4 ms·
i had a friend invite me along to enjoy one of these rooms in nyc the puzzle layout was such that there were some 30-40 individual steps that needed to be take
by justifier 11y ago
i had a friend invite me along to enjoy one of these rooms in nyc
the puzzle layout was such that there were some 30-40 individual steps that needed to be taken that would culminate in a four digit combination
you then use the four digit combination on a lock securing the lid of a box that contained a button that opened the exit
the lock was a wheel lock where each wheel had 7 faces, 0 to 6
about halfway through the game the group had found the first 2 values of the combination
i explained to my friend that math could get us out
at 7 faces and four wheels your looking at:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import itertools
len(list(itertools.product("0123456",repeat=4))) #2401
but we were down to only two wheels left
len(list(itertools.product("0123456",repeat=2))) #49
all we had to do was try the 49 different possibilities for the lock, essentially brute forcing
my friend was ecstatic and encouraged me to do it, but when i went over to the lock and started trying the different combinations a staffer came up to us and stopped us asking:
'do you really want to win that way?'
my friend and i laughed at the indirect math shaming and returned to the group looking for clues
eventually the timer ran out before the group could solve all of the riddles to find the last two digits of the combination
edit: copypasta err
- jgrahamc 11y agoWait, you used python, len, list, itertools to calculate 7 x 7? More seriously, calculating 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 reminded me of this old blog post on squaring two digit numbers in your head: http://blog.jgc.org/2010/03/squaring-two-digit-numbers-in-your-head.html http://blog.jgc.org/2010/03/squaring-two-digit-numbers-in-yo...
- maxerickson 11y agoSeeing as there is a copied 4 in that calculation, they probably didn't use the code.
- justifier 11y agohardly necessary, the code is just meant to explain the reasoning with manipulable variance but i offer it to you for future use under the GPL
- paulgb 11y agoCould I suggest a less restrictive license? :-)
- kefka 11y agoI'm sorry. I have a patent on "Repeated addition for application of basic combinatorial theory". Pay up :)
- cb18 11y agoapplicable username. also witty
- GilbertErik 11y ago'manipulable', 'variance' You keep-a using those words. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- olalonde 11y agoThey could rate limit the unlock attempts by blocking the lock for a few seconds or minutes after failed attempts. :)
- ashark 11y agoThe only one I've been to did exactly that.
- bcgraham 11y agoIn one of the NYC rooms I did, the last clue was about the order of the numbers in the combination - e.g., "put the numbers in backwards" or "arrange the numbers highest to lowest."
- grayclhn 11y ago'do you really want to win that way?' Oh, hell yes.
- StavrosK 11y agoYeah, ours had pickable combination locks. The staffer had no idea now we were going into places out of order, and it did take some of the fun out of the game. Then again, rooms where you have to find a combination to open a box to find another combination aren't very fun.