This is a community wiki compilation of all the excellent answers provided by others, to get everything in one place. Please upvote the other answers where people actually solved the puzzles.
Here are the solutions to each of the individual puzzles:
- Easy synonym puzzle! wordplay
- solved by Stiv
"Don't tell truths" suggests that...
the 'Synonym' in the title is a lie - instead we are looking for antonyms or opposites of some kind to the five concatenated words beneath (TruthStopFriendStraightZ). This yields:
Truth → LIE
Stop → GO
Friend → FOE
Straight → BI
Z → A (ends of the alphabet)
String these together = LIE.GO.FOE.BI.A, or LYGOPHOBIA (fear of the dark).
- Do not look behind you visual
- solved by Ivan Smirnov
The grid with letters can be uniquely split into given polyominoes such that the letters covered by each polyomino form the connected region on the keyboard.
The resulting figure is
Now we note that
each connected region on the keyboard is of shape O, C or L and "embraces" some letter. Those letters are E, I, Z, S, R, A, T, R, E, R (in the order in which the figures are given in the hint), and RASTERIZER is the only anagram.
The hint helped me in finding the solution:
first, I noticed that the largest 8-cell region fits to the top and the letters are pretty close on the keyboard. Then the cross fitted nicely to the left-top with the same property.
Next, I used some computer assistance to generate the assignment (in fact, it only generated admissible positions for all polyominoes).
Finally, I realized that all connected regions on the keyboard are of the peculiar shape and looked at the surrounded characters. The colored square in the hint suggested that I'm on the right way.
- Please play fair cipher
- solved by Daniel S
It is Playfair encryption, using the grid
T H E Q U
I C K B R
O W N F X
J M P S V
L A Z Y D
The grid is derived from the pangramatic phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".
Solving the cipher yields the answer ANALYTICAL.
- A beautiful step steganography
- solved by Stiv
This puzzle has a tricksy element to it, which I didn't notice until I tried to...
...edit the question for an entirely unrelated reason! I was wondering whether those two stray dots after the 'steganography' tag needed to be edited out as a mistake. However, when the source is viewed you see that this string of text is actually presented as follows (implying that this is deliberate, for steganographic purposes):
(The small stepped offset in each line is probably being referred to in the 'step' of the sub-puzzle's title...)
To find the answer, remove all letters that appear anywhere between those two dots in this new formatted view:
Now read off the remaining letters in order (along each line and down) and the 10-letter answer TIMOROUSLY remains!
- Double Meanings word
- not yet solved
- Lost in Translation language
- solved by Kusane Hexaku
The key thing to notice is that all the characters given are all within the first 5 rows of the Hiragana. More specifically, they are less than 26.
This is furthermore supported by the あ = A clue. While あ is indeed the a sound, it is also the first character of the Hiragana, just like how A is the first letter of the English alphabet.
Taking their position into the hiragana gives 19 17 21 9 19 8 9 5 19 20, which when translated into A1Z26 gives the answer SQUISHIEST.
- Video rebus rebus
- solved by GentlePurpleRain
Ever since I first saw this, I thought that the -TION was clueing subtraction, but I wasn't sure what to subtract it from.
As I played around with it some more, I came up with
EQUATION
Removing the -TION and playing around with other words that contained the remaining letters, I came up with
IN AD EQUA(-TION) SEE
or
INADEQUACY
- Surrounded geography
- solved by Stiv
The letters represent...
the initial letters of countries that all share a border with a common neighbour (which is in effect surrounded by them):
EES = DJIBOUTI (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia)
AAAIPTT = IRAN (Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkiye, Turkmenistan)
AFP = SPAIN (Andorra, France, Portugal)
BELNZ = SOUTH AFRICA (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe)
SUY = OMAN (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen)
BG = NETHERLANDS (Belgium, Germany)
BBCPU = ARGENTINA (Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay)
CH = NICARAGUA (Costa Rica, Honduras)
BEPPV = COLOMBIA (Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela)
CP = ECUADOR (Colombia, Peru)
Reducing these identified countries to their initials gives DISSONANCE.
- I am not a bird! affix-riddle
- solved by Stiv
My prefix is screaming.
YELL
My infix is not lofty.
LOW
My suffix is a 50/50.
Either HEAD or TAIL. However, since YELLOWHEAD is a bird, the answer (found by concatenating/overlapping the three -fixes) must be YELL+LOW+TAIL = YELLOWTAIL, a type of fish!
- I don't know what to name this one enigmatic-puzzle
- solved by Kusane Hexaku
Control Variable = Control V = Ctrl+V = PASTE,
+ Emoji of a BIN = PASTEBIN.
https://pastebin.com/wVSj1sF3 has a single piece of text:
oh ee ess oh pee aitch ay gee you ess
Each one these sounds like a letter, which gives the answer OESOPHAGUS.
- Anagramming nightmare anagram
- solved by Stiv
1. Of a kind, Black person, Rebirth
These work out as: genre, rot13(artre), and regen.
The other anagram of these words is GREEN. (NB I have provided the second only in its rot13-ed form, as this word - the reverse spelling of the third - is considered an 'often offensive' term...)
2. Existence, To lower, Flour, Neighborhood, Arabic adjective
These work out as: banes, basen, besan, nabes and nesba.
The other anagram of these words is BEANS.
Putting this all together, we get:
GREEN+BEANS = GREENBEANS
- I don't know what to name this music
- solved by Stiv
These songs...
all have NATO phonetic alphabet words in their lyrics, somewhere near a phrase clued in the accompanying text.
- Cupid (Twin Version) - It's been 30 days since I've listened to this.
Artist: FIFTY FIFTY
Lyric: Been counting the days since NOVEMBER...
- The Sound of Silence - Well, basically...
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Lyric: And ECHOed in the wells of silence...
- Africa - Was there drums in this song? I forgot.
Artist: Toto
Lyric: I hear the drums ECHOing tonight...
- STOP TRYING TO BE GOD - I listened to this on the ship.
Artist: Travis Scott
Lyric: DELTA and I ship it overnight...
- 6 Foot 7 Foot - I remember showing this to my mom.
Artist: Lil Wayne ft. Corey Gunz
Lyric: Yeah, word to my mama, I'm out of my LIMA bean...
- Delicate - I remember listening to this and I tripped on the stairs, LOL.
Artist: Taylor Swift
Lyric: ECHOes of your footsteps on the stairs...
- Fireflies - Just found out they play this on the disco.
Artist: Owl City
Lyric: A FOXTROT above my head, A sock hop beneath my bed, A disco ball is just hanging by a thread...
- Earth - I cried at that part where Meghan Trainor sang.
Artist: Lil Dicky (this was a charity single sung by many artists)
Lyric: MEGHAN TRAINOR: We love you, INDIA...
- Life of the Party - I got in trouble when I listened to this at school.
Artist: Kanye West
Lyric: SIERRA Canyon when daddy got his own school...
- Closer - After 4 years, I wanted to listen to this song.
Artist: Chainsmokers
Lyric: Four years, no calls, Now you're looking pretty in a HOTEL bar...
Stringing all of these together gives us:
NOVEMBER ECHO ECHO DELTA LIMA ECHO FOXTROT INDIA SIERRA HOTEL, which spells NEEDLEFISH.
- NO, NOt the NONOgram! metapuzzlesnonogram
- not yet solved
