Here is Slovaltine Clue, number five. There is a LOST-related answer hidden in the image. Feel free to discuss it in the comments, but if you think you have the answer send an email to slovaltine@lostargs.com.Hint #1
You can ignore the Aztec pattern on the board
Hint #2
You are moving in the right direction
Hint #3
Wikipedia is your friend
Hint #4
You sunk my battleship!
Hint #5
Notice something strange about the Dharma Logos?
Hint #6
Flipin' sweet, you're almost there.
Hint #7
The Chess notation for the pieces is d6, f6, b4, e4...
Hint #8
d6, f6, b4, e4 could be Hexidecimal... but something is not right...
Solution
Using chess notation, the pieces are are at d6, f6, b4, e4. The Dharma logos are flipped right to left, so if we flip each position d6 = 6d, f6 = 6f, b4 = 4b, e4 = 4e, we get 6d 6f 4b 4e. Convert this hex code to ASCII and you get MONK - like Desmond and Brother Campbell
Posts
264 comments:
1 – 200 of 264 Newer› Newest»First!!!
I'm excited about this one!! Unfortunately I don't have time to work on it until this afternoon :( Have fun guys. Thanks again Dennis and Nick
I can already tell I won't be getting that one. lol
sayidsgirl - I left you a note in the other post.
OK Thanks.
Cool! I don't have to work on it right now either (but I did, a little :) -- have fun and 'till later!
ok coming back to have a go at this soon; i have a few ideas but not confident...
Looks like another learning experience. . . might as well try something, right?
Yay this is my favorite clue so far. Its really clever actually.
I came up with the idea, but Dennis really made it look pro. You've gotta tell me how you make images like this someday - I'm afraid all I have is Paint.
just tell me i dont need PS to figure this one out, lol.
in the args i just wait for people with PS to do the ones that require it.
the picture behind looks like an aztec sun stone- do you think thats relevant or not?
PS?
I thought it was a Mayan calendar - - which has led to some really interesting reading that got me distracted from the puzzle actually. :) Aztec sunstone, huh - more reading I guess. . .
don't know- just guessing; ill have a look at your mayan calendar then, lol.
photoshop
Even if I don't get these things, I truly appreciate all your hard work, Dennis and Nick, to keep us amused!
Aztec chessboard? Yeah, I got nuttin'!
BTW, Photoshop is not required.
Meatball - absolutely no photoshopping is necessary for this clue - it is, for the most part, logic based.
I agree about the photoshop thing, I prefer clever clues sometimes over ones where you can only see the answer if you adapt the contrast or something.
Oh hey Dennis, I'll be sending you a new clue idea in a min ;)
mayan calendar and aztec sunstone seem to be similar things; no idea though still how or if this even relates. any ideas?
Maya Chess seems to be a font? Wonder if that's significant.
(Must stop googling now. . .could do this all day)
agreed/much appreciated.
a little google told me it can also be called a Cuauhxicalli Eagle Bowl. jsyk.
There are 64 squares when you lay out the hexgrams of the Iching. . .fwiw. . .
And we do have little ichings for chess pieces. . .sorta.
"an altar-like stone vessel used by the Aztecs to contain human hearts extracted in sacrificial ceremonies."
wow, that's err... nice...
lol @ nick...that's wikipedia for you.
http://www.the2chessmen.com/Chess%20Mah%20Jong/Blue%20&%20White%20Chess%20Board.jpg
has someone already found this?
that proves its probably irrelevant. Back to thinking about matrixes and stuff.. im so stuck on this one, lol
yeah, i was just seeing if there had been any sneaky changes made.
irrelevant for sure.
Cool find, meatball. Wonder why the words "Mah Jong" is in that url? This image has nothing to do with Mah Jongg (I play twice a week)!
Could it be some sort of grille cipher?
i just came across the same thing, orb.
