18
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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 Colored Switches

  • 1995 surfer film starring Catherine Zeta-Jones
  • Atmospheric effect where solar radiation is trapped
  • Cocktail made with peanut liqueur
  • Result of a punch in the face
  • Seneca chief Otetiani's nickname
  • Superhero played by Chadwick Boseman
  • Valve promotion including Portal

various colored numbers

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1 Answer 1

12
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The final answer is

Society

The title seems to be a reference to the KTaNE manual, in which each section begins with "On the Subject Of.."

Step 1

As a starting point, it seems like

all the clues should have answers referencing a colour, but not necessarily the colours in the image below.

  1. 1995 surfer film starring Catherine Zeta-Jones

    Blue Juice

  2. Atmospheric effect where solar radiation is trapped

    Greenhouse, courtesy of @dcfyj in the comment below

  3. Cocktail made with peanut liqueur

    Brown Bomber

  4. Result of a punch in the face

    Black eye

  5. Seneca chief Otetiani's nickname

    Red Jacket

  6. Superhero played by Chadwick Boseman

    Black Panther

  7. Valve promotion including Portal

    Orange Box

Step 2

Now

We need to go deeper. Each of the answers has a word that can be commonly associated with another colour, this time from the image. We associate the words with the new colours, in order, and take the nth letter from each word (e.g. white is first, and we take the 4th letter from the corresponding word)

If we list the colours in order:

White 4

House (from #2), S

Black 2

Box (#6), O

Yellow 3

Jacket (#5), C

Orange 3

Juice (#1), I

Blue 5

Bomber (#3), E (had to Google that one, was stumped!)

Pink 4

Panther (#6), T

Red 2

Eye (#4), Y

All of which spells out

Society

Thanks to @dcfyj for the answer to #2, which also helped point out that I was heading down the wrong path initially

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3
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ The Atmospheric effect is very likely Rot13(terraubhfr) $\endgroup$
    – dcfyj
    Jan 29, 2020 at 18:23
  • $\begingroup$ "Each of the answers has a word that can be commonly associated with another colour, this time from the image." I don't understand how this makes "green" from "greenhouse" link to "white". $\endgroup$
    – Corsaka
    Jan 30, 2020 at 9:56
  • $\begingroup$ @Corsaka Greenhouse -> house -> White House -> white. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan
    Jan 31, 2020 at 11:59

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