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I’d like to ask the good people of this community that, if you do know the solution or figure it out, that you not share the answer here. Feel free to announce your success, but there’s something to be said for discovering the answer completely unaided, even if it takes years.

It’s embarrassingly obvious once you see it though.

How do we know if we’re right then?

This kind of puzzle is very lazy for creators: just make the function more complicated and/or increase the amount of parameters and this makes the puzzle drastically more difficult.

The method of solving is just brute force. Boring. Uninspiring.

You’ll feel a sudden, unmistakable rush of self-confidence.

It’s 15, right?

I have to admit that I believe I have successfully found the solution.

It took me about 2 minutes lol.

Found the answer in 1 minute. OK to post?

Except 7 should be 8

Ever play the game Myst? As a kid that’s exactly how it was. Days of banging my head and then a rush of finally figuring something out. Really miss that

15

15

Loved that game and every game in that series. Part of the fun was being dropped into this world with no clues and just having to feel your way around.

I admit that I surrendered after a while and got a walkthrough, which was followed by several hours of, “Oh for fucks sake I could have figured that out!”

Super easy

Every once in a while I definitely needed the walkthrough too. I hear blue price hits the same feeling. My wife and I just need to find time to dive into it together

Did you ever read the tie-in novels?

Figured it out in about 30 seconds. I’m no genius, guess I got lucky.

::: spoiler Answer & Solution ? = 15 It’s the difference between the numbers pointing at the solution. It was also the first solution I tried. :::

Took me literally 4 seconds

Free clue: It’s not 15. That solution doesn’t work for the bottom numbers, and it’s very clearly stated that the 7 is not a typo.

::: spoiler Spoiler 21-13 is not 7 though :::

That’s what I thought too, but it doesn’t work for the 7 at the end, and the caption explicitly says that the seven is not an error.

The function is not complicated, and the solution does not require brute force. In fact, it’s quite elegant in its simplicity.

And when you get it, you then get to take a step back and admire how the creator was able to set up the numbers given to almost point to the red herring answer. Not a lazy puzzle at all.

That’s what makes me think it’s not a math puzzle. If it turns out to be like “divide by 3, add 2, multiply by 2, add 4,….” it wouldn’t be very interesting.

Figured it out. Weirdly, knowing you solved it made me confident I could too, and I don’t even know you 🤔

::: spoiler spoiler I focused on the anomaly ignoring the rest, tried to see what possible rules could lead to it, then went back to see which rule also applied to the “non-anomalous” numbers.

:::

I’m not sure that strategy works for the last numbers.

For everyone saying it’s the difference between the two numbers, it’s not it. Because the last one should be 8 to follow the rule

This does not satisfy the lowest set. 21-13=8

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Try again. What is 21 minus 13? :::

Thank you

::: spoiler spoiler 12 :::

I got it! 🎉

This is exactly how George Bernard Dantzig proved two previously unproven statistical theorems, when he thought they were homework assignments.

Nope

Shh! Don’t tell ‘em how you got it! 😜

Yes

It took me several minutes but I finally got it. The comment saying to focus on the “anomaly” and how it could be 7 helped me to get there.

Yeah, feels pretty silly that I didn’t see it sooner. I overcomplicated it haha.

It’s not that lazy, the answer seems to be 15, but then the final 7 would be wrong. Turns out you have to use a totally different function. Both functions are very simple.

Amazing story 💫

I admit this one extended my toilet time more than I intended, but I got it!

Boring and uninspiring ass comment. You know it’s free to not post anything and allow people to enjoy shit?

Sweet, thanks for giving me the answer!

I have, I picked up the Myst Reader which collects all three from a used book sale a while back. I remember them being a fun read. Nothing mind blowing but a fun jaunt through more Myst

Thank you for posting this, it was exactly what I needed today and I didn’t know it!!

I remember doing decision trees at Uni, and saw it immediately. Glad you got there OP.

Got it. Nice puzzle.

