Tuesday, May 28, 2019

logical deduction - Escape the dungeon, by deciphering the codes and navigating the rooms to find a way out


You have been thrown into a dungeon with many rooms; you don't know who did this or why.


You start in room 37. You might be thinking "Why 37?", so I will explain this: "Why not?"


You need to find the way out of this place.


Of course, there is a lot of data that are encrypted in your way. Some of the data are really simple and easy to decode like "the first prime" or "0x30". Some of them are very hard, like "☏☀☑☀☂☇☔☓☄". All the data that should be decrypted by you in your journey are in bold text.


Most of rooms have exits to other rooms, however you will need to discover to which rooms. Note that if there is a way from room A to room B this DO NOT imply that there is a way from room B to room A. I.E. you should consider every passage as one-way only. A two-way passage is explicitly represented as a pair or two one-way only passages.


Post an answer explaining your movements step-by-step and room-by-room in order to successfully escape the dungeon. Do not forget to explain what items you collected on your journey and how you used them. Explain how you dealt with the trouble that you encountered. And of course, the most important: Explain how you decrypted all the boldtext secret data! I will accept the first answer that do all of this correctly, without gaps, errors or cheating.


Beware: I expect that this puzzle to be really hard, as in fact it is a series of puzzles in one.



And please, please. DO NOT FORGET TO POST YOUR ANSWERS IN SPOILER TAGS!


To put your answers in spoiler tags, you should add >! to the start of the lines inside your spoiler. To insert line breaks inside your spoiler tags, add a
in the end of the line.


Note: Feel free to edit this to fix possible spelling, grammar or punctuation errors, as long as it does not changes the bold text parts, except when obvious in clear english.




[Edited, long time after solved]: Made only somewhat spoilery rooms protected by spoilers. If you want to show them all, run this javascript: $(".postcell blockquote").removeClass("spoiler");. If you want to hide them all, run this other one: $(".postcell blockquote").addClass("spoiler");.




Here are the rooms. Remember, you starts out in the 37:


Room 1:



That is the exit and the princess is already here just waiting for you!

Sure that the evil wizard was defeated, you and the princess walks out of the dungeon, going back to the castle.
And they lived happily ever after. ❤
The end!



Room 2:



You found a "☏☀☑☀☂☇☔☓☄". Strange, why the heck you would need this? You get it anyway.
Now go to the room numbered as the cube of this room.



Room 4:




A giant plutonium dragon comes from nowhere, put you in his mouth, crush your bones with his diamond jaw and eats you.
In his stomach, a boiling acid jet dissolves your body in a few seconds.
Game Over.



Room 5:



There is a man here. He said that he name is Caesar and he shares a secret to you. This secret is "kwws=22elw1o|24vSg{I}". What do this means?
There is a ventilation tube leading to the tri-hepta.
There is a strange device, called "sfuspqfmfu" but it does not works. If you manage to activate it somehow, it will lead you to room 11110.

There is window leading to room "how many legs there is in a chair?"
There is a big door leading to room "ruof-ytrihT".



Room 8:



There is a whirlpool in this room.
If you are unable to cope with it, you will be sucked through a hole direct to a room which the number divided by two is rounded to the number of this room.
If you can somehow stop it, you may grab a hook and crawl into the perfect room.



Room 10:




There is an arrow in this room, you decided to take it. There is something written in the arrow: "这是一个红色的鲱鱼 - Made in China".
There are three buttons: red, blue and yellow. You don't see any exit here, so what button do you press?



Room 12:



There is a door that leads to the Z room.
There are four pills here:
If you eat the red pill, you will be sent to the "naM hsaM" room.
If you eat the blue pill, you will be sent to the "ロコン" room.

If you eat the orange pill, you will be sent to the "Pidgeotto" room.
If you eat the white pill, you will be sent to the 21120110122101211011201112 room.
Warning: Pills do not respawn! So if you come back to this room later, the pills already taken won't be here again. I.E. you can't eat the same pill twice!
EDITED: If you take a pill, you need to eat it. You can't take all the pills at once and eat them somewhere else.



Room 13:



You found a "D". Now leave using "the same door that you used to come in".



Room 17:




The floor mysteriously disappears, leaving a dark bottomless pit where you instantaneously fall, forever!
Game Over.



Room 18:



There are three doors:
The left door goes to the iron room.
The front door to the room where you started.
In the ceiling, there is a big green steel locked door. If you are able to unlock it, it will lead you to the first prime room.




Room 21:



You found a "Красный ключ".
There are four tunnels here:
The left tunnel leads to room "square of the first prime".
The middle tunnel leads to the room with the pills.
The right tunnel leads to the 0x30 room.
The tunnel in the back leads to the room made by repeated numbers.




