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This colored box puzzle is driving me nuts…
…looking for a relevant 3 letter word.

colored box puzzle

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1 Answer 1

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First, look at the hex colors of the first two squares. They are "DEC0DE C07085", which looks suspiciously like "DECODE COLORS", showing that decoding the hex codes as leetspeak words is on the right track.

In fact, for each set of squares, you can concentrate the hex codes, and treat "9" as a space / padding at the end, and you get a letter-number coordinate followed by a country name. Reading the first letters of the countries in the first two sets of squares gives "USE FLAGS".

Looking at the country flags, it turns out that the number and orientation of its stripes lines up with the number and orientation of the squares. Therefore, we can start at the given coordinate and fill in the colors from the flag in the direction of the arrow to get a 6x6 image. If you take only a 5x4 subsection of that image, like the last grid suggests, you end up with the flag of the Central African Republic. This seems to resolve, by taking the first letters, to the final, three letter word answer: CAR.
Puzzle Image

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    $\begingroup$ I think your final answer is actually supposed to be rot13(PNE - urapr gur BC'f 'QEVIVAT zr ahgf' erznex va synibhegrkg) $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 7:55
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah you're right, I accidentally had a typo in the answer, thanks for pointing that out $\endgroup$
    – SeptaCube
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 12:39

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