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The DJ from Moscow was pumping out tunes.
The house mostly bare but for furniture, strewn;
A sofa for three and an armchair for one.
The guests started piling in, looking for fun...

'Twas Elle who came first, seeking somewhere to slouch,
She leaned on the wall with her feet on the couch.
Her boyfriend soon followed and sat down beside,
And cozied in close as they both turned and eyed...
...a blue jay that fluttered in, down from the sky.
More falling than flying - it wasn't clear why.
It flipped as it fell, landing hard with a whack,
Between the two seats and lay dead on its back.

The next to arrive, a conservative man,
With laces as straight as the beeline he ran.
He sat down, oblivious, square on the bird!
And that is where things went from weird to absurd...

...

The twins came next; first one then two,
Like lightning bolts struck from the blue.
The first crashed on the floor, out wide,
With legs propped up, on armchair's side.
When number two came dropping in,
He settled on his brother's shin!
His feet, in turn, then came to lay,
Upon the man, upon the jay!

By now the room was one big din,
But people kept sardining in.
As case in point, there came a gent,
Who, dressed as Mr T, then went,
And crammed himself beside Elle's guy,
And gave high fives to those nearby.

Then Elle rushed in-- Can that be who!?
No time to check... (perhaps there's two?)
She looked for space, dived head-first in,
And made a seat of piled up twin.

But now the time had come at last,
As I stepped into chaos, vast.
I surveyed everything in sight,
Then moved with purpose for the right.

This party ends in tragedy.
I planned it from the start, you see.
'Cos as I sat, they could not flee...
As all that was just ceased to be!

Draw a picture of the room, including everyone's exact position, as it was in the moments before I sat down.

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  • 2
    $\begingroup$ this is clearly about ROT13(grgevf), but i can't workout what the furniture is supposed to represent... $\endgroup$
    – crcroberts
    May 1, 2018 at 4:05
  • $\begingroup$ How do we post a picture without spoiling your question? $\endgroup$
    – jsm
    May 1, 2018 at 5:06
  • 13
    $\begingroup$ @jsm - You can still put a picture in a spoiler tag. When you're posting your answer, add the image, which will give you a bunch of square bracket markup, but then you can manually add >! to the front of the line to hide it in a spoiler block. $\endgroup$
    – Alconja
    May 1, 2018 at 5:08
  • 10
    $\begingroup$ Damn, this is one fine riddle $\endgroup$ May 1, 2018 at 14:01

1 Answer 1

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As pointed out in the comments by crcroberts, this particular room is

a Tetris field.

Final picture:

enter image description here


Full explanation:

The DJ from Moscow was pumping out tunes.
The house mostly bare but for furniture, strewn;
A sofa for three and an armchair for one.
The guests started piling in, looking for fun...

Tetris's tune is quite famous, and it is actually a Russian folk song (thanks Alconja!). At the start, the board is empty except for a group of 3 blocks (couch) and a group of one (armchair), probably leftovers from a previous line clear.

'Twas Elle who came first, seeking somewhere to slouch,
She leaned on the wall with her feet on the couch.

Elle is the L piece, which lies close to the wall, on top of the couch.

Her boyfriend soon followed and sat down beside,
And cozied in close as they both turned and eyed...

Elle's boyfriend is an S, who can fit next to an L piece.

...a blue jay that fluttered in, down from the sky.
More falling than flying - it wasn't clear why.
It flipped as it fell, landing hard with a whack,
Between the two seats and lay dead on its back.

The jay is, of course, the J piece, that also happens to be actually blue in the games. It lay on the floor on its back, between the group of 3 and the group of 1.

The next to arrive, a conservative man,
With laces as straight as the beeline he ran.
He sat down, oblivious, square on the bird!
And that is where things went from weird to absurd...

Conservative man can be another term for "square", which is also actually literally mentioned in "square on the bird". So this has to be the O piece.

The twins came next; first one then two,
Like lightning bolts struck from the blue.
The first crashed on the floor, out wide,
With legs propped up, on armchair's side.
When number two came dropping in,
He settled on his brother's shin!
His feet, in turn, then came to lay,
Upon the man, upon the jay!

The twins are two equal pieces, more specifically the "lightning bolt" pieces, aka the Z tetrominoes. One falls on top of the armchair and the second one falls on top of the first one, with one end on top of the square block.

By now the room was one big din,
But people kept sardining in.
As case in point, there came a gent,
Who, dressed as Mr T, then went,
And crammed himself beside Elle's guy,
And gave high fives to those nearby.

Mr. T is the T tetromino, who is adjacent to Elle's boyfriend and also a bunch of others.

Then Elle rushed in-- Can that be who!?
No time to check... (perhaps there's two?)
She looked for space, dived head-first in,
And made a seat of piled up twin.

Another L, fitting in the space that was left for it on the right side.

But now the time had come at last,
As I stepped into chaos, vast.
I surveyed everything in sight,
Then moved with purpose for the right.

This party ends in tragedy.
I planned it from the start, you see.
'Cos as I sat, they could not flee...
As all that was just ceased to be!

"I" is the I tetromino. Once it settles down on the right column, a Tetris will be formed and all four lines will be gone.

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    $\begingroup$ This is an incredibly intuitive solve. $\endgroup$
    – Deepak
    May 1, 2018 at 8:27
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ ah, the "furniture" is leftovers, of course. I'd considered them being pieces of course, bit couldn't reconcile them because they were only '3 seaters' and '1 seaters' respectively $\endgroup$
    – crcroberts
    May 1, 2018 at 20:20
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    $\begingroup$ Nicely done. You even got the colours right (so yes, the jay really is blue)! Only minor oversight is that the "DJ from Moscow" was alluding to the fact that the well known theme, is actually a Russian folk song (not that your observation of the game's creator is wrong, just not what I intended). $\endgroup$
    – Alconja
    May 1, 2018 at 22:27
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    $\begingroup$ As someone who's been playing too much of this game recently, I appreciate that this sequence is actually possible within the standard 7-bag randomizer @Alconja, well done. Now I'm just wondering how to set up the trash in such a way to leave the proper end of the bag to see this sequence. Or how a puzzle in a similar style would look but with the addition of SRS twists rather than just hard drop positioning... $\endgroup$
    – CAD97
    May 2, 2018 at 5:52

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