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I was wondering what the most important trait for a puzzle creator and/or solver was. I think I've found the answer, but I could be wrong. I thought about it, deconstructed it, put it back together a different way and took it apart again.

In the end, I'm fairly sure that trait is ____________... what, you thought I'd just tell you? No, I worked too hard to figure it out. You'll need to find it yourself. I wrote it down, but it might be hard to read:


enter image description here


That's it, 12 tiles. But can you find the hidden trait written on them? It won't be easy. You'll know you've found it when you find a 12 letter word. Good luck!

Hint:

To sort one set, you'll need to sort the other.

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3 Answers 3

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Building on rand al'thor's and DooplissForce's answers:

Rearrange the tiles so the blue shapes match up:

enter image description here
This says "BLAISE", which implies Blaise de Vigenère, meaning we'll probably have to use the Vigenère cipher somewhere.

Rearrange the tiles so the red shapes match up:

enter image description here
Which spells DANGER. Perhaps the Vigenère key is DANGER?

Another observation:

Each of the twelve squares has one capital letter and one lowercase letter. That makes 12 capitals and 12 lower-case letters. I recorded the pairs of letters e.g. U and w, A and f. That gives us: UACOIWQSKGEM wfrexjakzgry

Given the clue "To sort one set, you have to sort the other":

Notice that the lower-case letters have two 'r's, but the capital have no repeats. That suggests that we should sort by the capitals. Once I started to sort the capitals, I notice that they are regularly spaced, 'A C E G I...', which indicates that I'm on the right path. The sorted letters are now: ACEGIKMOQSUW frrgxzyeakwj

Taking the lower-case letters:

Use 'DANGER' as a Vigenère key on them

Resulting in:

creativeness!

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    $\begingroup$ Ay well done! :) $\endgroup$ Feb 20, 2017 at 3:35
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(Partial answer)

Adding onto rand al'thor's answer, I rearranged them so all the blue shapes matched up:

enter image description here
This says "BLAISE", which implies Blaise de Vigenère, meaning we'll probably have to use the Vigenère cipher somewhere.

Stealing from rand, the red shapes make:

enter image description here
Which spells DANGER. Perhaps the Vigenère key is DANGER?

Another observation:

Each of the twelve squares has one capital letter and one lowercase letter. Since there are thus twelve of each, and the code we're looking for has twelve letters, I don't think this is a coincidence. I tried using DANGER as a Vigenère key for the strings UACOIWQSKGEM, wfrexjakzgry, CWGIASUMQKEO, and rjgxfkwyazre, the strings gotten when you take the capital/lowercase letters going left to right, top to bottom, in each picture, and got:
UACOIWQSKGEM -> RAPIEFNSXAAV
wfrexjakzgry -> tfeytsxkmanh
CWGIASUMQKEO -> ZWTCWBRMDEAX
rjgxfkwyazre -> ojtrbttyntnn
i.e., nothing intelligible.

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    $\begingroup$ Ah, looks like we were both doing the same thing at the same time :-) $\endgroup$ Feb 19, 2017 at 21:14
  • $\begingroup$ To sort one set, you need to sort the other. $\endgroup$
    – qwertyu63
    Feb 19, 2017 at 23:11
  • $\begingroup$ The capital letters "UACOIWQSKGEM" are unique, and skip two places each time (e.g. A C E G....) $\endgroup$
    – Donnelle
    Feb 20, 2017 at 1:27
  • $\begingroup$ I'm guessing "creativeness" but am yet to prove it! $\endgroup$
    – Donnelle
    Feb 20, 2017 at 1:31
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    $\begingroup$ @Donnelle You were the first to the last step. That's enough to pitch in an answer. Just write out your thought process. You can refer back to other people's answers; I see it all the time. $\endgroup$
    – qwertyu63
    Feb 20, 2017 at 1:52
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Partial answer

Rearrange the twelve squares so that all the red shapes match up:

enter image description here
They seem to spell out DANGER.

Then do the same for the blue shapes:

enter image description here
They seem to spell out BLAISE.

Note that the sentence in the OP "I thought about it, deconstructed it, put it back together a different way and took it apart again." is a hint telling us what to do here.

Sadly, rearranging these letters doesn't seem to give anything useful. Perhaps the twelve-letter word we seek is

DANGERBLAISE!

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  • $\begingroup$ The random letters seem to suggest an imgur link $\endgroup$
    – boboquack
    Feb 19, 2017 at 21:01
  • $\begingroup$ Small nudge: neither set has a C in it. $\endgroup$
    – qwertyu63
    Feb 19, 2017 at 21:14
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    $\begingroup$ @qwertyu Danger Blaise? $\endgroup$ Feb 19, 2017 at 21:17
  • $\begingroup$ nods head yes You're on the right track. $\endgroup$
    – qwertyu63
    Feb 19, 2017 at 21:18
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    $\begingroup$ Right, I immediately thought "Blaise" -> "Pascal", but "Pascal danger" isn't much help either. $\endgroup$ Feb 19, 2017 at 21:26

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