Since yesterday, we had over 200 unique users try out my Power BI Game and as of now, 6 users have cracked the puzzle. I am pleased to announce that we have a winner for the contest and he responded with the answer 64 minutes after publishing.
The winner of the contest is Cory Tollefson (twitter) from Minnesota and he gets an Amazon gift voucher worth $100 for his efforts.
First clue was END and it started with birthday cake into the Marilyn Monroe pillow because of Happy Birthday, Mr President which led to the presidential seal on the door. She sang it for JFK so took the letters from his name. Second clue was the water bottle with the muppets that led to Kermit and then Steve Whitmire (had to Google him though) and took the letters from his name. Third clue was the book to the upside down Eye of Providence which was a bit of an educated guess. That led to Freemasons square to the Mona Lisa for the 3 digit code of 474. Last one was tricky until I went to full screen and saw the words on the mug matched some of the souvenirs. Mug to Venice souvenir to Crown Medallion to Amsterdam souvenir to Lisbon souvenir to map of Germany. Then took the digits from the year the Berlin Wall came down for 189.”
“I think I solved your Power BI game. Pretty cool but I’m a little ashamed at how many times I clicked the Red Herring clue line thinking I was missing something or it had two meanings.
As stated in the rules, there are no other prizes but I want to recognize all the 6 people who have solved the puzzle along with their timings (note that the timing is based on the time of publishing (10 am EST 2/19/2018) , and not the actual time taken to complete the puzzle) -
1) Cory Tollefson (twitter) from USA – 1 hr 4 mins
2) Sam Lester (twitter) from Germany – 1 hr 9 mins
3) Shannon Lowder (twitter) from USA – 2 hr 9 mins
4) Haydn Carline from UK – 5 hrs 25 mins
5) Philip Chan from Canada – 16 hrs 52 mins
6) Ken Geeraerts (twitter) from Belgium – 22 hrs 51 mins
Great job, everyone!
Now, I will give out individual spoilers below:-
If you had turned on the white light switch (or if you knew Greek alphabets, you would have understood the words on top of the door – DO NOT ALLOW THE EYE TO FOOL THE MIND, which was basically a warning to not click on the Eye of Ra medallion and go on a wild goose chase. The wild goose chase here would be – click on the Eye of Ra medallion which will instruct you to click on Ra’s likeness, the statue click on Ra’s statue and it will ask you a riddle. A simple google would have given you the answer as Day & Night. This was apparently a riddle asked by the Sphinx to Oedipus. Try to find something related to Day & night within the room. click on the Starry Night painting (which is related to Day & Night) and that will instruct you to click on the words on top of the door, and that will confirm that all the work you did was for no use.
Click on the birthday cake, and google the message. You will find that the words are actually taken from a birthday song sung by Marilyn Monroe for John F Kennedy. Click on the Marilyn Monroe pillow and then click on the Presidential Seal medallion hung on the door. The code is the 2nd, 4th and 6th letters from JFK’s last name – END
Click on the bottle which has the picture of Muppets on it. Find something related to the Muppets. Click on the green “Kermit the frog” toy and note that the commentary asks if you know your Muppets well. Click on the first photo frame on the left wall, which is of Steve Whitmire, the voice of Kermit the Frog. The code was the 1st, 2nd and 3rd letters of his last name – WHI. There was an additional clue – “Legends of Rock. Or are we?”. The other 2 are in fact legends of rock - Mick Jagger (The Rollin Stones) and Kirk Hammett (Metallica)
Click on the Dan Brown book on the table – a book on lost symbols. He also talks about secret societies and symbols, and the medallion with the upside down Eye of Providence is a symbol of FreeMasons. Click on it. Then click on the Square tool lying on the ground, which again is a symbol of FreeMasons. That will ask you to click on the Mona Lisa painting (which again was referred in Dan Brown’s books) and the code will be revealed behind the painting - 474
Click on the white coffee mug with the names of the European cities written on them.
Then click on the souvenir for Venice (on top of the door), London (the middle medallion in the shelf with Queen Elizabeth II’s logo), Amsterdam (left most souvenir on top of door), Lisbon (the blue tile souvenir on top of the door) and Berlin (the German map showing East Germany and West Germany).
The code is the 1st, 3rd and 4th digits of the year in which the Berlin Wall fell (1989) - 189
Hope you had as much fun playing this as much I had making it for you! Let me know in the comments how was your experience.
This was a fun puzzle. I knew I should have worked on it instead of relaxing for Family Day, but I worked on it after 1am. Little did I know I’d be too late.
Congrats to the winners, and thanks to Jason for a great puzzle/game!