Pen Pals Logic Puzzle

[zil2]

Since I know you all are searching for more and more things to do with your fountain pens, I've made another logic puzzle, which you can print and complete with your fountain pens.

Intro: Liz is a horrible pen pal! She’s months overdue responding to five of her pen pals - each originating on a different platform. But she’s decided to tackle one letter per day this week. To help her get it done, she’s picked out one pen and ink per letter. Help her get organized by matching up the day on which she’s going to write, the platform where she found the person to whom she’s going to write, and the pen and ink with which she’s going to write!

(NOTE: This is a moderately difficult puzzle that will require some deductions once the clues have been initially processed.)

Here's a link to the puzzle (PDF file).

If you need the answer, let me know and I'll reply with it later...

Hope you enjoy.

-zil2

[Vort]

Excellent puzzle! And not easy. I had no real insights, so just ground through it. Your casual usage of pen or ink names was charming, but it did add a layer of difficulty as I tried to figure out e.g. which one was the Homo Sapiens. You made me actually read the names and stuff.

[Vort]

My answers (SPOILER: select to show):

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Platform: I r/F Y FPG FPN

Pen: S V L PV PP

Ink: D K R P M

Edited June 25 by Vort

[zil2]

19 minutes ago, Vort said:

Excellent puzzle! And not easy. I had no real insights, so just ground through it. Your casual usage of pen or ink names was charming, but it did add a layer of difficulty as I tried to figure out e.g. which one was the Homo Sapiens. You made me actually read the names and stuff.

Thanks!  I originally designed the puzzle for FP people for whom the casual names would be easier / faster than the full names.  Glad that added a bit to the overall experience for you.  I usually jump straight to the clues without reading the intro or the "names and stuff".  This gets me into trouble when there are puzzles with, for example, Alessa and Alissa - or worse, Jared and Jaryd (or some other weird name spelling that sounds like the normal spelling).  Sometimes it pays to read everything before jumping to the clues.

[zil2]

Meanwhile, I've already figured out the theme of my next puzzle - something Church-centric (sort of), but haven't built it yet.  Spoiler: It will be about the Zarahemla 4th Ward's Ward Conference (with speakers assigned by Alma the Younger ).

[Vort]

21 hours ago, zil2 said:

Meanwhile, I've already figured out the theme of my next puzzle - something Church-centric (sort of), but haven't built it yet.  Spoiler: It will be about the Zarahemla 4th Ward's Ward Conference (with speakers assigned by Alma the Younger ).

Please be sure you make it available to your fans here.

[zil2]

35 minutes ago, Vort said:

Please be sure you make it available to your fans here.

Of course!

[zil2]

Finally, here is the long-awaited Zarahemla 4th Ward Ward Conference logic puzzle:

Intro: The Zarahemla 4th Ward had their first Ward Conference last Sabbath.  Alma assigned seven different speakers, each with a different topic.  Each man decided to start his talk in a unique way.  The conference went better than anyone had a right to expect, but the Ward Clerk (Lachoneantum) dropped his tablets and his notes are all jumbled.  Help him figure out the order in which the seven speakers spoke, the speaker’s name, the topic each spoke on, and the starter he used.

PDF attached.

(This is also not an easy one, but not too hard, as long as you don't skip a clue... )

Zarahemla4thWardConference.pdf

[zil2]

For those who don't have enough ways to waste time...

Printable Logic Puzzles (These are good until you've done a billion of them - they reuse the same concepts, categories, items in each category.  They also don't give you any intro text, so the combination of categories can seem rather bizarre.)

Aha! Puzzles (There's a fixed number of them and you have to either download them one by one or pay to download a single PDF of the whole set or a subset.  Still good puzzles.  Note that each puzzle comes with a "bonus puzzle" but there are only 3-4 total bonus puzzles, so they repeat a lot - check the bonus puzzle title before printing!  The bonus puzzles are fun.  You may want to print a grid for them, though - they don't include grids, and I needed a grid for one or two of them.  I have grid templates should anyone need one - just tell me which puzzle you're doing.)

Brainzilla Printable Logic Grid Puzzles (Nearly identical in every way to Aha! Puzzles, except they have different puzzles.  The two entities / sites are clearly tightly linked.  Everything I said about Aha! is true for Brainzilla, right down to the same bonus puzzles.)

