Bondage Solution

How It Works

Each rope and blindfold has four properties:

• Color (red, brown, green, blue)
• Length (roughly 36, 42, 48, 54 inches long)
• Ordinality (number of strands/folds) (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Fabric (Fleece, satin, leather, cotton)

Each rope/blindfold is also labeled with a unique symbol (suits of cards, square, circle, triangle, plus)

Then there's a series of posters with a bunch of boxes, most of the boxes have some of the 8 symbols along the top, and they are various colors.

This is a Braille puzzle; Some of the (gray) boxes don't have any symbols at the top - these boxes are just plain braille already, based on which boxes are colored in.

The puzzle is in figuring out the letters encoded in the pretty color boxes

The first thing to notice is that the symbols at the top of the boxes are always in pairs, and one from each pair is always a blindfold, and one is a rope. The pairs are not always the same, however (though some of them do repeat)

The next thing to realize that in every set of boxes (we'll start with the first one, the orange one) each of the pairs shares one thing in common. It is color for the first one – the ♠ blindfold and the ● rope are both red, the ♦ blindfold and the ■ rope are both brown, etc.

From this, we can infer that the color "orange" on the posters is associated with the attribute "color", "yellow" is associated with fabric, "purple" is length, and "pink" is ordinality (number of strands or folds).

This then tells you how to fill in the rest of the boxes. so in the BIG orange box, there's are smaller colored sections for each pair. For example, the yellow section: if the pair at the top also happens to match on the orange attribute (type of fabric), then put a dot in that box. If not, no dot.

The same for pink (ordinality) and purple (length).

You can fill in all the remaining sections this way, for whether the attribute of the rope/blindfold pair specified by the symbols at the top matches

A bunch of Braille later, you get the answer, including the dummy given boxes.

.bond { float: left; margin: 4px; padding: 6px 6px 6px 0; } .gray { background-color: #bbb; } .orange { background-color: #e81; } .yellow { background-color: #ff8; } .pink { background-color: #f5f; } .purple { background-color: #93c; } .plus { font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; } .bond table { border: 1px solid #000; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; margin-left: 6px; background-color: #fff; } .bond th { width: 4ex; } .bond th, .bond td

Solution

A VITAL FALLACY

Design Notes

This puzzle exists because Kim decided that the sense of touch was getting left out. Most of our puzzles require sight, a number require sound, and Intern Game has put together some smell and taste puzzles, but a puzzle built around touch is pretty rare, and she enjoys exploring textures. It was pretty hard writing a puzzle solely around texture, which is way the fabric type became but one attribute used to solve this puzzle, but that was the original seed, anyway.

On a further note, the letters that can be created using Braille and the strategy of this puzzle are pretty limited. The gray boxes were not included as a hint, but rather to create a phrase that actually made a little bit of sense. As it turns out, having an extra hint was a worthwhile bonus.

GC Notes

This puzzle was actually as brutal for a number of teams as a serious middle of the night kidnapping might have been. Apparently careful observation skills are low in the middle of the night. We also had to switch locations at the last minute due to a miscommunication about what hours we wanted our original location to be open, so the puzzle ended up being staged outside. It was cold.

We did try to lighten the mood during the kidnapping by being inventive with how teams were tied up. At least, GC's mood was lightened when we'd tie four team members together three-legged race style and blindfold many of them. Cooperation and communication became an important skill, especially when stairs were presented. As a final aside, it seemed frequently that team members who did not get blindfolded easily forgot that their team members who couldn't see might require some guidance.