Thursday, July 3, 2008

Round 269

Date Released: July 3rd, 2008.
Date Rewarded: July 10th, 2008.

The Monoceraptor was walking down a path one day when a babaa appeared in front of it. "Solve this puzzle, and you may pass," it said.

Another ancient tomb in the Lost Desert has the following grid engraved on the tomb door:

You must fill in each empty square with a digits from 1-9 such that the vertical sums of the digits match the number above the column, and the horizontal sums match the numbers to the left of the row. No digit will be used more than once in a set. Once you figure out the digits, multiply all of the digits in the circled squares to get your answer.

What number will you get when you multiply the circled digits? Please submit only a single number as your answer; do not submit ANY information other than the answer. Otherwise, your submission may be disqualified.


Prize


Babaa Lamp

Click to show/hide solution

This conundrum is actually a Kakuro game [1]. There is a flaw though. If you look at the upper left part with the red number 17. In second row, you have the sum is 21 with 6 blocks. The only choice for the numbers should be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. In the fifth column, you have the sum is 17 with 2 blocks. The only choice for the numbers should be 8 and 9. There is no intersection between the above two sets of numbers. Therefore, either number 17 or number 21 should be corrected. People said that TNT intended to make the mistake to prevent people input numbers into a solver.

If we correct the red number 17 by number 4, then we can solve the grid as following:


There are two choices for the numbers that marked with 'X'


If you multiply the numbers in orange color blocks:
answer = 1 * 22 * 35 * 42 * 53 * 6 * 7 * 8 * 92 = 52907904000

Results: 1536 people guessed the correct answer earning themselves 1303 NP each.

References:
[1] Kakuro

29 comments:

Unknown said...

I play a lot of Kakuro and noticed the same thing.

I figured that the red circles are not in that area and I could 'ignore' those sets. But it is proving difficult.

LC Solver said...

I know. I have about 64 blocks left and working on it but it's kinda difficult now.

Unknown said...

I informed them of the goof up in the puzzle. But I doubt that they will get to it in time to change it.

I stopped trying to solve it. Normally the flaws effect the whole puzzle.

Let me know if you get it.

Good Luck! :)

Unknown said...

Your profile says your an Engineering student. What year are you in?

LC Solver said...

solved! I'm an electrical engineer.

Unknown said...

Thanks for posting the whole problem with the answers.

Wow! your good, I tried to solve it and only manage to get the lower part

HลԺﻉš_Sลრล said...

Wow, man...

I spent my whole night trying to solve it... maybe I couldn't get the answer because I copy the challenge on my notebook, and write and erase over and over again, until I can't understand anymore what I write!! ^^

Today is my birthday, and see that you solve it and put the real answer here, well, that's a true present xD

LC Solver said...

the answer is a product so it's easy to calculate.

Unknown said...

hey lc Solver,

Good job! I had to stop it was 4 in the morning where I live.

My consolation prize was checking the numbers that I did have and finding out that they were right :)

You always make LC more enjoyable.
A.

LC Solver said...

It was 4am my time at the time I solved it too but I didn't want to sleep with unsolved problem.

Unknown said...

lol! I had to go to work. I'm pretty stubborn myself.

4am - where you located? I'm close to Toronto, Canada.

A.

Niagaragal said...

This may sound silly but once you have the numbers in the circles how do you go about multiplying them???? Just an observation....I was under the assumption that Neopets was a childrens site! I'd like to see a child solve this puzzle! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Lawl, thats what I thought too when I saw the neopets, but someone had showed me a LC problem and it got me intersted into this neopets website.

LUANNA said...

So what numbers do I multiply by eachother?

Unknown said...

The answer is right there! All the hard work has been done for you people.

If you guys would take the time to read what your suppose to do you wouldn't have ask to be spoon feed.

LC Solver said...

Thanks Anitka. I'm living in East coast of US. so +3 hours in time zone wRT Neopets.

Neopets were originally for college students so kids gotta learn more here :)

Unknown said...

LC Solver,

I think its really nice that you take the time to help other neo-users with the answers.

However, I would find it incredibly annoying to have people ask me some of the things they do here. Especially, since you give them everything leading up to the answer.

I love the LC puzzles! This blog has helped me with those tricky ones.

Do you ever get stumped?

A.

LC Solver said...

It is fine by me though. I usually ignore them because I have given enough tools for those who want to solve.

Do you ever get stumped?
---
a lot of time. :)

Unknown said...

:)

LUANNA said...

So I got a 2 digit #, what do I do with it? I got confused after that.

Unknown said...

This puzzle hurt my brain, I was happy to see that the bottom half I did do was right. Thank you to whoever solved it!

Unknown said...

To Niagaragal & AznDudeIsOn I am a kid and even i can figure out all most every puzzle so there is an anwser kids can do this.We aren't stupid you know.

T.V9

LC Solver said...

No answer shouldn't posted. Right or wrong. If you can't do a simple math, this puzzle isn't for you.

Unknown said...

Stupid question: should we include commas?

Ie, say the answer was 1036457(it's not). Should we submit the pure number, or, include the commas, to make it 1,036,457?

I know LC gets specific and is weird when weeding out wrong answers so I was just curious. It said "only a number" so I left out the commas.

Unknown said...

PS - Just to help some of you who seem confused, I think I know the reason you may be confused. A rule of multiplication is you always get the same number no matter what order you multiply in. 5*2*3 is the same as 3*5*2. So...if that's what's confusing you, hopefully you've learned something lol.

(I think it's called the commutative property of multiplication, not sure tho)

LC Solver said...

Thanks Marcella for explaining. We should leave out the commas. I always submit numbers without commas.

Anonymous said...

lol yes communitive property of multiplication we just learned that this year im an 8th grader and i just recently took up kakuro about a month before skool ended so this is a nice little challenge it's very fun :P

pzxdld said...

I also notified them that the entire puzzle could not be solved, although I realized it may be possible to solve just enough to get the circled numbers despite the error. However, it would have been much easier with an accurate puzzle!

I am always frustrated when I try to contact Neopets about anything. Their customer service is extremely poor.

Unknown said...

Dear Jennifer,

Congratulations! You have guessed correctly in the Lenny Conundrum game (round 269). You have won 1303 NP!

Yours Sincerely,
The Neopets Team!