Room 23:



You found a magic bean!
There is a sign in this room: "◓●◒◒◙ ◔◈◉◓ ◉◓ ◁ ◒◅◄ ◈◅◒◒◉◎◇"
Two exits. The left one leads to room "@@@@@@@@". The right to room XLVIII.



Room 24:



There is a huge lion here. If you can't kill him quickly enough, you will become his dinner.
Behind the lion, should you be able to avoid him, there are two stairs:

The stairs going up leads to the room "Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, Jessica".
There is a massive red steel door which needs a red key. If you are able to open it, there is a stairs going down leading to the bad luck room.



Room 26:



You found a powerful gun. There is just one bullet there.
There is a window that leads to room "Butterfree".
There are two doors: The left one leads to room "neetneves" and the right one leads to the iron room.



Room 28:




WHOA! You found a big pot of gold!
Now, proceed to the room of that girls.



Room 30:



The front door leads to the room which the number is THE answer!
There is a window in the wall, but it is too small for you to pass through.
Looking through the window, you see some trees out there. There is a bullseye near one of the trees.
If you have the needed equipment (what is it?), you may shoot the bullseye.




Room 34:



You found the blue key!
There is a spring that may throw you away to the room "Mg". There is a closet that is a secret passage to the room which is a multiple of 11.



Room 37:



There is a blue box, but it is locked. You need to find a blue key to open it.
Two doors. The left door goes to room "Argon". The right goes to room "Micro Mike".




Room 40:



You found the cake!
This cake is so delicious and moist!
Now you can walk back to the previous room or go to the "Yt4$)" room.



Room 42:



There is a gnome in this room.

He said: "If you give me a pot of gold and a magic bean, I will make a rainbow! Everybody knows that there is a pot of gold in the end of the rainbow!"
Curious, you decide to ask for more information. So, he tells this:
"I used to be a prisoner in a dungeon just like you. But then, I took an arrow to the knee."
! Anyway, in this room there is a river called Tiber (why is the name of the river important?), leading to room X.



Room 44:



You found a glowing crystal key!
There are a window leading the room with the largest number.
There is an elevator leading to the first room with a number greater than this one.




Room 48:



A giant circular fast-spinning blade falls onto your head.
Then, your body is divided in two halves!
Guess what? You got a nice Game Over!



Room 56:



You found a black magic book and got it. Then you are teleported back to the starting room.

If you already have been in this room before and had already taken the book, you will be teleported to the room whose number is the first two-digit room number appearing in π.



Room 59:



You found something TERRA. Guess what it could be?
Now choose your way out: "dezessete" or "dezoito".



Room 63:



Congratulations, you won a million dollars!

Now you just need to leave this dungeon and you are a rich man!
There is an escalator going up here. It leads to the room with repeated numbers.
There is a door to the left it leads to the room 0x4.



Blue box:



You found the batteries for the "84 69 76 69 80 79 82 84 69 82"!



Shooting the bullseye:




You shoot through the window, and hit the bullseye just in the middle!
Immediately, a new trapdoor opens in the room 1A. This trapdoor leads to the room "五十六".



Red button:



You pressed the RED button:
BOOOOOM!!!! Game over!
You should know that this always happens when you press a red button!



Blue button:




You pressed the BLUE button:
An elephant comes out of nowhere and tramples you. Game over!



Yellow button:



You pressed the YELLOW button:
A secret passage opens in that "ending with '3s2 3p6'" room. It leads to room "◔◈◅ ◌●◒◄ ◉◓ ◍◙ ◓◈◅◐◅◒◄, ◉ ◌◁◃○ ◎●◔◈◉◎◇".
A trapdoor opens under you feet. You fell onto the room "NPPSTVPJWFSQFIUGPGMBITJSFCNVOFIUFTPIX".




If you decide to insert the arrow in your own knee:



Seriously? Are you crazy? What the hell are you thinking?
The arrow was poisoned. You became paralyzed. Your skin turns blue.
You fell to the ground in a deep pain and agony. You can't breath and your heart stops.
Congratulations! That was the most stupid thing that you could do in this game!
Guess what you got now? A giant, red, blinking and dancing "game over"! That is right dude, you lost the game and died for being so stupid!



Magic book:




In the book, it is written:

Abrakadabra!
. ορετόσσιρεπ ιχό ιεσάρδ αν ιεπέρπ αθ ςασ ήγρΟ ! άρεν ανέμγαρατ ατ όπα ωνάπ υομ ήμανύδ ητ ιαμύολακιπε , ςανώδιεσοΠ .