[Vort]

2 hours ago, zil2 said:

Finally, here is the long-awaited Zarahemla 4th Ward Ward Conference logic puzzle:

Intro: The Zarahemla 4th Ward had their first Ward Conference last Sabbath.  Alma assigned seven different speakers, each with a different topic.  Each man decided to start his talk in a unique way.  The conference went better than anyone had a right to expect, but the Ward Clerk (Lachoneantum) dropped his tablets and his notes are all jumbled.  Help him figure out the order in which the seven speakers spoke, the speaker’s name, the topic each spoke on, and the starter he used.

PDF attached.

(This is also not an easy one, but not too hard, as long as you don't skip a clue... )

Zarahemla4thWardConference.pdf 73.31 kB · 1 download

Very fun! My answers:

Speaker: Samuel, Jacob, Noah, Zoram, Helam, Ezrom, Amaleki

Topic: Humility Repentance, Priesthood Duties, Pure Love of Christ, Doctrine of Christ, Plan of Happiness, Law of Moses

Starter: Story, Quote, Scripture, Testimony, Visual Aid, Lyrics, Joke

[zil2]

15 minutes ago, Vort said:

Very fun! My answers:

So glad.  Yep, answers are correct.

[zil2]

On 6/27/2024 at 3:58 PM, zil2 said:

Aha! Puzzles (There's a fixed number of them and you have to either download them one by one or pay to download a single PDF of the whole set or a subset.  Still good puzzles.  Note that each puzzle comes with a "bonus puzzle" but there are only 3-4 total bonus puzzles, so they repeat a lot - check the bonus puzzle title before printing!  The bonus puzzles are fun.  You may want to print a grid for them, though - they don't include grids, and I needed a grid for one or two of them.  I have grid templates should anyone need one - just tell me which puzzle you're doing.)

I'm starting to question this one.  So far, I have found two puzzles that I believe are "broken":

Christmas Dinner (the clues force a conflict - two people ordering the same meal, one explicitly identified, the other having no other option)

Copycat Burglar (The clues are such that you cannot figure out the height of two paintings, or alternately, their rooms, and thus you cannot solve the puzzle)

If anyone can point out to me something I missed, I'd be happy to learn it!  (These aren't even that hard of puzzles - I'm just certain they're wrong.  There was another where they mentioned in the clues something or someone that wasn't in the grid, but that was easy to solve despite their error.)

[Vort]

1 hour ago, zil2 said:

I'm starting to question this one.  So far, I have found two puzzles that I believe are "broken":

Christmas Dinner (the clues force a conflict - two people ordering the same meal, one explicitly identified, the other having no other option)

Copycat Burglar (The clues are such that you cannot figure out the height of two paintings, or alternately, their rooms, and thus you cannot solve the puzzle)

If anyone can point out to me something I missed, I'd be happy to learn it!  (These aren't even that hard of puzzles - I'm just certain they're wrong.  There was another where they mentioned in the clues something or someone that wasn't in the grid, but that was easy to solve despite their error.)

Yep, I get the same result.

 

[zil2]

42 minutes ago, Vort said:

Yep, I get the same result.

Thank you!  So nice to know I'm not losing my logic-puzzle fu!

[zil2]

High Divers is the worst yet.  Don't even bother trying it.  Maybe I should see if they'll hire me to proof their puzzles...

[later additions]

Ice Cream for Snack can almost be completed, but two of the people cannot be matched with a "1st Flavor".

The Music Man (appears to require you to make assumptions about music and use said assumptions rather than actual clues).  IMO, logic will not solve this puzzle, only familiarity with the songs and instruments presented...

Edited July 4 by zil2

[zil2]

I did it again - stole the "design" of a puzzle and made it my own.  I like this one because the way you solve it is rather different from most puzzles.

Bird-feeder Bonanza
Meowmy loves her boys (Klaw and Smoke) so much that she went to town setting up bird-feeders for their entertainment.  She set up four feeding stations, each at a compass point, and put a different food and treat at each station. Can you figure out which feeding station was most popular with which bird species?