@meatball, I'm looking at trellis ciphers on wiki but I don't fully understand it.
lol..source acquired~ XD..
well, we know from the start that the aztec-thing is negligible..
cuz nick said "I came up with the idea, but Dennis really made it look pro. You've gotta tell me how you make images like this someday"
..remember?
if you look up grille cipher on wikipedia theres an image of a 'chessboard cipher'
I was wondering if it's a chessboard cipher and the mayan calendar in the background is supposed to give us some sort of clue as to how to lay out the letters or number. . .with the four placed pieces being the 'grille'. . .
Sorry - you guys already said that. . .I forgot to update.
@for i quit soon, maybe he meant putting the dwy symbols on the board.
@Lost 2010: Well there doesn't seem to be anything else to suggest how to put in the numbers/letters so that sounds like good thinking to me.
Although Nick did mention logic, so it could be just a matter of arranging the numbers/letters in a certain logical way.
on the contrary, i think its the dwy symbol that actually have some meaning..
but of course..i can still be wrong.. :p
Could the squares represent letters from previous clue answers? Like, each donkey wheel shows the beginning of a new word?
no i wasn't saying they had no meaning, i just meant that maybe that's what he meant by saying making it look pro.
point being, i dont think we should call any of it negligible.
Can someone fix the solution buttons for Parts #1-#3. Pushing them reveals the answer to #4 only. And I would like to see the answers to the other ones.
Thanks.
@blue heron--if you click on the post title, the clicks work within the individual pages. happened to me, too!
Well I tried going in that direction too. . .The IChing seems to have 64 hexgrams whatever that means - and they seem to correspond to numbers laid out in an 8x8 grid. But depending on which site you look at - the numbers are different
If you pick up the four numbers that would give you for the four ichings I get - - 4, 59, 16, 2 - from the Wiki entry. . .
But I don't know anything to do with those. . .
@meatball:owh yea..i got your point.. :p
but right now, i'm a bit concern about the accurate placing of the 4 dwy symbols..hmm..
@ caroline:
Thanks!
there are chess references in lost itself; can't think how this might help in anyway though. lol. just thought id throw that out there. i'm going to give up soon, i'm getting nowhere
blueheron13 said... Can someone fix the solution buttons for Parts #1-#3. Pushing them reveals the answer to #4 only. And I would like to see the answers to the other ones.
Sorry about that. It should be fixed now...
I think the background is an aztec calendar. The image is not very clear but sure looks like one (cant believe being spanish actually helped on this one!!). If that is the case the pieces will have a nº (date) associated to them and maybe thats what we need to translate ito a answer...¿?
ANM
sounds good ANM; so how are these numbers/dates assigned if that is the case?
Yep definetly the aztec calendar or "Sun stone" discovered in mexico on Dec. 19th 1760.
If anyone else thinks it is eevant I have a dyagram of it with the explanation of each element but its in spanish so I gotta translate it!
ANM
already looked into it, the dates start assignment with that faint inner circle with little pictures of animals on it.
this is actually a picture of a chess board, so i don't think (and don't know if) we need to try and assign dates to the squares.
i feel like we're overcomplicating...or at least i feel like i am.
ANM - Do those spots where the pieces are mean anything special?
See, I keep coming to that being a calendar and the aztecs/mayans reportedly predicting the end of time. . .and the end of lost will be in 2010. . .Any dates on there hook up to that train of thought?
there are a total of 20 dates rranged within one of the rings. However I dont think Nickb or Dennis placed the pieces in relation to them, te image of the calendar is just too unclear. So I keep searching
ANM
yeah; i am thinking it is irrelevant due to the image we found earlier of the chessboard (see above) but seeings as i can't seem to get anywhere down any road at the moment i'm not completely discounting it.
meatball - me too.
It looks like a damn curling game!!
ANM
grr...i thought i had cracked it and had gotten four letters of a lost character's name...then the last letter didn't fit...boo.
If you rotate the chessboard 90 degrees and put in the alphabest repeating over and over, you get a four letter string that begins with L and ends with T but o and s aren't the ones in the middle.
