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CiSRA Puzzle Competition 2010 - Solutions

4D. The Missing Monkey

Step 1:

The grid of tiles at the bottom of the puzzle make up a word search. Each of the words is either the name of a martial art, or a legal term.

4D. solution 1

Martial arts:
KUNGFU
BOXING
HAPKIDO
KARATE
MUAYTHAI

Legal terms:
SUBPOENA
ALIBI
PARDON
LIBEL

The remaining letters produce the message "MURDOCK SECRET ID". Lawyer Matt Murdock's secret identity is the martial artist superhero DAREDEVIL.

Step 2:

Drop the chess pieces straight down onto the board of letter tiles.

4D. solution 2

Some of the tiles are raised. The raised tiles are all of the squares to which one or more of the chess pieces could legally move under the normal rules of chess (avoiding check for the kings and so on). This suggests that the next step might involve looking at where each of the pieces may move. Black is conventionally at the top, so the pawn moves down the board.

It turns out that, for each piece, the total Scrabble point value of the tiles that it could legally move to is a number within the range 1 to 26, which conveniently maps to the alphabet.

The squares that each of the pieces can legally move to are shown below. They're ordered by one piece of information we haven't used so far: the height of the pieces in the puzzle. Where two pieces are at the same height, they're ordered by depth. In other words, they're ordered left-to-right then top-to-bottom from the viewpoint used in step 3, below.

4D. solution 3

The total point values of the tiles to which each piece can move are:

  • White knight: 22
  • Black pawn: 5
  • White king: 18
  • White rook (left): 12
  • Black king: 9
  • White rook (right): 14
  • White bishop: 19
  • Black bishop: 11
  • White queen: 25

Converting these numbers to letters of the alphabet spells out the surname of chess master Boris Markovich VERLINSKY.

Step 3:

Ignoring everything except the red blocks, work out what the three-dimensional objects in the puzzle would look like when viewed from the right. (Remember Through the Looking Glass?) You may need to use shadows, the metal struts, or other pieces of depth information to work out where each of the blocks is in space.

4D. solution 4

This produces the word HARPO.

Step 4:

Each of three words produced by the first three steps of this puzzle refers to someone who has, or is usually depicted with, a disability:

  • Daredevil is a blind superhero.
  • Boris Verlinsky was a deaf chess master.
  • Harpo Marx was mute in his stage persona.

Combining this with the idea that we're looking for a monkey brings to mind the three wise monkeys, representing the maxim "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." These monkeys are also known by the Japanese names Mizaru, Kikazaru, Iwazaru. But some depictions include a fourth monkey, representing "do no evil". The missing monkey is SHIZARU.