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(This is part of a series of puzzles written for Timwi for a Secret Santa puzzle exchange, themed around various custom modules for the game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. No KTaNE knowledge is necessary for any of these puzzles except the final meta; each puzzle resolves to a single word or short phrase.)

On The Subject of Discolored Squares

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ Eyy! I haven't seen Deus post a puzzle for a really long time. Looks cool! $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 19:05
  • $\begingroup$ Even without reading the question I gave it an instant vote up :) $\endgroup$
    – Dmitry Kamenetsky
    Commented Jan 28, 2020 at 12:00

2 Answers 2

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The hidden word is

Rhombus.

Start by

separating the red, green, and blue channels, revealing this pangram:

SPHINXOFBL ACKQUARTZJ UDGEMYVOW

Using these,

One possible set of letters in this font which overlay to produce the monochrome images is this:

decoded

DONHE MACHT RIPAA
CCARA TIWME SONAR
MARAN CAMAN SIRRI
STANG VENKM SPENT
HUSTER THING MIMANT
GRYFFIN SLYTHER RAVENCL
ARRTSG DAAMAS ATHOI

For the most part, the letters in a given cell are shown in no particular order, so they will need to be unscrambled.

Descrambling (with help from comments):

DONATello, RAPHAel, MICHElango - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
SCAREcrow, TINMAn, COWARdly lion - Wizard of Oz characters
MIRANda, CARRIe, SAMANtha - Sex and the City characters
STANTz, VENKMan, SPENGler - Ghostbusters
MISTERfantastic, THING, HUMANTorch - Fantastic Four
GRYFFINdor, SLYTHERin, RAVENCLaw - Hogwarts houses
ATHOS, ARAMIS, DARTAGnan - Three Musketeers characters

Now

each of these groups is three of a set of four. The missing members of each set, written here in the same way as the others of their group, are:

LEONArdo
DOROThy
CHARLotte
ZEDDEmore
INVISIblegirl
HUFFLEPuff
PORTHOs

Taking the first letter of each missing word that would have been cut off results in the word "RHOMBUS".

Thank you to hdsdv, Stiv, Matthew Jensen, Bass, and MacGyver88 for their comments picking up where I left off!

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    $\begingroup$ rot13(FGNAG, IRAXZ, FCRAT znxrf n yvggyr zber frafr gb zr.) Nice work. $\endgroup$
    – MacGyver88
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 21:08
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    $\begingroup$ The first row is rot13(QBANGryyb, ENCUNry, ZVPURynatryb - guerr bs gur sbhe Grrantr Zhgnag Avawn Ghegyrf) And the second row is rot13(FPNERpebj, PBJNEqyl yvba, GVAZNa - guerr punenpgref sebz Gur Jvmneq bs Bm) That's all I've got so far $\endgroup$
    – Matthew Jensen
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 21:09
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    $\begingroup$ The rest are rot13(Frk naq gur Pvgl, Tubfgohfgref, Snagnfgvp sbhe, naq gur Guerr Zhfxrgrref) (for particularly large values of three). $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 21:42
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    $\begingroup$ And Row 3 is rot13(Frk naq gur Pvgl punenpgref: ZVENAqn, PNEEVr naq FNZNAgun) - now put them all together! :) $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 21:47
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    $\begingroup$ Thank you all for your comments! I think we can call this one a team effort. $\endgroup$
    – Woofmao
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 22:52
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Partial Progress.

Edit: Changed Image, because of new Puzzle Image.

If you Filter the image by color, the top bar becomes SPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ JUDGE MY VOW. This phrase being a well-known pangram. enter image description here

Will continue along this path and post when I get more.

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  • $\begingroup$ It's interesting that the two 'U's appear to be different $\endgroup$
    – Matthew Jensen
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 19:45
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    $\begingroup$ @MatthewJensen Oh, good catch - that's an erratum, and it has been fixed. (The 'U' in the third line is the correct one.) $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 20:16
  • $\begingroup$ It kinda doesn't matter, in that the other one never appears. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 20:17

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