Giving the gold and the magic bean to the gnome:



The gnome receives the gold and the magic bean and a rainbow appeared right in front of your eyes, entering in the pot of gold.
You started to walk over it. That is incredible! You did not knew that you could walk over a rainbow!
You thanks the gnome and go away, walking over the rainbow into the blue sky.
The view here is so beautiful! You can see mountains, rivers and cities down there...
But then, you perceived something:

You leaved the dungeon! Congratulations! You are free!
And then, you remembered still another great thing:
Rainbows do not lasts for long time!
The rainbow disappears under your feet, and you fall, quickly going directly to the ground.
Oh no, you will face certain death! Except if...?




Answer



So here is my stab at this. I promise I did not look at any of Lopsy's work.





Room 2: ☏☀☑☀☂☇☔☓☄, Subtracting 9727 from the Unicode code points gives numbers, which correspond to the letters Parachute.
Room 2: the cube of this room, is 8.
Room 5: kwws=22elw1o|24vSg{I}, is a Caesar cypher. Subtracting 3 from each character gives http://bit.ly/1sPdxFz which shows a bunch of troll faces (red herring).
Room 5: tri-hepta, tri is for 3 and hepta for 7, so I'm gonna venture a guess and say that's 37. I've never used this door, though.
Room 5: sfuspqfmfu, decrementing each character by 1 and reversing the string spells teleporter.
Room 5: 11110, is binary for 30.
Room 5: How many legs there is in a chair?, I hope that's 4.
Room 5: ruof-ytrihT, that's 34 backwards.
Room 8: a room which the number divided by two is rounded to the number of this room, is 17 (could be 16 but that doesn't exist).
Room 8: perfect room. I'm very unsure about this one, but I'm gonna guess 21, because it's the perfect score in Black Jack. Edit: Now I have looked at Lopsy's solutions. ...facepalm... Perfect numbers were my first thought, but looking at the Wikipedia article I overlooked 28 and thought they went 6, 496, 8128... I'm gonna count this one as "solved correctly, but too blind". I've shortened the way out correspondingly.

Room 10: 这是一个红色的鲱鱼, mean This is a red herring in Chinese.
Room 12: Z, I believe this is just room 26 (alphabet and stuff).
Room 12: naM hsaM, "Mash Man" is game number 37 in Action 52.
Room 12: ロコン, is the Japanese name of Pokémon Vulpix, with Pokédex number 37.
Room 12: Pidgeotto, is also a Pokémon, with Pokédex number 17.
Room 12: 21120110122101211011201112, This is Morse code. 0 are separators, 1 short and 2 long signals. It spells XIPLUV which is VULPIX backwards. So this is another 37.
Room 13: D, that looks like a Bow to me!
Room 13: the same door that you used to come in, I think only 24 has a door leading to 13.
Room 18: Iron room, new guess: this is just 26 (the atomic number of Iron) in parallel to the Argon hint.
Room 18: the room where you started, is 37.

Room 18: the first prime, is 2.
Room 21: Красный ключ, is Russian for Red key (you have no idea how proud I was to be able to read that myself, despite my very rudimentary Russian lessons being some 6-10 years in the past :D).
Room 21: square of the first prime, is 4.
Room 21: room with the pills, is room 12.
Room 21: 0x30, is hexadecimal notation for 48.
Room 21: room made by repeated numbers, I believe "numbers" refers to the "digits" in the room number, so this would be 44.
Room 23: ◓●◒◒◙ ◔◈◉◓ ◉◓ ◁ ◒◅◄ ◈◅◒◒◉◎◇, Subtracting 9600 from each Unicode code point yields SORRY THIS IS A RED HERRING.
Room 23: @@@@@@@@, There's 8 of them, so that's just room 8.
Room 23: XLVIII, Roman numeral for 48.
Room 24: Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, Jessica, is from Mambo No. 5 (as a German, I didn't even have to look that up thanks to Lou Bega's cover^^).

Room 24: bad luck room, this has got to be 13, being the unlucky number.
Room 26: Butterfree, yet another Pokémon with Pokédex number 12.
Room 26: neetneves, is 17 backwards.
Room 26: iron room, so if my guess above is right, then this door leads to 26 itself.
Room 28: room of that girls, I think this refers back to the hint for Mambo No. 5.
Room 30: THE answer, should be the answer to life, the universe and everything: 42.
Room 34: Mg, is symbol for Magnesium, with atomic number 12.
Room 34: multiple of 11, that's 44.
Room 37: Argon, has atomic number 18.
Room 37: Micro Mike, another game from Action 52, with number 24.

