Fed II Star newsletter - masthead The weekly newsletter for the Fed II game by ibgames

EARTHDATE: April 2, 2006

EVENT REPORTS
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CRYPTOGRAMS

Saturday March 25
by Catspaws

Sol is full of some of the most fascinating bars and pubs, and some of the best food in the Galaxy can be found there - but the Urban Spaceman Bar on Venus is -not- where you want to go for food unless you enjoy indigestion. Even a feline has to draw the line somewhere! However, I had heard rumors that some monstrous rodents had been finding their way out of the mines, so I had to investigate. Sadly, other than a few dead mice near a plate of the cheese they put on the chili-dogs, I found nothing. Ah, well. I had to investigate...

Always one to share, however, I decided to host this week's Cryptograms game from the Bar. Perhaps some of the players were of sturdier stock than I and could stomach the food. The crowd this week was small, but not too shabby, and some of our best players showed up - which was good, as the puzzles were real stumpers.

As a rule, the player-names puzzles are easy warmup puzzles, but not this one. Even Fancy was stumped for a while since the players in the puzzle weren't even online, but he, Robius and Gilar finally finished the puzzle.

PLAYER NAMES STARTING WITH 'S'
X E S N B S
X I Q R R F N
X H Z G W S R
X H Q L E K Z L R
X M B P R W D H B J
X C H F R N

The second puzzle wasn't quite as bad, but it still wasn't all that easy. Fancy, Gilar, Robius and Zand finished in much less time than they needed for the first puzzle.

AT YOUR LEISURE (LEISURE COMMODITIES)
F C W X N O N O K E
Q O H Z C Z O A E
V I O R C W L Z E
P X S I L W C S A E
D O Z A T C Q Q E
E O G V Q C W O L I E

One of the newer features for founders is the merchant fleets, which requires a permit after surrendering some of those precious slithies we all love. Only a few of the planets have registries, and they proved a worthy candidate for our third puzzle, as Fancy, Robius and Gwaptiva discovered.

PLANETS WITH MERCHANT FLEETS (DI REGISTRY)
L F K K S I N N P
M N C C K N
X F P V X F C F G
J N B F
P N I / R S W R L
F G S H A F

For the fourth puzzle, I decided to choose a topic that interested me with my mischievous nature, as well as one sure to get Robius in hot water, which it did, as it took him -forever- to solve the puzzle, coming in a very late third behind Fancy and Gwaptiva. (Personally, I like the sixth entry in this puzzle, and rumor has it Robius has been taking it to heart.)

WAYS TO POP JESSECKA'S BUBBLES
J U W N / S D N L / G V S D / C U E F / M V O H N F
H N S / B / J U G N F M E Y / M B O
K I E V F S / D N F / G V S D / B / G B S N F / D U K N
J U F Z E J V O N K / D B A N / S U / D B A N / K U L N / E K N
B Z Z V T N O S B Y Y C / Q E L J / V O S U / D N F
Q F V Q N / F U Q V E K / V O S U / J U J J V O H / S D N L / M U F / C U E

The first and fourth puzzles took so much time, we didn't have time for a fifth puzzle, and I was rather tickled to have stumped Fancy again. When the scores were tallied, Gilar and Gwaptiva finished third, Robius came in second, and Fancy finished first. Join Fancy for the next two weeks for April Foolishness as he hosts Cryptograms, at 4.00pm eastern on Saturdays. And, if you want the answers to this week's puzzles, you can email me at Catspaws_Fed@sbcglobal.net.


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