Player is a Space Rangers 2 text quest. It concerns the DND-player from the Museum of Faeyan Technology, a device that is obsolete for 300 years, but suddenly failed and started chewing the expensive DND-disks.
To fix the player, you instructed to use a device called a tuner which can be used to properly calibrate the player. However, the tuner is a bit old and provided by Pelengs, and thus will not properly calibrate unless you tested two boxes. Excessive testing may also risk damage to the player, thus it should be done in the minimal number of tests.
It is a short text quest, only requiring two steps, although reading the rules takes more time.
Rules[]
The text quest is a simple logical game, with the following rules:
- You have a 3x3 grid, with boxes numbered from 1 to 9. The top is numbered 1,2,3, and the left is numbered 1,4,7.
- Each boxes may be either black or white, but are hidden until tested.
- You may reveal up to two boxes, although box 9 can't be revealed.
- The black cells may either be in a vertical line, or as a 2x2 block. The orientation is rigged, designed to ensure the result is as ambiguous as possible from your existing results.
- Vertical lines: (1,4,7), (2,5,8), and (3,6,9)
- 2x2 blocks: (1,2,4,5), (2,3,5,6), (4,5,7,8), and (5,6,8,9)
- Objective: Determine whether the black cells are in a vertical line, or a 2x2 block.
Walkthrough[]
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 9 |
For this puzzle, it's best to determine which buttons should be excluded from the test. On the first button press, all boxes on the left or right should be avoided. If the box is white, then the next box will never give you enough information (same-side edge will also be white, and otherwise the other box is black). The side box will never start as black, as that lets you pin down the answer.
This leaves the middle column as choices. The next box to eliminate is 5, as a white box will never appear (as you instantly tell it's a line), and a black box likewise can't pin down the answer (2 or 8 can always appear black, making a black/white result ambiguous.)
Boxes 2 and 8 remain. Press either one, and it will default to black. Press the other button, and it will either be black to indicate a line, or white to indicate a 2x2 square. (The left and right boxes will always show white.)
The other way to solve the puzzle is to look at the four possible positions of the 2x2 squares. Notice that the 2x2 squares always touch the middle column - and the way to tell that apart from a line is to note that the 2x2 squares can't reach both 2 and 8, while a line does.
Solution[]
Boxes 2 and 8 in either order.
Trivia[]
- The Fayean contact says that 92 predecessors had bad luck also solving this problem. This is more than the 56 possible combinations in this puzzle (or 72 if box 9 was functioning), indicating a result worse than systemically trying each combination.
- Properly tuning the player reduces the disk-chew rate from 95% to 10%. Apparently, the latter value is normal for an antique.