LOL - I'm not sure if we're underthinking it or overthinking it.
well, calendar is 8 letters
just like the nº of squares on each side...coincidence or clue?
ANM
I never even noticed the solutions. I'm so observant.
Ok Cule #1 still don't get. Clue #2 the first thing I did was lol and then say "I hate you Dennis." cause it was so simple. Clue # 3 My eyes see pixels behind all of the letters. I couldn't distinguish a difference. There was a pattern but I didn't notice that only some of the letters had pixels.
Clue # 4 was for puzzle challenged people like me. I got this one. :)
And # 5 intrigues me but I don't think I'm going to be able to solve it either. Ah well it was fun watching you guys do it though.
numbering each square left toright top to botom we get pieces at 19 21 34 37
ANM
Hey does anyone here know Mandarin? I'm trying to translate a painting and only have 1 of 3 characters down.
actually its 20 22 34 37 lol
Don't the squares on a chessboard have names and numbers?
Like I know I've heard people say stuff like Knight to B12 or something. . .
Meatball said... http://www.the2chessmen.com/Chess%20Mah%20Jong/Blue%20&%20White%20Chess%20Board.jpg has someone already found this?
Good find :) That's the original I used to make the clue.
Hint #1: You can ignore the Aztec pattern.
on a couple of diagrams i have seen the chess boards have a-h along the top and 8-1 top to bottom, which would give d6, f6, b4, e4
Okay... I just started and the first thing I noticed was the lower right piece is the only one NOT on a blue square... Not sure if it makes a difference...
And ANM, Lost2010 and Meatball... I really hope you all (everybody!) aren't overthinking it... because I am so lost as to what you all have posted so far! haha
@emerald...you are right, how embarassig, cant even count anymore!!
@nickb I speak japanese which uses some chinese characters so maybe i can help
anm
oh good. we can ignore the aztec pattern. thats one thing out the way, lol; how much time did we waste on that?!
Sayid'sgirl said... I never even noticed the solutions. I'm so observant.
Don't feel bad... I just put them up this morning.
Thanks dennis!!
ok, looked at the grille cipher wiki page. If this is one such cipher we need to figue ot what letters fill the grilland the pieces mark the position of the "openings". In other words we would get a 4 lettered anagram.
Seems super hard.....
ANM
i noticed that too, and im now thinking maybe it has something to do with the fact that white goes first? maybe we need to "start" with it somehow...omg. that's the dumbest thing i've ever said...
yeah, i like the d6 etc. idea.
/is fried.
I only know a few characters of mandarin like 'hello', 'how are you?' & 'i'm fine thanks' but i have a book which may stretch to 'i'm from england' if thats any help ;)
That board thing is the same as a checkers/draughts board and in checkers, the numbers for each square go from the bottom right to the top left so in that case, it would be 28 31 43 45 =) not that it makes much difference =P
ANM, see:
http://www.lostpedia.com/images/e/ed/Mandarin_via_domus.jpg
I know the second character is li (4th tone) meaning strength. As for the other two though, I ain't got no clue cept 1 has what looks like jade in it (but not), and 3 has part that looks like yue?!!?
the fact that 3 are over dark blue and only one isnt might be relevant
@thefrigenitalin Good observation!!
ANM
ANM, et anyone else - if you do figure out that Mandarin, please drop me an email at nickb123ATlostpediaDOTcom
OH!!!!!WHAT IF we use THE NUMBERS!!???10 in six groups....but it might work!
ANM
dennis
Thanks.
But I've been on and off or her since I took my daughter to school this morning.
I tend to open the comments and not check the main page.
When the ARG starts I'm going to be behind all the time. :)
ok the second is strenght, force, power
ANM
Has anyone else noticed that the dharma symbols are a mirror image of what they should be?
just did right before you posted it, good call.
the first means method, manner, way or wind, breeze, blast...
since Im looking up the japanese symbol the rading is different!