First I figured out what was meant by the number 7 isn’t a typo, by jumping to the wrong solution. Next I figured out the next idea was and it worked. No spoilers ༼⁠ᕗ⁠ຈ⁠ل͜⁠ຈ⁠༽⁠ᕗ

Thats wrong, the last number in the line doesn’t follow that rule.

Figured it out! That was cool, thanks!

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Once I saw it and heard “the solution isn’t obvious”, I got focused on the idea of digital roots cuz I thought back to the game series 999. But that didn’t work, so I focused on the shape of the pizzle and thought it looked like a thermometer, so I tried conversions of F to C, which also didn’t work. But when I heard other people say that it made then think about the “obvious” solution and work around the 7, I thought back to my digital root idea and realized I was applying it in a different way in 999 versus what’s happening here.

This was a fun adventure~ :::

Very elegantly designed puzzle :)

Your spoiler is broken (at least on the Lemmy website), it’s missing 2 newlines and a display text. Format is like this:

::: spoiler Displayed text here
Hidden text here
:::

Turns to this:

::: spoiler Displayed text here Hidden text here :::

Without the newlines its just plain text. Note that the “spoiler” behind the opening colons is also needed and not part of the displayed text.

Non-bastardized version:
Nobuyuki Yoshigahara's puzzle, or Nob's puzzle

Got it! Really cool puzzle. I used to enjoy solving puzzles like this, but nowadays I don’t spend time in that.

Btw, your spoiler tag isn’t rendering! (At least not for me)

Commenting for later (cheers OP)

Hah, took me nearly a minute.

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Add the digits on both sides.

? = 12 :::

But I only got it so quickly because I enjoyed a similar puzzle once.

1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
…

continue the series.

Wow so easy, I got this in negative 4 second, literally 4 seconds before I even saw the puzzle. Of course I’m not going to share the solution here because I don’t want to ruin It, but I definitely got it.

It’s 15

Did I get it?

::: spoiler answer 13112221 :::

Yes, that’s the solution

yesssss, I’m the smartest man alive!

Nope it’s way easier subtract the left number from the right number to get the 99-72 = 27 … 36-21= 15-> 28 -15 = 13

What the heck man I have things to do today.

Wierd, it was for me. I tried to edit it.

That was easy. Years, you say?

I think I figured it out but I always second guess myself lol. I feel like getting it on the first try means I am way off.

Got it. Very misleading puzzle, haha.

15

You’re comment helped me solve it.

If the pattern fits for all cases, you’ve found the pattern (or one of multiple if there’s more than one solution). I figured it out and I’m certain of it.

Looks like it’s working now

Thanks but I’ll ignore the last set and win

(╯°-°)╯︵ ┻━┻

That was a mean one. Adding another row at the top would expose it, though.

Got it in my first try! Thanks for making me feel extra smart today, though I think I’m just lucky. I recently watched a horror game with a similar one xD

Man, I just finished the 2nd game in that series. I still have the third one to get through.

Holy shit got it!!!!!

::: spoiler Okay, I’ve got it. I suggest you take your time before revealing because it’s quite satisfying if you figure it out yourself.

Each circle has something different inside it. You need to make sure the circle at the end of the arrow is different to the circle at the start of the arrow. This can be tricky because some circles have TWO arrows pointing at them, so it needs to be different to both things.

Interestingly this puzzle has multiple solutions. Here they are:

5, grape, Montreal, 97

Let me know if you find any others! :::

Thank you for the share. I will be back in three years time

Dammit. I’m gonna have to stare at this for a few years now.

Took me a few tries until I figured it out. It’s cunningly misleading but it’s not a trick puzzle (as I had suspected from some people’s comments). There is a simple pattern.

The number of comments in this thread where people confidently declare they solved it with the wrong answer is absolutely baffling. Especially since it literally calls out the exception to that ‘solution’ in the post itself. Did those people not even look at the 7? That’s the real strength of this puzzle, making idiots who think they’re geniuses loudly prove their stupidity.

Yeah it takes a different type of self confidence to think someone else can consider “adding two numbers” as their master piece puzzle lol.

Thanks for the hint. I kept on overthinking it.

I saw that number but was frustrated for not understanding the process of getting to that answer.