BirdFeeders.pdf

 

NOTE: Clue 7 is a type I've not found in other puzzles: "If either the Finch or the Sparrow prefers Apple, the other prefers White Millet." - it's entirely possible that neither the Finch nor the Sparrow prefers Apple, in which case, the other doesn't prefer White Millet.  In other words, it's not the "of this and that, one goes with A and the other with B" type clue.

[Vort]

Great puzzle! Very creative and enjoyable.

I have to add a bunch of content here so as to hide my answers from casual viewing in the Activity tab.

(Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.)

My answers:

Species: Chickadee, Finch, Goldfinch, Sparrow

Station: S, W, N, E

Seed: Nyjer, Sunflower, Safflower, White Millet

Treat: Grape Jelly, Apple, Blueberry, Peanuts

Edited August 12 by Vort

[zil2]

7 hours ago, Vort said:

My answers:

...are correct.

You might also enjoy these two puzzles, with some similarities:

Home Run

Soccer Scout

[Vort]

12 hours ago, zil2 said:

NOTE: Clue 7 is a type I've not found in other puzzles: "If either the Finch or the Sparrow prefers Apple, the other prefers White Millet." - it's entirely possible that neither the Finch nor the Sparrow prefers Apple, in which case, the other doesn't prefer White Millet.

My interpretation would be that if neither the finch nor the sparrow prefers apple, either of them might still prefer white millet.

[zil2]

1 minute ago, Vort said:

My interpretation would be that if neither the finch nor the sparrow prefers apple, either of them might still prefer white millet.

Having encountered this "style" of clue in multiple of the Brainzilla and Aha puzzles, I conclude that while you are right logically, by design, if the "if" side of the statement is false, so too is the "then" side.  This means you can also work it backwards - if other clues reveal that the "then" side of the statement is false, you can know that the "if" side is also false.  Some of the puzzles required you to make this assumption in order to solve the puzzle.

Note that in the soccer puzzle I linked, it requires one to just know things about soccer that the puzzle itself doesn't explain ("one position further", for example).  Both of these sites had puzzles that required you either to have specialized knowledge not explained in the puzzle itself or otherwise jump to conclusions.  (And as mentioned, both sites had unsolvable puzzles - Aha puzzles being the worst.)

While I enjoyed most of the puzzles from both sites, especially when they presented things in a unique manner like the home run and soccer puzzles, I was also greatly annoyed by many of their "tactics", including what you have commented on - logically, there's no reason the "then" side has to be false, but they have made it a requirement in some cases to assume that it is.

[Vort]

30 minutes ago, zil2 said:

I conclude that while you are right logically, by design, if the "if" side of the statement is false, so too is the "then" side.

Ah, the irony.

[Vort]

While growing up, I remember learning that when mathematicians wanted to say that A is true if and only if B is true, they would write something like "A iff B". Maybe "Iff either the Finch or the Sparrow prefers Apple..."

Yeah, I'm sure that would make a lot of editors very happy. (Note that "a lot of editors" is singular.)

Edited August 12 by Vort

[zil2]

11 minutes ago, Vort said:

Yeah, I'm sure that would make a lot of editors very happy. (Note that "a lot of editors" is singular.)

<auctioneer voice>And here we have a lot of editors with a good mix of experience, who'll open the bidding...</auctioneer voice>

[mordorbund]

On 8/11/2024 at 11:33 PM, zil2 said:

NOTE: Clue 7 is a type I've not found in other puzzles: "If either the Finch or the Sparrow prefers Apple, the other prefers White Millet." - it's entirely possible that neither the Finch nor the Sparrow prefers Apple, in which case, the other doesn't prefer White Millet.  In other words, it's not the "of this and that, one goes with A and the other with B" type clue.

At one point in the puzzle I had determined that the sparrow did not prefer the apple, but didn't know where the Finch stood. I secretly hoped that my next passthrough of the clues would make no progress so the intended conclusion was that the finch could not support White Millet and that would unlock the next steps. I was disappointed but still enjoyed it.

[mordorbund]

@Vort didn't realize it but he got me hooked on Cracking the Cryptic. This one introduced some new cleverness and is approachable: https://sudokupad.app/e3dz5lytps (note the rule about Region Sum Lines is meant to imply that the line crosses at least one box border). I'll admit it took me about 40 minutes to solve.

The professional solve is here: