The Eggs Files III: Two Puzzles.

For my introduction, read yesterday's post. For cramerica's agent-eye view of the action, read his comments to the same post. His post contains spoilers, though. In this post, spoilers have been avoided to the extent that these puzzles can be solved after the fact.

Going Out in Tile
The first puzzle solved contained cryptic text and a grid of boxes. The text gave directions to a location near my house where there were a series of mosaics depicting famous movies. (Someone has put up a kind of crude photo gallery of most of the mosaics.) By entering the titles in the grid and reading down the center, the answer was revealed.

Background and Construction
I've been saving this made-for-puzzling location since I moved into my house, and it finally seemed like the right time to reveal it. As Cramerica noted, it is kind of a creepy place. It looks abandoned, but not really. For as long as I've walked by there, it always looks like it had been abandoned two days ago. Is someone actively maintaining an appearance of abandonment? Who knows? The puzzle was sound.

I had to drop three of the mosaics because they were hard to identify. One almost looked like Patton, except that it very clearly showed John Wayne. But the remaining titles all had different lengths (when the word breaks were given), so I didn't worry about it. I originally thought about doing a more complicated runaround, leading up to the mosaics, but it just didn't seem very interesting. It felt like I was just making the solvers walk instead of solve. Also, I knew I might have to take care of some business on Ventura, so I wanted to be sure that the solvers would be confined to a limited area.

Agents in Action
My mother led the group out of the house, probably because she recognized that the "Cyril" in the directions referred to St. Cyril's Church, just down the street. Apparently the puzzle was solved without incident.

Cover Me
The next puzzle had a series of images from album covers. All of the albums were ones I owned, and they could all be found in my rotating cd rack. Taking the first letters of the album titles gave a message that instructed solvers to play a different album. Inside that cd case was a disc with a piano performance of "Chopsticks."

Background and Construction
I liked the "coffee-table trivia" puzzle from last year, and I wanted to do something similar that involved information that could be found in my living room. My cd collection seemed like an obvious choice. When I knew that "Chopsticks" was going to be one of my answer words, it seemed like a natural fit. I spent some time going through my cds to make sure I had the letters I was going to need. I tried to get the most well-known album for any given letter. When I had to use more unusual cds, I made sure that I put part of the artist's name or title so that it would be easier to identify without staring at the cover of every single cd. I had a fun time slicing up the images, too.

Agents in Action
I didn't hear anything about this puzzle until it was solved, so I can only assume that it went very well.


You know, I find I have a lot less to say about these puzzles than last year's. They didn't really evolve all that much from their conception, and there really weren't any major complications that got in the way. I'm proud of both. The End.

. . . FOR NOW!