Consider the last 7 at the end.

Why did you give the author a fake name?

spoiler

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/5d51b1ed-672f-4af7-87f9-5de60ffa3649.png

::: spoiler Nope Chuck Testa :::

I still don’t get how you derive the answer

Like stack overflow you only need post the wrong answer

Nobody will explain how to find the solution. Annoying

I’m afraid that this post has ruined my evening. I can’t figure it out and can’t let it go. I hate this.

Please explain more

Oooh, sneaky but simple

Is this an honest question for information or a sarcastic slap on the wrist because my puzzle is basically a hint for OPs?

Took me about 20 minutes. There’s a rule you find first that would work if the 7 was an 8. But it isn’t. So there’s another rule.

Being real, if this post hadn’t made it clear that the solution was non obvious, I likely would have given up before getting it, just because my chicken is being more interesting than usual.

But, knowing that there was a “trick” to it, meaning that it takes some lateral thinking, I didn’t take my usual approach to number puzzles, which means it only took one look at the upper left for the likely solution to be visible. Then it was just running down and testing with the rest, then plugging in for the solution.

No way in hell I would have had the patience for it when my baby bird is being a silly dinosaur without that front loading assumption the solution wouldn’t be evident with a systematic approach. Oh, I’d have given it maybe fifteen minutes, but with a fuzzy butt in play, that would have been it

I think I’ve been addled by years of seeing versions of “99% of MIT students get this WRONG! can you do better?” proceeded by 2 + 8 ÷ 4 = ?. I didn’t comment but there was some time where I thought I had it and completely missed that the 7 contradicts the pattern, even though it’s specifically called out. I’m glad someone did comment so someone else could correct them, otherwise I would have left the puzzle behind never knowing I had gotten it wrong.

It depends on how you’re accessing lemmy. Different apps render the markup weird.

Fun puzzle

You solve for it.

If the answer you get is right, you’ll be able to apply it to every trio and get the number on the “line”. It’s kinda like how you can plug in your answer into a quadratic equation to double check you got it right.

Thank you. None of the other explanations made sense.

Damn haha

You add the two digits in the left bubble together. You separate the digits in the right bubble. You now have three separate numbers that when added together created the left bubble for the next layer down

protip for puzzles, always start from the last steps and work backwards, makes them infinitely easier in so many cases.

I’m really confused. What was misleading?

Whaaat?

Isn’t it right parent minus left parent equals the node you pick?

Alternately right parent minus child equals left parent.

Why does it work with digits as well? What math sorcery is this??

I can give one hint if you want.

The solution only requires addition.

Second hint. (Bigger hint).

The solution reminded me of “Numerology”. Which I am familiar with and probably why I was able to solve it in about a minute.

IMHO, although it is hard to solve, it is neither brilliant nor profound - rather, it is misleading. It relies on a simple and common trickery involving multiple of 3, which is easy to see through for those with mathematical intuition. Of course many do not practice math, so it is seemingly interesting for them, but it’s not much.

The answer is 13. No need to thank me for saving you 3 years

One, fuck you. Two, get blocked you troll asshole.

I said no need to thank me

That’s not the answer.

Not the point regardless.

21 minus 13 is unfortunately not 7… Unless I’ve misunderstood what you mean?

you what? lol

No, I who. dehumanization no good

What? You’ve never been distracted by a chicken before?

No I’m dumb but eventually figured it out after reading literally every comment in the thread. This one genuinely made me feel stupid.

Thank you

Oh that’s easier to read in me eyes

I still keep thinking it’s 15, which I know is wrong, and then I math in 14,but I can’t figure out a function. Does someone want to dm me or spoiler me the function how it works? My brain is too full of more important stuff and I cannot make room for this. But I must know!

There is one obvious rule that almost works but doesn’t fit one number. This distraction draws your attention, making you more likely to miss the actual rule.

You should wrap this in a spoiler tag.

I let AI solve it for me now I feel confident that I much dumber than an AI.

Someone else commented it the pattern. The answer is not 14 or 15.

