# Never mind... Just go AFAYC

n O . h t h D i c e
X y Z h O i r o n .
p s a Y B w o r d k
i T . G r O W I T n
m Z B L e e I . i i
E i u A w I T m m r
a l a S i s H a i d
n a S H R I n K K I
L e r O u M E P e A
l . i p I z z l R .


"Here, solve it."

"But... I don't know where to start, nor where I'm heading to."

"Never mind... Just go as far as you can, and as fast as you can."

"Well... May I ask for further hints?"

"NO, THIS IS NOT ALLOWED!"

Above is the original question. Below are hints.

Hint 1:

One crucial tag is omitted in purpose (could be added later as further hint).

Hint 2:

Far = Longest
Fast = Shortest

... What!?

Hint 3:

Two numbers are involved: $$1$$ and $$\sqrt{2}$$.

Hint 4:

@OmegaKrypton mentioned this in the comment.
The chess tag is again not the correct tag, but could be very weakly relevant.
The knight move, however, is totally irrelevant, since it only involves one number: $$\sqrt{5}$$.

Hint 5:

The most important hint so far is Hint 0.

Hint 6:

The missing tag is mazes.
To keep it as a hint, I don't add it to the tags.

Hint 7:

What are the "walls" of the maze?
It's given in Hint 0...

• Asks for hints
– Avi
Nov 7, 2019 at 19:02
• @Avi First (light) hint is out. Nov 7, 2019 at 20:05
• rot13(vf vg eryngrrq gb gur pbzchgref gnt? vg ybbxf yvxr n urk cneg bs n cebtenz) Nov 7, 2019 at 20:12
• @Belhenix rot13(Juvyr n pbzchgre pbhyq or hfrshy va fbyivat gur chmmyr, vg'f cebonoyl abg gur jnl lbh zragvbarq.) Also the enigmatic-puzzle tag means it's part of the puzzle to figure out what is involved (: Nov 7, 2019 at 20:29
• Something like rot13(gur tnzr obttyr), in which case the tag might be rot13(jbeq-fdhner be jbeq-frnepu) Nov 7, 2019 at 20:44

 A L o s t E n s
b R A a n B . i
O m y M B s Q B
s L I P P E w l
I i s . e N Q e
D E N i e D r Y
K t h X M E N .
C T . R t r a c


With regards to the hints, "NO, THIS IS NOT ALLOWED!" means that Capital letters are not allowed - they are the walls in your maze. As found by Deusovi, the message within your maze is "answer with a similar puzzle". So, I've created a similar puzzle as my answer. The idea of "go as far/fast as you can" is:
1.   Find the two points within the maze, which have the longest A* distance between them, with diagonal movement allowed.
2.   Trace the A* path, and you have your answer.
3.   A* distance is minimizing the distance of a path between two points, so it will opt to skip two straight movements (distance $$2$$) in favor of a single diagonal movement (distance $$\sqrt2\lt2$$)
4.   On the other hand, you do want to maximize the A* distance, so you will end up with a pretty long path.

In the similar maze puzzle I designed, the maximum length A* path between two points is as follows:
 - _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ a n _ _ _
_ m y _ _ s _ _
s _ _ _ _ _ w _
_ i s _ _ _ _ e
_ _ _ i _ _ r _
_ t h _ _ _ _ .
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


Edit: according to later comment by OP, "." is a valid character (isn't a wall in the maze). So, I fixed my answer by replacing a "." with "X". Furthermore, it seems that this allows the following constraint: find the fastest/furthest path that ends with "." The original puzzle has a path that ends with ".", equal to "answer with a similar puzzle." Therefore, I have revised my answer to end with "." as well.

• You have almost all clues explained! But there is a small defect: your message actually reads rot13(pneg.vfvfzlnafjre), because... Also, is the path in the original maze unique? Nov 12, 2019 at 21:53
• @WhatsUp Ok, fixed :)
– Avi
Nov 12, 2019 at 22:09
• Actually it was not a constraint, but that certainly makes the sentence look better (: And I guess you haven't noticed the "uniqueness" problem - but the current answer already meets the requirement! Nov 12, 2019 at 22:14
• @WhatsUp rot13(Jryy, grpuavpnyyl gur jbeqf jrer abg gur raq bs gur cngu (fbyhgvba pbhyq'ir orra ybatre), ohg V pbhyqa'g rknpgyl gryy jul gung jbhyq or gur fbyhgvba naq abg tb shegure. V'q ybir na rkcynangvba nf gb jul gung vf, gubhtu.)
– Avi
Nov 12, 2019 at 22:16
• rot13(Bayl pncvgny yrggref ner "jnyyf". Gur gjb yrggref jvgu znkvzny fubegrfg qvfgnapr ner vaqrrq gur "n" ng (7, 8) (7gu ebj, 8gu pbyhza) naq gur "." ng (10, 10), gur fubegrfg qvfgnapr orvat 15\fdeg(2) + 9. Ubjrire gurer ner zhygvcyr fubegrfg cnguf juvpu nggnva gung qvfgnapr. Ohg bayl gur pbeerpg cngu dhnyvsvrf, orpnhfr (lbh'yy frr jura lbh svaq gur bguref).) Nov 12, 2019 at 22:26

If you look at

only the lowercase letters, a message can be traced.

There are a few 'false paths', but the longest possible message says "answer with a similar puzzle". (No similar puzzles come to mind, but this is apparently everything to be extracted from the puzzle.)

• I'm still not sure what this has to do with "far" or "fast", though...
– Deusovi
Nov 12, 2019 at 0:07
• You indeed found the message, but haven't got the correct logic (: And that's why rot13(vg vf nfxrq gb perngr n fvzvyne znmr gb qrzbafgengr gung gur ybtvpf ner haqrefgbbq). +1 for finding the message, of course! Nov 12, 2019 at 0:15
• As I commented before, the "far" means the rot13(ybatrfg cngu) whereas the "fast" means the rot13(fubegrfg fgrc). So we need to find the rot13(ybatrfg fubegrfg cngu n.x.n gjb pryyf juvpu ner frcnengrq gur ybatrfg vs jr genprq ol gurve fubegrf cngu). There is no "false paths" IFF you incorporate not the number of letters but rot13(gur qvfgnapr orgjrra gur yrggref v.r. nqwnprag vf bar ohg qvntbany vf fdeg bs gjb). Nov 12, 2019 at 1:17
• @athin Your last sentence is however slightly incorrect (: Are there "false paths"? Nov 12, 2019 at 16:18
• @WhatsUp I read the accepted answer but I didn't see where's the incorrect part of my last sentence (since it did the same thing with accepted answer.) Could you help me to clarify the difference? Nov 12, 2019 at 22:44