ANM
Gotta go for a little while..seems somethig related to wind power...will translate last later!hope it heled
ANM
@alice; i noticed that too but i couldn't think what significance could be behind it, lol.
well im now working with it flipped in paint. trying to figure out a way to make 4-5 letters out of the damn thing.
I wonder if it's two steps. . .as in we have to turn it into numbers and then into letters from there.
Has that guy in lostpedia chat that always finishes in like 15 minutes got this one yet? Just curious. . .I like to know exactly how clueless to feel. . .
right..negligible aztec..
yea..at first, i quickly thought chess! but then again, the pieace are all the same..so naah..checkers! nope, one is on white.
gaah!!
@for_i_quit_soon: nick said something in one of the other clues comments about a 'chess related clue' that he was working on, so i think its safe to assume its chess.
Lost 2010 - only one person to my knowledge has so far got this one. She's never played an ARG before she says in her email, which surprised me considering she her speed at working it out. I guess some people are just natural code-breakers.
Anon - yeah another person has confirmed that the first two make "wind power"
I was just reaserching chess and realized this is the main theme of Through the Looking Glass. Could explain the mirror image of the dharma symbols.
Am I totally LOST here, I don't the wind power talk?
Don't get the wind power talk.
sorry
@alice; thats interesting; i think there must be something in this reflection thing, personally.
well, its late evening here so i'm giving up for now; good luck guys ;)
email...thanks Dennis & Nick...great diversion!!
xxoo
@nickb123:
Sent you my take on the last character...Hope you figure it out! Now how about another hint on this puzzle?
(sound of my brains frying)
@alice:
Disregard the wind power talk. We were just translating mandarin for nickb123! Nothing to do with this puzzle!
Oh good I am glad I didn't miss that much:)
A clue...? Hmm... OK, how about:
You sunk my battleship
Hmm I was thinking in those terms... but then we would have to translate that...
Hoku - that would be a logical guess.
Im back,so nickb, you got all the characters translated?
ABout where you guys are going..maybe flip the image, figure out the pieces coordinates...and somehow translate into a word?
ANM
I was using the X,Y axis numbers and thought maybe it was hex, but I got gibberish :(
having flipped the image I get 3C 3E and 5D 5G. the 5D piece is the on over light blue...anyone makes sense of this?
ANM
nick - thanks. That lets me know it's solvable. I'll try again later tonight.
ANM - 3C 3E 5G - those are battleship positions too I think.
CEDG are music notes too. . .
Gotta play taxi for a few hours - I have a pitcher and a linebacker to transport -
Good luck guys!!
no Gs in ascii...
ANM - No I haven't got the last character down yet.
The theory so far is "big ear" lol - if you could figure it out that'd be awesome.
in battleship it would be c3 e4 c5 e7
that's different from chess...
the answer is therefore obviously:
>n\~
Meatball - I never said it WAS battleship reference codes, but its pointed you in the right area away from Aztec bowls lol.
@ meatball
LMAO that is what I got earlier!!!
tru dat, yo.
@nickb the ast symbol means money, wealth,riches, fortune, assets....so maybe a wind power station/central¿?
BTW may I ask why you are trying to translate these symbols?
ANM
Also, 3c etc can stand for :
precincts
parishes...
book references (please let is know if this is connected to 2 twins cause I dont have a copy!!)
also we have C D E G...we are missing the F but otherwise they followeah othe on the alphabet)
This of course is the letters I got after flipping the board and assigning numbers downwards and letters horizontaly
ANM
Apparently CEDG is:
a landscape design comp
an engineering comp
water treatment comp
some kinda championship....ok Im way off.....boohoo
ANM
2 new ideas (so many and yet all so crappy!)
maybe dark blue/light blue squares are to be filled in diferently(eg numbers vs. letters)
what about the space between the pieces and between the pieces and the edge of the board??
ANM
PS Help!
changing nº nto letters we get ccceeedg...not an anagram I think!
