I’d like to ask the good people of this community that, if you do know the solution or figure it out, that you not share the answer here. Feel free to announce your success, but there’s something to be said for discovering the answer completely unaided, even if it takes years.

It’s embarrassingly obvious once you see it though.

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[–] 81 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Ever play the game Myst? As a kid that's exactly how it was. Days of banging my head and then a rush of finally figuring something out. Really miss that

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    I recommend Outer Wilds then.

    Go in as blind as possible. They recommend a controller over mouse and keyboard and they mean it. The DLC is just as good as the base game, but I'd tackle it after doing the main objective.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Outer Wilds or Outer Worlds because I've heard good things about both but know nothing about either.

    I have played Chants of Zenaar some which also hits the feeling.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Take a look on tunic, but it comes with some combat action, which may not be what you are looking for.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I've looked at Tunic before but it always looked more like Zelda to me. I dunno why but I've always bounced off Zelda.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    I don't like Zelda games myself but loved tunic. The puzzles are completely different than Zelda, much more interesting. The other commenter mentioned you can tone the combat down. Maybe worth a try if it is on sale.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I was more of a Return to Zork kid. I'd work my way up to each character, and then kill that character to see their death scene. Then I'd start over and work my way to the next. I got all the way to the vulture at the cave, and stopped playing because I was told there were no more people to murder after that.

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    [–] 71 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    For everyone saying it's the difference between the two numbers, it's not it. Because the last one should be 8 to follow the rule

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  • [–] 55 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Figured it out. Weirdly, knowing you solved it made me confident I could too, and I don't even know you 🤔

    spoilerI focused on the anomaly ignoring the rest, tried to see what possible rules could lead to it, then went back to see which rule also applied to the "non-anomalous" numbers.


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  • [–] 42 points 8 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    Once I saw a video about Mario Kart speedrunning history and there was a record on Rainbow Road that lasted for years. Than someone broke it but just told the community without showing how it was done. In a couple of days someone else figured it out and did it too. Sometimes we just need to know it is possible

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago*

    Yes, the hint that the answer was obvious once you knew it was extremely helpful.

    I'm not that quick with math, so knowing that the answer was going to be simple helped a lot. Every time I had an idea that was too complicated, I shelved it and kept looking for something that might be simpler.

    It also helped that I was a camp counselor, and one of our survival techniques was to have riddles with simple rules that the counselors were able to operate very easily, but which the kids used lots of brain power to try to figure out.

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  • [–] 22 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    What the heck man I have things to do today.

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  • [+] [S] 42 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I wish I saw this first. I'm very prone to off-by-one errors.

    I opened the comments thinking that I solved it, then some comments with broken spoiler tags essentially spoiled the actual answer for me, despite my best efforts to ignore them.

    With these types of puzzles, I normally start looking for solutions that don't just involve the obvious operations. Had I seen your comment first, I would've continued playing with the first thing I noticed (and later abandoned for the wrong solution) and I think I would've got there by myself eventually.

    Either others need to be more mindful of their spoiler tags, or I need to stop using Sync for Lemmy. It's probably the latter; I've seen such weird formatting that only makes sense if I assume Sync's Markdown renderer is broken.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago

    I think I figured it out, but it's so easy that I don't think that could possibly be it. But it is, apparently.

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  • [–] 37 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    How do we know if we're right then?

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    You solve for it.

    If the answer you get is right, you'll be able to apply it to every trio and get the number on the "line". It's kinda like how you can plug in your answer into a quadratic equation to double check you got it right.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Ah, typo is short for typographical error. I’v never realized that before.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago

    I figured it out took about 10 minutes, thought i was onto it immediately until I had 8 at the end haha

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago

    It took me several minutes but I finally got it. The comment saying to focus on the "anomaly" and how it could be 7 helped me to get there.

    Yeah, feels pretty silly that I didn't see it sooner. I overcomplicated it haha.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago

    I admit this one extended my toilet time more than I intended, but I got it!

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Got it. Very misleading puzzle, haha.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I think I figured it out but I always second guess myself lol. I feel like getting it on the first try means I am way off.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    Nice puzzle, at first you go "wtf last should be 8" but then I read the last sentence "not a typo" and took some minutes to crack it. If it wasn't for having seen a similar solution in a different puzzle I would have been completely lost and once you know the solution it's impossible to not see it. I can see how the author of the puzzle really liked it.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago

    I have to admit that I believe I have successfully found the solution.

    It took me about 2 minutes lol.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Thank you for the share. I will be back in three years time

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  • [+] -13 points 8 months ago (2 children)
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    [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    Oooh, sneaky but simple

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago

    Wow so easy, I got this in negative 4 second, literally 4 seconds before I even saw the puzzle. Of course I'm not going to share the solution here because I don't want to ruin It, but I definitely got it.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    The number of comments in this thread where people confidently declare they solved it with the wrong answer is absolutely baffling. Especially since it literally calls out the exception to that 'solution' in the post itself. Did those people not even look at the 7? That's the real strength of this puzzle, making idiots who think they're geniuses loudly prove their stupidity.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah it takes a different type of self confidence to think someone else can consider "adding two numbers" as their master piece puzzle lol.

