… for butts lol. This is less of a hint and more of a peak into my childish sense of humor lol.

JENNIFER WALTERSMELON – The similarities of She-Hulk and watermelon aside, this one was as easy as Googling the quote to find the missing word – “FABRIC”.

TRACER CHASER – Forget that Tracer and “blowing raspberries” both have origins in London, the important clues here are the phrase and Ana. Ana is holding a Graham cracker and Colombian flag. Ana + Graham cracker = anagram cracker. If we look at the phrase “HOP IN LAMB COCOON” we might notice that we can make the word “Columbian” out of some of the letters. Out of the remaining letters we could make the word “Poncho”. A quick search for “Colombian Poncho“ will lead us to a type of woolen poncho (lamb cocoon) – “RUANA”.

BIKINI-LESS BOTTOM – What’d Mr. Krabs tell you about those hooks, boy? Apparently an upside down pineapple is a symbol used to indicate swinging, which is a big no no (when it comes to hooks anyhow). All of this is irrelevant. Flip the pineapple and you will see a “spongeU” and “spongeN”. Add them to the hook – “UNHOOK”.

LEMON SQUAT – Phi + lemon = Philemon, a book of the Bible. The sets of numbers follow a format common in book ciphers (Ottendorf ciphers for you National Treasure fans). Philemon is only 1 chapter on one page, so a logical indexing could be verse-word-letter. But the Bible has more versions than Spider-Man, so which one do you use? Those squats definitely don’t look like the greatest of all time, and that yellow with the purple text is reminiscent of the Lakers’ colors. That must be ~~Lemon~~ Lebron James! We should try the King James Version of the Bible! This leads us to a secret message and our word – “INTERWEAVE”.

PEACH PIT – It’s a shot of Mario’s rear from the Super Mario Bros. movie with an appropriately flat peach emoji (it was an ”issue” before the movie came out). Seen rolling past, or perhaps over the peach (it would explain the flatness) is a Spindel. Also littered around the image are pics of forums. What do forums, Spindles, and emojis have in common? – “THREADS”.

“Make a list and check it twice, making heads and tail will suffice.” is a clue that if we make a list of our words and read the first and last letters we will find our answer.

Puzzle 3 - It's all fun and games until… went down, historically. (Reindeer Games)

Q3. Irreverence will loom in the absence of whom?
Answer: Grandma

Loom is a nod to the previous puzzle. The obvious choice of someone who would be absent here is Rudolph. However, the red-nosed reindeer was a red herring. The poem told you what to do.

"GAMES IDEAL FOR A FOGGY DAY” hinted that the foggy pictures were games. I really wanted to put “REINY DAY” but decided against it. =P

“NAMES OF THE EIGHT WHO PULL THE SLEIGH” referred to the names of Santa’s reindeer (but no Rudolph).

“AIM’S TO COMBINE, MIX, BLEND AND FAY” was indicating that you needed to combine the titles of the games with the names of the reindeer to make a punny hybrid – GEOMETRY DASHER, JUST DANCER, PRANCER OF PERSIA, RAINBOW VIXEN, XCOMET, CUPIDHEAD, HORIZON ZERO DONNER, and NFL BLITZEN.

“CLAIMS OF MISFITS TO DISCOVER”, “AMITY IF YOU DON’T BELONG”, and “UNITY FOR THOSE THAT ARE WRONG” were indicating that you should isolate and use the letters that did not belong in the original game titles to finish the poem. Those letters were ERRARVENETIDONEREN.

“LEVITY RUNS IN WHOSE HIT SONG” not only hinted that the next line would be about a popular song, but also indicated that the song was irreverently joking about Grandma being involved in a hit and run. Seeing that the first word of the last line was a 6 letter word ending in “ITY” and that our letters allowed us to spell “ENTITY”, which fit with the “WHOSE” of the previous line, it was a safe bet to go that route. Likewise, “OVER” seemed appropriate as it would go with the rhyme scheme. Sticking with the theme of the puzzle as well as other two words of the line, a logical (and correct) solution for the last line would be “ENTITY REINDEER RAN OVER”.
8 lines, each with 8 syllables, about 8 games and 8 reindeer, leads us to one entity, which familiarity or Google will tell us is poor Grandma. God rest her soul.

Puzzle 4 - I tip my hat to your masterful mind.

Q4: I think everyone who is coming for dinner is here. Let's eat Grandma and guests!
Answer: Santa, Grinch, Scrooge

“I tip my hat to your masterful mind.” is a hint that this is a mastermind-style puzzle. It’s also a subtle (though not necessary) hint that hats are relevant. “I think everyone who is coming for dinner is here. Let's eat Grandma and guests!” is a throwback to the previous puzzle as well as a hint to use commas.

A green light indicates there is a correct value in the correct position. A yellow light indicates there is a correct value in an incorrect position. A red light indicates there are no correct values in any position. Deducing the answer is a matter of pure logic.

Puzzle 5 - What did he sayyyyyy? Mondegreen?

Q5: Mr. Krabs, you're really going for a hat trick with showing your ____. (This is a play on a southern phrase.)
Answer: tail

“Hat trick” is a reference to the previous puzzle as well as the Spongebob episode “One Krab’s Trash”, in which Mr. Krabs sells Spongebob a novelty “soda drink hat” with a “#1” on it, and then, upon hearing it is worth a lot of money, tries to get it back. This endeavor eventually leads Krabs to a graveyard where he meets #1, A.K.A. Smitty WerbenJagerManJensen. Mr. Krabs steals the hat and fights his way through an army of the living dead.

Throughout the episode, Mr Krabs is an ass. A southern (USA) way of saying this is “showing your ass”.

The pictograms in the speech bubbles represent mondegreens (as hinted at by Olive, The Other Reindeer, as well as the image title). The pictograms at the bottom (not in the speech bubble) are not mondegreens. All of this worked together to hint at “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”, which is from Ecclesiates 1:2 (Smitty colon poop).

Smitty is looking at Ecclesiastes, which has the unique letters of “LIAT”, or, as seen from Smitty’s POV, “TAIL.”

View attached image.