ANM
an 8x8 grille was called dora
ANM - I'm not sure the last character is the one you're thinking. That is "de" æ—¶ isn't it?
Could you come onto Lostpedia Chat and speak to me (I don't wanna disrupt the comments here about clue-solving any further)
Thinking out loud here...
Assuming that coordinates are the way forward here, I'm wondering how to correctly label the grid. The chess boards I have seen have the letters going from left to right and the numbers going from bottom to top but that's not to say that is correct.
There's also the question of whether to flip the image. That would give us a whole new set of coordinates.
Fleissner grille ???
12 11 16 8 (N E S W)
@orb I tried one form of labelling + flipping, read my posts from little while ago
ANM
@ANM: Ah yes, I see now.
How did you get the numbers 12 11 16 8 (N E S W)?
... and I'm trying to make sense of that grille on wiki now...
Oh darn, Nick I just sent you an email translating the last symbol, but I just saw Anonymous beat me to it! Oh well...
@hoku sorry lol
@orb,I did it numbering the grill like a Fleissner grillelook it up in wiki, very usefull page on grille ciphers).
BTW, where is everyone???Gven up to prepare for the Project¿¿¿????
Where Im at its 19-08 already!!!!!!
ANM
@ANM: Scrap my above question above - I can see how you got 12 11 16 8 now.
It looks like this puzzle has been solved! (Sorry I missed your email Rosalind!)
So, I'll give you guys a little hint before I post up the next one.
You all are really close - you have discovered two very important parts of the clue, and you just need to put them together.
stll not making sense...and Dennis wont let Nickb help us!!!cruel...boohoo
ANM
scratch the above
but still...what two parts?
ANM
Can I get an opinion? Since I'm really bad at puzzles.
If the image is a flipped chess board and using the numbers 8-1 on the side and the letters a-h on the bottom. The numbers would stay the same but the letters would be inverted. Backwards. So what used to be an a is now an h.
Is that a good assumption? Am I making since?
Or am I way out in left field as usual? :)
ok I bet its N E S W...and ome of the numbers...so
3n 3e 5s 5w
12n 11e 16s 8w
If anyone figures it out let me know!!!!
ANM
Darn gotta go.
Be back in an hour.
We're being left behind! Please don't put the answer up yet Dennis.
Two parts? The first one must be the coordinates. Is the second the grille?
yeah.. and the B4 D6 E4 F6 become (after flipping) G4 E6 D4 C6
You're trying to flip the McDonalds, instead of the burgers.
@anonymous
Great minds think alike! Not only did we translate, but you are trying all the same things I am on this clue... I just keep trying different ways to label the grid, but I am still stuck :(
@Sayid'sgirl. Yes you make sense. I've got four possibilities depending on whether the image is flipped or not and whether the numbers go from top to bottom or vice versa and letters go from right to left and vice versa:
C6D4E6G4
C3E3D5G5
B4E4D6F6
B5D3E5F3
I think I've probably complicated it by doing this but wanted to cover all bases.
@Dennis - ok then, scrap the coordinates above!... off I go again...
how did you get those steff??
ANM
the first are if u just look at the picture and find the 'coordinates' according to a regular chessboard
and the second ones are from the mirrored image of the picture (because the DHARMA logos are mirrored)
@hoku lol, really??Thats amazing, I thought I was all alone out there in the darkness of incomprehension!?
@steff whoa!lines 6 and 4??how?what?
ANM
@steff why count upwards and not downwards??(I mean are you sure its the right way?)
ANM
The chess boards on google images have the numbers labelled from bottom to top.
Did everyone note Dennis' comment before? I understand what he meant but now I'm stuck again. Feeling very slow today!
Ooookay,
let's do it from the beginning.
The first thing that I think is useful is C6 D4 E6 G4 (which are the coordinates of the DHARMA logos when the image is flipped)
Hints:
from Nick: You sunk my battleship
from Dennis: You're trying to flip the McDonalds, instead of the burgers.
chessboard:
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
A B C D E F G H
yes....*intrigued*
ANM
and the 2nd?the N E S W thing?