::: spoiler Hint You won’t find the answer by trying different combinations math operations on the values. You need to think more outside the box. :::

::: spoiler Hint #2 Ignore the values. :::

::: spoiler Hint #3 Focus on just three numbers. How can 13 and 21 produce 7? :::

Thank you so very much!!!

I figured it out in about 3 minutes. I think I’m autistic or something

Took me 30 seconds. Autistic as f.

That’s a thing to boast about, for sure. We are proud of you, buddy! cough

until I read your comment I was puzzled as to why anyone would consider something so dumb a “masterpiece”, but yeah, it’s quite a clever piece of misleading on the puzzle-setter’s part.

Ahaha that’s so cheeky!

Thanks Dad

13112221 1113213211 31131211131221

Wonder if a 4 would ever show up

::: spoiler I think I got it Wait was I two or three off? :::

12

Wow, I just woke up and saved this to have a nice puzzle to work on for a while but I figured it out in like a minute…

I was more of a Return to Zork kid. I’d work my way up to each character, and then kill that character to see their death scene. Then I’d start over and work my way to the next. I got all the way to the vulture at the cave, and stopped playing because I was told there were no more people to murder after that.

In all fairness, this seems like an ideal problem for a model to solve.

Fun puzzle - thanks for sharing!

Well, I got it correct with a guess based on a casual glance at what was there, not how the numbers actually relate or calculations based on rules or patterns.

Then I had to figure out how it actually worked.

Which was harder – I wish I had kept scrolling.

You have the wrong answer in your spoiler. That answer is even (indirectly) called out in the description of the puzzle.

I wish I saw this first. I’m very prone to off-by-one errors.

I opened the comments thinking that I solved it, then some comments with broken spoiler tags essentially spoiled the actual answer for me, despite my best efforts to ignore them.

With these types of puzzles, I normally start looking for solutions that don’t just involve the obvious operations. Had I seen your comment first, I would’ve continued playing with the first thing I noticed (and later abandoned for the wrong solution) and I think I would’ve got there by myself eventually.

Either others need to be more mindful of their spoiler tags, or I need to stop using Sync for Lemmy. It’s probably the latter; I’ve seen such weird formatting that only makes sense if I assume Sync’s Markdown renderer is broken.

20 minutes. 2 minutes of elation. This is unethical to post without content warnings.

::: spoiler spoiler Yup! :::

I do agree that there is no objective metric as to what constitutes as “brilliant” or “profound”.

I suppose that the lack of clarity in your comments intention and (what I assume) your thought process being laid out for the audience to check for fallacy, was interpreted as unkind behaviour: specifically implying that those who weren’t following your thinking process were not smart.

I doubt that you had such an intention when you wrote this comment, so I write this reply to highlight that “truth”, “fact”, and “opinion” in an inaccessible format may lead to misinterpretation and unwarranted conclusions.

TLDR: Yes, and please consider rephrasing to communicate intention.

The LLMs most probably already have this puzzle in their dataset or can look it up on the internet. That’s like asking you if you know how to solve it only after you have seen the solution

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler 7+2+9+9 = 27

2+7+4+5 = 18

…

1+3+2+1 = 7

Therefore, 2+1+3+6 = 12 :::

Masterpiece? This is some Facebook shit.

Nice puzzle, at first you go “wtf last should be 8” but then I read the last sentence “not a typo” and took some minutes to crack it. If it wasn’t for having seen a similar solution in a different puzzle I would have been completely lost and once you know the solution it’s impossible to not see it. I can see how the author of the puzzle really liked it.

Ah, typo is short for typographical error. I’v never realized that before.

Take a look on tunic, but it comes with some combat action, which may not be what you are looking for.

I think I figured it out, but it’s so easy that I don’t think that could possibly be it. But it is, apparently.

I figured it out took about 10 minutes, thought i was onto it immediately until I had 8 at the end haha

I’ve stared at a great many puzzles over the years. This one, I’m a little arsey to say, I figured out in 10 seconds. I actually struggle to understand how this can be difficult.

The best clue I can give is to ignore the arrowheads. Scratch them out.

