Occasional Puzzles - 🤔 Perplexing Pentagon
We’re pretty excited about today’s puzzle - it’s a new format that we’ve invented! We hope you like it and, as always, we look forward to your answers and feedback.
Today’s Puzzle - 🤔 Perplexing Pentagon
This new puzzle is half crossword, half word ladder. At each corner of the pentagon below there is a clue. The answer for each clue is a common two-word phrase or compound word. As you move clockwise around the pentagon, the second half of each answer becomes the first half of the next answer. Can you find all five answers?
Stumped? Scroll down to the bottom for a hint to get you started.
Source: inspired by squarewords.io
Previous Puzzle - 📆 Dizzying Days
Puzzle
You and seven friends have booked a “spooky” themed Airbnb in the woods for a cozy fall getaway. When you booked, you figured the hosts meant a secluded place with some witchy vibes, but things are actually…weird here. You drove twenty miles along a dirt road to get to the house but, when you looked at your watch, you realized it only took six minutes. From the outside, the house looked like a single story, yet inside it somehow has two flights of stairs. And you could have sworn you woke up in a different bedroom than the one you went to sleep in.
You come downstairs on what you think is checkout day only to find that your friends are packing up for a walk in the woods, seemingly unaware that it’s time to head home. Upon questioning, it turns out that everyone is a little confused about what day it is. Each friend makes a claim:
The day after tomorrow is Wednesday.
Wednesday is today.
Wednesday is tomorrow.
Today is not Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
Yesterday was Thursday.
Yesterday was Tuesday.
Yesterday was not Saturday.
Only one of them is right. So, what day is it?
Adapted from StackExchange
Solution [SPOILER]
Today is Sunday! There are many ways to arrive at the correct solution, but one simple approach is to look at each claim and figure out what days it could be true for. The first claim, for example, can only be true if today is Monday. The fourth could be true if today was Sunday, Monday, Thursday, or Saturday. If you go through all the claims, you’ll find Sunday is the only day where exactly one claim is true. If it was any other day, more than one friend would be right.
For those who prefer a more visual representation, this table shows what happens when you check each claim against all the days of the week. You can see that Sunday is the only column with one green check mark, which means it’s the only day where exactly one friend is right!
Hint for Today’s Puzzle
Need a hint? Highlight in the place below for the first half of the answer at the top of the pentagon.
OVER