ANM
You sunk my battleship.
Black Rock??
the freighter?
ANM
Battleships means use coordinates.
Flipping McDonalds instead of the hamburgers means that we do not need to flip the whole image!
So here's what I've got: either A4C6D4E6 or A5C3D5E3, (depending on whether the numbers are labelled from bottom or top).
You guys are on the right track... forget the battleship thing....
and what about flip colours??
bob
is there some clue in colours? is it important?
(i can´t speak english very well, sorry)
coc
the color is not important
flipped N E S W = NEWS
@dennis: thanx
is anyone here?
aaaah I feel we are so close!
I'm here. Did you flip the burgers?
we have to make it now! dennis said that we are on right way!
what is the meaning of the battleship?
@orb how did you flip t exactly?top/bottom only, left/right??
ANM
This clue is also fun. I've been working on it for a few minutes, and it's entertaining. The Olympic clue was cool to, and easy :)
Obviously you know my feeling on the first clue, but I have to say that third clue was kind of bad. The answer isn't even a "real" character name. More heresay than anything else. When you do something like that, it just makes it frustrating.
Otherwise keep up the work guys, and thank you. Can't wait 'til midnight :)
It must be Hex, but we don't have the right coordinates?
Battleship was to lead us to use coordinates.
what??forget the battleship?so forget coordinates or the whole /blck rock-freigter thing??
how come clues make it even more confusing?
ANM
but we have coordinates, don´t we?
The numbers..! but it makes no difference. nothing has changed
bob
@ANM: The burgers (lol) are the wrong way round. Flip them over, left, to make the images look correct. Think that's right and hope it makes sense. This gives you new coordinates.
What I have to do next, I have no idea.
guyz, i´m feeling little lost
Yes on coordinates, like EmeraldIsLost - ukgirl and Steff mentioned
No on ships, i.e. Black Rock, etc...
ok, dennis said we were on the right tack at /:33, sme time as orb's coment on the whole flipping thing
so the right trak reffers to the black rock/freigter and we are lookin for hex?
ANM
so is it all turning about blackrock and so on??
@orb flipping the whole image to the leftright gives the same result!!
abcdefgh--->hgfedcba to the right
to the left hgfedcba<---abcdefgh.
Could Dennis mean flip upwards instead of sideways?
ANM
ANM, flip the McDonalds upwards instead of sideways?
Bob, it doesn't have anything to do with ships....
No, the "burgers" are only mirrored sideways.
Dharma Burger...mmmmmm!
ok Im gonna shut up now, my head aint working properly. Gotta rest up 4 tomorrow
ANM
@ANM I think what Dennis is trying to say is to flip the Dharma logos over so that they are placed in the box to their left.
But he did refer to EmeraldIsLost - ukgirl and steff and they both mentioned D6F6B4E4 which is flipping the whole image.
My head hurts.
ok, on th same page as steff on the coordinates C6 E6 D4 G4.
Now what?
ANM
please say this isnt a trifid cipher (googled coordinate ciphers and got that!)
ANM
I'm pretty sure it's hex. It's 1am here gonna have to go soon.
no g in hex
There's no G in D6 F6 B4 E4 either...
ANM, this isn't a trifid cipher
I got these coordinates -
F6 E4 D6 B4
I've got it! At least I think I have. Now I can go to sleep.
hey, on main page are hints
omg...ok...wrong way...the way i put the leter, didnt need to flip the damn thing...ugh
ANM
omg...ok...wrong way...the way i put the leter, didnt need to flip the damn thing...ugh
ANM
All that flipping threw me right off actually!
Or are the coords -
C3 D5 E3 G5
?
hey, all. This is so stressful, I caught a friggin cold.... lol
would this page have anything to do with it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ChessBoardCipher.png
ok, 2:30 here...off to sleep.
ANM
my god..
so is it correct??
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