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  • I think I've been addled by years of seeing versions of "99% of MIT students get this WRONG! can you do better?" proceeded by 2 + 8 ÷ 4 = ?. I didn't comment but there was some time where I thought I had it and completely missed that the 7 contradicts the pattern, even though it's specifically called out. I'm glad someone did comment so someone else could correct them, otherwise I would have left the puzzle behind never knowing I had gotten it wrong.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Figured it out! That was cool, thanks!

    Tap for spoilerOnce I saw it and heard "the solution isn't obvious", I got focused on the idea of digital roots cuz I thought back to the game series 999. But that didn't work, so I focused on the shape of the pizzle and thought it looked like a thermometer, so I tried conversions of F to C, which also didn't work. But when I heard other people say that it made then think about the "obvious" solution and work around the 7, I thought back to my digital root idea and realized I was applying it in a different way in 999 versus what's happening here.

    This was a fun adventure~

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Took me about 20 minutes. There's a rule you find first that would work if the 7 was an 8. But it isn't. So there's another rule.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Got it in my first try! Thanks for making me feel extra smart today, though I think I'm just lucky. I recently watched a horror game with a similar one xD

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    I prime factored everything and was looking at ways to manipulate the factors together in a sensible rule. Seemed like a good approach, with the prime numbers at the end.

    Now I'm a bit disappointed that

    spoilerit was just the digits and not the factors...

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    I love puzzles like this—the rule always seems obvious after you see it. It’s satisfying when something that sits in the back of your mind for years finally clicks.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Got it! Really cool puzzle. I used to enjoy solving puzzles like this, but nowadays I don't spend time in that.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Got it. Nice puzzle.

    First I figured out what was meant by the number 7 isn't a typo, by jumping to the wrong solution. Next I figured out the next idea was and it worked. No spoilers ༼⁠ᕗ⁠ຈ⁠ل͜⁠ຈ⁠༽⁠ᕗ

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago
    [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Well, I got it correct with a guess based on a casual glance at what was there, not how the numbers actually relate or calculations based on rules or patterns.

    Then I had to figure out how it actually worked.

    Which was harder -- I wish I had kept scrolling.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    That was a mean one. Adding another row at the top would expose it, though.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

    Oh i see,

    Its

    solution12

    You add up the digits.

    (7+2)+(9+9)=9+18=27

    9+(4+5)=9+9=18

    (1+8)+(3+9)=9+12=21

    (2+1)+(3+6)=3+9=12

    3+(2+8)=3+10=13

    (1+3)+(2+1)=4+3=7

    Yay

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (2 children)

    Looks like this for me?

    Moved it down a line is it better?

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Being real, if this post hadn't made it clear that the solution was non obvious, I likely would have given up before getting it, just because my chicken is being more interesting than usual.

    But, knowing that there was a "trick" to it, meaning that it takes some lateral thinking, I didn't take my usual approach to number puzzles, which means it only took one look at the upper left for the likely solution to be visible. Then it was just running down and testing with the rest, then plugging in for the solution.

    No way in hell I would have had the patience for it when my baby bird is being a silly dinosaur without that front loading assumption the solution wouldn't be evident with a systematic approach. Oh, I'd have given it maybe fifteen minutes, but with a fuzzy butt in play, that would have been it

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    Dammit. I'm gonna have to stare at this for a few years now.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Wow, I just woke up and saved this to have a nice puzzle to work on for a while but I figured it out in like a minute... Kinda disappointed that happened to be honest.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    I figured it out in about 3 minutes. I think I'm autistic or something

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Took me a bit more and I'm not autistic. But: see below.

    Hint that helped meReading op claiming he figured it by just looking at it and not making complicated calculations on a piece of paper probably helped a lot.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    I’m afraid that this post has ruined my evening. I can’t figure it out and can’t let it go. I hate this.

    Edit: I would not have survived if my life depended on my answer. I had to read through four to five people talking about methods until I noticed it. I’m really a stupid person.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Took me a few tries until I figured it out. It's cunningly misleading but it's not a trick puzzle (as I had suspected from some people's comments). There is a simple pattern.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago*

    I can give one hint if you want.

    The solution reminded me of "Numerology". Which I am familiar with and probably why I was able to solve it in about a minute.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Commenting for later (cheers OP)

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Made me remember the extremely simple logic suite, a child could do it, but I had to sleep on it:

    O T T F _

    What's the letter after F ?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Solved it. Wonderful. I got really hung up on dividing things by nine and seven, trying to use the remainder and stuff. But the answer, as always, is far more obvious. That which we are so used to interpreting, we simply ignore it.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Thank you for posting this, it was exactly what I needed today and I didn't know it!!

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I still keep thinking it's 15, which I know is wrong, and then I math in 14,but I can't figure out a function. Does someone want to dm me or spoiler me the function how it works? My brain is too full of more important stuff and I cannot make room for this. But I must know!

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Someone else commented the pattern. The answer is not 14 or 15.

    HintThere is no function. You won't find the answer by trying different combinations math operations on the values. You need to think more outside the box.

    Hint #2Ignore the values.

    Hint #3Focus on just three numbers. How can 13 and 21 produce 7?

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