reminded | No. 002 - Lost and Found

[Action?]

[Somewhere, a puzzle sits. Abandoned.

Why? How? Nobody knows. But it looks innocent enough. Little blocks in playful colors, purposefully arranged inside a handcrafted house of wood. The blocks slide easily with a nudge, almost as if they were born to do so. It looks like the big red block would fit perfectly into the space on the right. In fact, it looks like it would be a pretty easy task. Might as well give it a try, right?

But this cheerful little puzzle has a dark secret. To the savvy, it's worth 99 picarats and requires a series of 81 moves at minimum to complete. To the not-as-savvy, that means it's a lot harder than it looks. This is not a puzzle for the weak.]

[Voice, evening]

Good evening, Luceti. I’ll only be a moment. I seem to have lost a puzzle of mine -- a sliding block puzzle, to be precise. Has anyone seen it? I would appreciate any word.

(( OOC: I don’t count on him actually getting the puzzle back, but it can be spotted anywhere and everywhere. And if you'd like to play out puzzle frustrations with someone other than Layton, go right ahead! Puzzle destruction is also a thing that is acceptable. Just sayin'.

P.S.: a video of the puzzle if you want to see it in action. ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[And so the search is put on hold.]

Splendid. Ahem.

A box contains 13 white marbles and 15 black marbles. Outside of the box, you have 28 black marbles. Without looking, you reach into the box and pull out two marbles. If they're of different colors, you put the white one back in the box. If they're of the same color, then you take them both out and drop a black marble in the box.

You continue under these conditions until only one marble remains in the box. What color is the last marble?

[Wraaaaaah Professor this is hard without his pen and paper! Without realizing it, Luke half-mimes putting marbles into and out of a box. Two of the same color, two of another color...

Black pairs and white pairs both mean black marbles go in...A black and white pair means a white one...

Aha!]

I think I've got it, Professor. It's a white marble left in the box!

[Yep he's pointing.]

[Picarats rain down from the heavens.]

Well done! No matter how many times you repeat this little scenario, the last marble will always be white. You could have solved this by recreating the conditions in real life, but by the sound of it you've deciphered the trick. I expected nothing less.

Even if you recreated the conditions, it would take a lot of tries to prove to yourself that there's only a white marble left.

Besides, I only found one! And we still didn't find your puzzle.

... Right. Then let's keep looking.

[That was a nice little diversion though. He looks up at the trees and rooftops. Maybe he hasn't been able to find his puzzle because it's in an unlikely place.]