SEPTEMBER 2016 - Smiley Challenge

[guido74]

Why wasn't Jesus born in France?

He couldn't find 3 wise men or a virgin.

[the warrior65]

Help, Help.

I think I'm the stupidest one on CC.

I have 6 vowels and can't make anything of september challenge, otherones have enough of 2 vowels.

Am I stupid? You all can vote.

[rizky_biznezz]

Not stupid probably trying too hard did u get any letter clues from jokes

[the warrior65]

Yes two. This morning another joke post, but for that joke not yet a clue received

Not stupid probably trying too hard did u get any letter clues from jokes

[Razorvich]

SMILEY CHALLENGE UPDATE - 9 DAYS TO GO

Time to let everyone in on the Smiley Code.... and put some pressure on the leaders
ALL the BONUS PRIZES are still up for grabs.
ALL jokes from today will recieve Cryptic Clues instead of letters.

HERE IS THE SMILEY CODE:

show: Smiley Code

Cracking the SMILEY CODE is one thing..... knowing its meaning is another

Good luck for the final days... GO GET THOSE SMILEY TOKENS !!

[Winged Cat]

As pointed out in PM, "above numbers" is vague. There are numbers in the facts, but are the dates included? The "2016" from the post title? The post time (which varies depending on time zone of who's looking)?

[aimilios]

S

[the warrior65]

A child’s observation: If a mother laughs at dad’s jokes, we have guests.

[Mad777]

Smiley codes are still not meaning anything to me as far the smiley token

[Winged Cat]

I wonder if the silver condition as stated is incorrect. It says "finish", not "win", but games I have finished and not won recently have not gotten me silver tokens. Presumably games started before the challenge are not valid for tokens, but in games started during the challenge where the winner gets a silver token, no one else in the game does.

[Razorvich]

As pointed out in PM, "above numbers" is vague. There are numbers in the facts, but are the dates included? The "2016" from the post title? The post time (which varies depending on time zone of who's looking)?

Hmmm yeah you are right.... thats a "Confusing Number of Facts" right there

I wonder if the silver condition as stated is incorrect. It says "finish", not "win", but games I have finished and not won recently have not gotten me silver tokens. Presumably games started before the challenge are not valid for tokens, but in games started during the challenge where the winner gets a silver token, no one else in the game does.

Only the winner of the game will in line for a token higher than Bronze.
This was "Tweeked" 1 day before launch due to technical issues with the coding.
The phrase"Tokens are for wins only" was omitted from the instructions because of the bronze Token.

Hope this clears things up....

[bluesblazzer]

1 cannibal says to the next I really don't like my mother-in law
second says back try the noddle's instead

[Beast Of Burson]

I asked a girl "Would you like to dance?"

She said "No"

So I said, "I think you misheard me. I said you look fat in those pants".

[bluesblazzer]

whats grey and comes a quart?
a elephant

[Charle]

A member of the South African Parliament in is walking down the streets of Cape Town late in the night. He is surrounded by muggers and is asked to give all his money. The member says, "I am one of the members of Parliament!" The muggers say, "Sorry boss!"

[Man from Modesto]

A-ha!

If you get a smiley token, all your token points count, not just the silver paired with a bronze. That is why you only need one.

[Razorvich]

A-ha!

If you get a smiley token, all your token points count, not just the silver paired with a bronze. That is why you only need one.

this if true is an unexpected bonus... run with it

[Razorvich]

SOLUTIONS AND RESULTS HERE:

viewtopic.php?f=786&t=219706&p=4850348#p4850348

[Winged Cat]

Thanks for the challenge, but as normal for this type of thing*, some of the clues were technically wrong or not usable.

*Not a fault of you specifically. Rather, it has been my experience that almost everyone who tries putting together a puzzle like this runs into this problem unless they are careful to guard against it specifically - and guarding against it can be tricky.

Smiley Token:
Sum_above_numbers_search_game_results_smiley_token_settings

Add all the numbers (not written numerals like "nine" or "ten", but numbers like 9 and 10) to get a game number

2016
153
29
21
24
325
365
6
25
11
325
1582
10
1582
11
2
14
1752
______
8253

Except that is not "all the numbers". The post starts thusly (at least when I view it):

SEPTEMBER 2016 - Smiley Challenge

by Razorvich on Sat Sep 03, 2016 9:43 am
Official Monthly Challenge for September 2016

You include the latter 2016 but not anything above that. Nothing in your post or the clue suggests that you didn't mean to include the post time and topic.

Further, there is "To sign up all you need to do is join and win at least one game that has started between September 3 1800 CC Time and September 30 with the following settings:" above the smiley token clue, yet you do not include that 3, 1800, or 30. The standard meaning of "above" in any text is with reference to where it actually appears; yes, you had another "above" further up, but there is nothing suggesting whether you meant to refer to that instead. (Yes, one could simply generate a lot of numbers, get the game settings for all of them, and try all of them. That gets to a large number of games quickly...and one can't know if one has the correct settings until those games are concluded.)

HIDDEN VOWELS:
A viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46658#p1208822
E viewtopic.php?f=8&t=966#p8311
I viewtopic.php?f=213&t=219243#p4839173
O viewtopic.php?f=31&t=213900#p4702837
U viewtopic.php?f=8&t=216195&p=4761967#p4761967

There are too many forum posts to manually search them all by hand in the time given. (Literally. Even if someone spent 16 hours a day - every waking hour, on average - spending maybe 30 seconds per topic on average to scan the entire topic - which is probably a bit fast considering the length of some topics - checking every day from 9/3 to 9/30 inclusive, they would only check 108,000 topics. There are currently 140,508 topics. "Recent posts" is not a usable heuristic: the earliest of those was posted in 2006.) Checking those posts, there is not anything obviously googable. So I am wondering how we were meant to find them.