Room 40: The cake is a lie. There's no way to get to this room, and therefore the Yt4$) likely doesn't mean anything at all.
Room 42: X, I thought this could be 24 as the 24th letter of the alphabet, or it could be 10 as a Roman numeral. I went with the latter, because I didn't find another way into room 10, and because the Tiber runs through Rome (then again, the alphabet in question is the Latin alphabet ;)).
Room 44: room with the largest number, is 63.
Room 44: first room with a number greater than this one, is 48.
Room 56: the starting room, is 37.
Room 56: the room whose number is the first two-digit room number appearing in π, is 59.
Room 59: TERRA, is a ROT-13 cypher of "GREEN" so this is the Green key.
Room 59: dezessete, Portuguese for 17.
Room 59: dezoito, Portuguese for 18.
Room 63: room with repeated numbers, again, I believe this refers to the digits, so that's 44.

Room 63: 0x4, should be hexadecimal notation, which is just 4.
Blue box: 84 69 76 69 80 79 82 84 69 82, ASCII codes of TELEPORTER.
Bullseye: 1A, I'm hoping is also hexadecimal, which would be 26.
Bullseye: 五十六, Japanese (I think?) for 56.
Yellow button: ending with '3s2 3p6', could refer to the electron configuration of Argon, which would be 18 again.
Yellow button: ◔◈◅ ◌●◒◄ ◉◓ ◍◙ ◓◈◅◐◅◒◄, ◉ ◌◁◃○ ◎●◔◈◉◎◇, subtracting 9600 from the Unicode code points gives THE LORD IS MY SHEPERD, I LACK NOTHING which is in Psalm 23.
Yellow button: NPPSTVPJWFSQFIUGPGMBITJSFCNVOFIUFTPIX, decrement each letter by 1 and reverse the string to get WHOSETHENUMBERISHALFOFTHEPREVIOUSROOM. Since the button is in room 10, and (I think) the only way to get there is from 42, this is 21.
Magic book: . ορετόσσιρεπ ιχό ιεσάρδ αν ιεπέρπ αθ ςασ ήγρΟ ! άρεν ανέμγαρατ ατ όπα ωνάπ υομ ήμανύδ ητ ιαμύολακιπε , ςανώδιεσοΠ . Reverse this to get actual Greek. It translates to Neptune, I invoke my power over troubled waters! Rage you should act no more., so the book can be used to tame the whirlpool. I swear this is a reference to The Tempest.
Rainbow: Except if...?, you've got a parachute...




Phew... that's out of the way. Let's get out of this dungeon!




First, I think 44 is a dead end, because it leads to 48 (instant death), and 63, which in turn leads only back to 44 or to 4 (instant death). Furthermore, you don't need either glowing crystal key, nor any money. Likewise, 1 is probably a red herring, I don't think there's a way to get to it. Furthermore, there's no evil wizard, and the puzzle doesn't require me to rescue a princess. 40 also cannot be reached.

Let's go!

37 -> Go to 18
18 -> Go to 26
26 -> Take gun, go to 26. (because I can!)
26 -> Go to 26. (because I can!)
26 -> Go to 26. (because I can!)
26 -> Go to 12.
12 -> Red pill to 37.

37 -> Go to 24.
24 -> Kill lion with gun, go to 5
5 -> Go to 34
34 -> Take blue key, go to 12
12 -> Blue pill to 37.
37 -> Unlock blue box, take batteries, go to 24
24 -> Go to 5.
5 -> Plug batteries in teleporter, go to 30
30 -> Go to 42
42 -> Go to 10

10 -> Take arrow, press yellow (opens door in 18 to 23), go to 21
21 -> Take red key, go to 12
12 -> White pill to 37
37 -> Go to 24
24 -> Unlock red door, go to 13
13 -> Take the bow, go to 24
24 -> Go to 5
5 -> Use teleporter to go to 30
30 -> Shoot bullseye with bow and arrow, to open trapdoor in 26 to 56, go to 42
42 -> Go to 10

10 -> Go to 21
21 -> Go to 12
12 -> Door to 26
26 -> Use trapdoor to 56
56 -> Take Magic Book, go to 37
37 -> Go to 18
18 -> Secret passage to 23.
23 -> Take magic bean, go to 8.
8 -> Use Magic Book, go to 28
28 -> Take pot of gold, go to 5

5 -> Go to 34
34 -> Go to 12
12 -> Door to 26
26 -> Trapdoor to 56
56 -> This time go to 59
59 -> Take green key, go to 18
18 -> Unlock green door, go to 2
2 -> Take Parachute, go to 8
8 -> Use Magic Book, go to 28
28 -> Go to 5

5 -> Use teleporter to go to 30
30 -> Go to 42
42 -> Give gold to gnome
Rainbow -> Use parachute to survive the fall and land somewhere safely outside the dungeon!



Woohoo!


I believe there's a shorter way through the dungeon (especially the second half), but this one does the trick. Thanks to Victor for a couple of hints when I was making things more complicated then they were. :)


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