You can turn that down and I highly recommend doing so.

I found the combat to be quite obnoxious.

I recommend Outer Wilds then.

Go in as blind as possible. They recommend a controller over mouse and keyboard and they mean it. The DLC is just as good as the base game, but I’d tackle it after doing the main objective.

Solved it. Wonderful. I got really hung up on dividing things by nine and seven, trying to use the remainder and stuff. But the answer, as always, is far more obvious. That which we are so used to interpreting, we simply ignore it.

Keep going until you reach a 4!

Once I saw a video about Mario Kart speedrunning history and there was a record on Rainbow Road that lasted for years. Than someone broke it but just told the community without showing how it was done. In a couple of days someone else figured it out and did it too. Sometimes we just need to know it is possible

I prime factored everything and was looking at ways to manipulate the factors together in a sensible rule. Seemed like a good approach, with the prime factors at the end.

Now I’m a bit disappointed that it was just the digits not the factors…

Those pesky lead pieces all look the same eh!

Made me remember the extremely simple logic suite, a child could do it, but I had to sleep on it:

O T T F _

What’s the letter after F ?

I’ve looked at Tunic before but it always looked more like Zelda to me. I dunno why but I’ve always bounced off Zelda.

Outer Wilds or Outer Worlds because I’ve heard good things about both but know nothing about either.

I have played Chants of Zenaar some which also hits the feeling.

Outer wilds.

Outer Worlds is just a fairly mediocre sci-fi RPG (IMHO).

Outer Wilds.

I think The Outer Worlds was just an RPG.

Wilds is a mystery game of aha moments.

This felt like a word puzzle where you have to make an analogous leap beyond surface meaning of words.

I love puzzles like this—the rule always seems obvious after you see it. It’s satisfying when something that sits in the back of your mind for years finally clicks.

I don’t like Zelda games myself but loved tunic. The puzzles are completely different than Zelda, much more interesting. The other commenter mentioned you can tone the combat down. Maybe worth a try if it is on sale.

Not much of a puzzle guy but that was really easy, unless I’m missing something its just the difference of the two above numbers moving down the V with the missing one being 15?

Don’t search for creator of the puzzle, you will be instantly spoilered. At least some search engines return pictures with spoilers.

15, right? You just add the left and bottom to get the right part

Not going to lie…I.gave it to Claude A.I. and he agrees with you

OP said not to share your solution…

You are a jerk and your spoiler did not work.

“A child could do it” is a pretty big hint.

::: spoiler I got it in under a minute.

F(ive)

:::

Same… My brain was hungry for a puzzle to dig into and now its already over. Big sad.

But: see below.

::: spoiler Hint that helped me Reading op claiming he figured it by just looking at it and not making complicated calculations on a piece of paper probably helped a lot. :::

iece of paper probably helped a lot. :::

It worked on my side. I’m sorry

Oh shit, I thought it was OP just being a dummy. Turns out I’m the dummy

Plz fix spoiler tags

I wonder if my Lemmy app sucks. About half the posts with spoiler tags successfully show blank spoiler lines, but the other half, like yours, don’t work for me and just reveal the text. Weird that some work and others don’t, but I can’t assume that half these people suck at tags so much… Must be my app. Sorry for calling you a jerk.

Looks like this for me?

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/07f89a8b-b538-49ef-80a4-fe28bed622e0.jpeg

It didn’t help but I appreciate you trying. I think this is the moment I realize Sync is so wildly unsupported that it can’t read spoiler tags. Sigh. That’s on me.

Yes, the hint that the answer was obvious once you knew it was extremely helpful.

I’m not that quick with math, so knowing that the answer was going to be simple. Every time I had an idea that was too complicated, I kept looking for something that might be simpler.

It also helped that I was a camp counselor, and one of our survival techniques was to have riddles with simple rules that the counselors were able to operate very easily, but which the kids used lots of brain power to try to figure out.

Figured it out. Not sure what everyone means by a second obvious solution that doesn’t work on the last one. My first solution that works on more than one works on all of them.

Ah, dang sorry for ruining it for you.