PSE Advent Calendar 2024 (Day 10): Locked Christmas Present

Question

<sub>This puzzle is part of the Puzzling Stack Exchange Advent Calendar 2024. The accepted answer to this question will be awarded a bounty worth 50 reputation.

< Previous Door Next Door ></sub>

---

Woohoo! I got my Christmas present early this year!

However ... it's locked! And there is a note on it, reading:

Ok, looks like I will not be opening this gift just yet. But I do like cracking codes and solving puzzles indeed, so let's have a closer look.

It's a green box with a gold-colored lid. It has enigmatic looking grids of letters an punctuation marks on four sides and on the top. This is what the front looks like:

Rotating 90 degrees shows:

Rotating once again:

And again:

Finally, this is what the lid looks like:

What is the 4-digit code that I need to open the combination lock?

---

Transcript of the note:

Ho! Ho! Ho! It has come to my attention that you enjoy 
cracking codes and solving puzzles. Well ... I have something 
for you here to sink your teeth into. Once you succeed to find 
the 4-digit code, you will be able to unlock the lock and open 
your present! Good luck!

P.S. rotate your gift and have a good look from all sides

Transcript of the grids:

1.
YNNU DUGYM EI
LH NBY VULX'M
 MIHA UYLIMGC
NB MYGC-WBULG
YX FCZY GUHZL
YX GUHH'M YUL
NB VUHX NBY Q
YYEHX HI LUCH

2.
 ?-; TD; CXXXE  
-QQV`DTA WPACR  
 CFA CPA  DHGA 

E-I :,PX VL :,PB
I E CAHJ :B CAB

3.
PXMLN-XZAPXML
LGBL,UWO;LGBL
CCXKVKHZBMMMK
V/RIRLYOREDXA
PUTZPBOKBSLE,
BGCJKDECTG;VB
PXMLIKG/VUQ!,
LGBLJU/TEVRKL
CCCA// A/  AA

4.
AYJTGL FYPP
GQ NFYPCJJ 
UGJJGYKQ IY
RW NCPPW ZG
E QCYL LGLY
 QGKMLC PSB
GKCLRYJ HMF
L LCUKYL EM
PGJJYX PMZZ
GC UGJJGYKQ

Lid:
HXZENGQEDPPMY
EGTLPHDWKYZBD
XPVAYIRALPMPD
LHAYVLDLAHQJA
XILDMYFLUOQXL
THOULTAOMGDVX
IXELAHQJVHEOT
LTULUOQXKRSDU
CUCNTCSAPVASA

Answer 1

The four-digit code is:

6174.

The two visible faces (west and south)

The last sentence in the not refers to rotating the gift. We must, of course, look at every face of the box, but this is a hint towards applying a rot cipher, a Caesar shift.

Rotating the southern face where the lock is by 6 places yields:

ETTA JAMES KO
RN THE BARD'S
SONG AEROSMI
TH SEMI-CHARM
ED LIFE MANFR
ED MANN'S EAR
TH BAND THE W
EEKND NO RAIN

Rotating the western side by 2 places yields:

CALVIN HARR
IS PHARELL
WILLIAMS KA
TY PERRY BI
G SEAN NINA
SIMONE RUD
IMENTAL JOH
N NEWMAN GO
RILLAZ ROBB
IE WILLIAMS

These are names of singers and songs with a common theme:

ETTA JAMES — I'd rather go blind
KORN — blind
THE BARD'S SONG — by Blind Guardian
AEROSMITH — Blind Man
SEMI-CHARMED LIFE — by Third Eye Blind
MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND — Blinded by the Light
THE WEEKND — Blinding Lights
NO RAIN — by Blind Melon

CALVIN HARRIS — Feel
PHARELL WILLIAMS — Feels
KATY PERRY — Feels
BIG SEAN — How It Feel
NINA SIMONE — Feeling good
RUDIMENTAL — Feel the Love
JOHN NEWMAN — Feel the Love
GORILLAZ — Feel Food Inc.
ROBBIE WILLIAMS — Feel

"Blind Feeling" is a song by Gary Wright and "Feels Blind" is a song by Bikini Kill, but the meaning of "feel blind" is, of course something else.

The face behind the right corner (east)

These letters must be converted to Braille, a writing system for the blind whose letters can be felt with the fingertips. We get:



That's a rebus: A female fox, i.e. a VIXEN and an EYE. With the letter substitutions given below, that means "Vigenère", a shifting cipher for which we need a key. (I first thought the vixen's head was an arrow, but Jafe pointed out my mistake.)

The face behind the left corner (north)

We can apply Braille here, too, and get this QR code:



(The repeated PXML and LGBL combinations in the top left, top right and bottom left corners are conspicious.)

The encoded data is "🔑:🎅" or "key: SANTA" in plain text.

The lid

Decoding the letters of the lid as a Vigenère cipher with the key SANTA, then applying Braille again yields a third QR code:



I don't think we need a QR-code decoder to get the message of this one.

Credit

I nearly got there on my own, but apparently I'm not clever enough to code my own Vigenère decoder. (I hope the next coding interviews ask for Fizz-Buzz again. Thank you.)

So the helpful comments of Mike, Lukas and Jafe were needed and welcome. Thanks!