(Though it was obvious that there were non-letter smileys, from the lack of supplied punctuation or even spaces. And missing smileys could be guessed.)

Please do not simply brush off these complaints as sour grapes. (As you know from PMs, I was close on decoding; I just guessed the wrong non-letter, non-space characters. And I've got enough points for the CA medal.) They are honest problems with your clues, offered as things for you to consider so that next time you can make a better challenge.

[Dukasaur]

Great job, Raz!


Myself, I still don't understand, even after it's been explained to me, but that's okay. Some people love puzzles and some don't. Judging from comments I've seen, a lot of the puzzle-solvers really got into it and had a great time with it.









<--- (not a secret code)

[CatchersMitt14]

Thanks for the challenge, but as normal for this type of thing*, some of the clues were technically wrong or not usable.

*Not a fault of you specifically. Rather, it has been my experience that almost everyone who tries putting together a puzzle like this runs into this problem unless they are careful to guard against it specifically - and guarding against it can be tricky.

There were no incorrect clues in the puzzle. As for usability, they ultimately all had a purpose, perhaps some being more helpful than others. Some clues were more direct and some clues were open to multiple interpretations. That is just part of being a puzzle.

Not all puzzles are constructed with a linear path between the question and the answer. Some people enjoy those types of puzzles. Plenty of puzzles are designed with multiple paths and various red herrings causing the solver to piece together clues and weed through assumptions in order to complete the task. Take sudoku for example. At the beginning each box has several answers that seem to fit. It is not until you find and enter some correct numbers that you can begin to eliminate options for other boxes.

There are too many forum posts to manually search them all by hand in the time given. (Literally. Even if someone spent 16 hours a day - every waking hour, on average - spending maybe 30 seconds per topic on average to scan the entire topic - which is probably a bit fast considering the length of some topics - checking every day from 9/3 to 9/30 inclusive, they would only check 108,000 topics. There are currently 140,508 topics. "Recent posts" is not a usable heuristic: the earliest of those was posted in 2006.) Checking those posts, there is not anything obviously googable. So I am wondering how we were meant to find them.

This part of the challenge uses a system found in various CC puzzles and games over the years. A slew of previous events used only clues hidden in forum posts. I get you did not enjoy the monotonous task of searching the forums. Please understand, some people do. We had several people make the opposite complaint as you. They were upset to find there was more to the challenge than just finding the hidden forum clues.

Please do not simply brush off these complaints as sour grapes. (As you know from PMs, I was close on decoding; I just guessed the wrong non-letter, non-space characters. And I've got enough points for the CA medal.) They are honest problems with your clues, offered as things for you to consider so that next time you can make a better challenge.

Your comments, as with all comments we receive, are noted. What I hope you can appreciate is that everyone enjoys different types of challenges. I strive for variety when I put them together. Maybe this was not your ideal puzzle, possibly the next one will fit your definition of perfect better. To say that there "are honest problems with your clues" is a fallacy. Are the clues open to interpretation? Yes. Did the clues give you any wrong information? No.

[dakky21]

Thanks for the challenge, but as normal for this type of thing*, some of the clues were technically wrong or not usable.

*Not a fault of you specifically. Rather, it has been my experience that almost everyone who tries putting together a puzzle like this runs into this problem unless they are careful to guard against it specifically - and guarding against it can be tricky.

There were no incorrect clues in the puzzle. As for usability, they ultimately all had a purpose, perhaps some being more helpful than others. Some clues were more direct and some clues were open to multiple interpretations. That is just part of being a puzzle.

Not all puzzles are constructed with a linear path between the question and the answer. Some people enjoy those types of puzzles. Plenty of puzzles are designed with multiple paths and various red herrings causing the solver to piece together clues and weed through assumptions in order to complete the task. Take sudoku for example. At the beginning each box has several answers that seem to fit. It is not until you find and enter some correct numbers that you can begin to eliminate options for other boxes.

Actually I agree with Winged Cat here. When you know the solution, the path to it seems easy. So you know how to solve sudoku and think everyone should be able to solve it. I tried it multiple times and couldn't solve even the easiest ones. Similarly, you think this was an easy puzzle while actually it was not. There were too many numbers involved to "sum above numbers" and too many possible options to try and then even win. Decoding smileys was easy and that should have been it. Complicating more than that is counter-productive.

Just to clarify - "sum above numbers" can mean:
- each smiley has a number, sum all numbers of all smileys
- each token has several words consisting of letters, sum how many letters are in the words
- 2016 is also a number in the spreadsheet, is it included or not?

Then you give a hint
"Above Silver, Spell out what turn your game must end"
-above "silver" in the spreadsheet is a lot of numbers - and silver is mentioned twice... if you convert smileys to numbers - 24, 27, 8, 18 and 15, 15, 19, 2, 10, 14 so one would guess these are the numbers to sum

So I just gave you 5 or 6 possible routes to the possible smiley settings.
Now sum it all up and join 5 games of each just to find these settings are wrong.
That is very frustrating and gets boring after few attempts because you do not know what are you searching for.