CRYPTOGRAMS
Saturday June 24
by Catspaws
With the recent return of Archer and Fed-Radio, I felt the desire to visit Mercury again, and the Olde Earth Taproom. This pub probably has more ambiance than any other pub in Sol. I selected a few tunes on the jukebox, leapt onto the motorcycle and pretended I was riding in the wind, then jumped onto the bar to await the Cryptograms players for this week.
We didn't have as large a crowd as the week before, but we still did okay with six players and two watchers. After passing out pencils and paper, I gave out the first puzzle, which had a very obvious starting point. Fancy, Gradon, Gwaptica and Robius solved the puzzle, in that order.
PLAYER NAMES STARTING WITH "A":
H V P S P O
H Q X E R Q T
H B U Q D O B
H A S O S G
H B I O Q O
H G X O B U F
The second puzzle caused a few groans since the list of systems has become rather long, and it took a bit of time to find systems with exactly six letters. Gwaptiva and Robius swapped places in solving this puzzle.
SYSTEMS WITH SIX LETTERS (DI SYSTEMS):
V J E Q P K C
P N B K L H T
V E N R K V K
A Z X J E T Y
G C N K G H V
G C U J N T G
For the cheap price of five slithies, a founder can purchase a ship registry which has many benefits, not the least of which is the perk of having ships purchased on their planets bearing the planet name. (I need to get around to getting one of those one of these days.) I would not have thought this puzzle would be all that difficult, yet Gwaptiva drew a blank. Gradon, Fancy, Robius and Jameson managed to solve the puzzle, however.
PLANETS WITH A SHIP REGISTRY (DI REGISTRY):
X T N U V E Z
O G A U P E O
P G Q C V Q P
Z G P E V C S
I P W S B D E
Z T D Z I
Ship registries is just one of the many things you can purchase with those lovely little slithies. So for the next puzzle, I had the players think of six items that can be purchased with slithies. Fancy, Gradon, Gwaptiva and Robius managed this puzzle without too much dificulty.
THINGS YOU CAN BUY WITH A SLITHY (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/extras/gifts.html):
S Y B B Z Y F T / P T B H Z V Z P Y H T
K U Z Q / B T F Z K H B Y H Z I J / Q T B S Z H
P N K H I S K / T W T S Q H Z I J / P T B H Z V Z P Y H T
L Y B T U I N K T / Q T B S Z H
J Y E P I S Q / K I V H L Y B T
B T S I H T / Q B Z P T / P U T P M Z J F
I admit I am lax about keeping up-to-date on the website from time to time, so for the final puzzle, I decided to see if I was the only person who needed to do a bit of reading. (This puzzle had a very obvious starting point.) Fancy, Gradon, Robius and Gwaptiva didn't have much trouble solving the puzzle.
THINGS YOU CAN FIND ON THE FED 2 WEBSITE (http://www.ibgames.net):
Z J L X L T E A Z P O I / S I T I L W O L I
F I A Q / I J P / F I J G I T Q
Q E U W N I D Z
U Z P / 2 / Q W I D
N B E ' Q / N B E / O J/ U Z P / 2
U Z P / 2/ Z R Z J W Q / L I T Z J P I D
When the scores were tallied, Fancy came in first, Gradon came in second, and Robius came in third. Join me each Saturday at 4.00pm eastern for Cryptograms, and join Archer on Fed Radio at http://www.fed-radio.net for the music that makes hauling a happy experience.
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