Cracked the Code!

Just writing to say that I finally cracked Dan Amrich’s blog puzzle, the one I’ve been obsessing over for what must be a few weeks now. My initial thought was correct, and I pushed it aside too early. Trust your instincts! Thanks, Dan, it was fun. And I even won a prize! Dan is indeed the man (Jeff Minter agrees!). Now… the puzzle I posted below, there is no prize for cracking – I didn’t think that far ahead. But with the inspiration I got from Dan’s mind-fucker, more will come.

One Hundred and Thirty-Five Degrees

In attempting to read Dan’s mind and solve his puzzle (see previous post), I have stumbled across a variety of interesting puzzle designs of my own. The solution to this puzzle is one of the ways I attempted (and failed) to solve Dan’s puzzle (hence its similarity – a long string of letters). I honestly don’t know how challenging it is (I imagine Dan can solve it in minutes), but please don’t post the answer in the comments if you do solve it – shoot me an e-mail at tjwilde [at] gmail [dot] com.

Note: This is one long string of characters, any breaks are due to WordPress, not the puzzle.

Edit: I think this deserves an extra clue or two, because as I said, it is the result of some deranged thinking I went through while solving Dan’s puzzle. 1. There are insignificant characters. 2. You do not need any special tool to solve it, but you do need to manipulate it. 3. It is not a traditional cipher (hence the insignificant characters)

IFEPDEAPLLWQKVSQXDGHROANGFAERTBAUWDNJHXCMETLERSGLETIGHDMDKCVIHSC
EKLBBAMGAESRETEHNONNRYCZEWAHAOBAASAGNAEAREBATHAIOPLAA
LABARATYLNAEVSATADALTER

Dan Amrich’s blog puzzle still has me going mad

Dan Amrich, who you probably know as a former editor of OXM, and the current EIC of the  new World of Warcraft magazine (though did you know he was a GamesRadar editor at one time too?), has had a puzzle in the “About Me” section of his blog for years. No one has solved it, and being a lover of puzzles, I am desperately vying to be the first. But the string of letters seems patternless. Knowing Dan, however, the pattern is painfully obvious, just easy to overlook. His clue is to “consider the source” (him), and the text on the page, which reads:

“Initially it was enigmatic; now it’s just cryptic. You figure it out.

Daniel Edward Amrich (b. Feb 5 1971) is a writer, guitarist, gamer, amateur puzzle architect, and all-around geek. He escaped New Jersey in 1994 and has been feeling much better ever since. Write him at etc at bunnyears dot net.”

I will get it eventually. And when I do, I will be forced to write a puzzle of my own which can stump Dan in the way his has stumped me. Not an easy task, but I must have revenge.

Edit: It seems Robin Taylor is also on the case – best of luck!