Fed II Star - April 9, 2006

CRYPTOGRAMS
Saturday April 1
by Fancy-Fancy

We gathered in Duff's Modem Pub today for Cryptograms, with me hosting the game and Catspaws playing it in the kick-off to our April Foolishness with the events. Gwaptiva, Zand, Gilar, and Honoria joined us there for the game. All of today's players were veterans of Cryptograms, so we began the game with our warm-up puzzle...

Resource commodities:
W J A X I H
G E V Z H
V E E I Z H
F I L I W I E J H
L R G U J E
P F J A V E H

Gilar was first with the solution (in about 3 minutes), followed by Zand a minute later, with Catspaws and Gwaptiva coming up with the solution shortly after. April used to be the start of the Roman new year until they moved it to January, and those who continued to celebrate the new year in April were thought of as fools, so our second puzzle this afternoon was based on that...

Happy new year!:
O T N U B M T U A
T G Z C Z T V W A B V S
U D E S A A L G T N S
J P H Z W T E S A
N P A S O T N T C S
K M T E O T W V S

Gwaptiva got the list first (after 9 minutes), followed by Catspaws after another minute. Honoria finally came up with the list for third this round. Our next puzzle was...

Player Planet Eateries:
P G S V ' T P B P I K G X V T
K U L C Q T K G Z H L P V Q J
G K W B Q S T Q S R G P L J G S
S L T K G Q S G Z K L G V U G C J S G
K U L K Q P G Z J G S
V X J J W ' T L F P L V T X B S S B B C

Gilar got the list first (after about 10 minutes), followed by Catspaws about 3 minutes later, and Zand 3 minutes after that. With the Final Four in the NCAA basketball tournament going on today, I made the fourth puzzle a salute to that...

March Madness team nicknames:
W V C R K H
Z L E T V H
N T Q T K R L Q H
E R Z X V H
W Q C X F X G R Q H
D R Q F N L E H

Catspaws got the list first (after 9 minutes), followed by Gwaptiva 3 minutes later. Gilar completed the list for third. And finally, appropriately enough for April Fool's Day, we finished up with...

Trick pranks:
F P R X Y X X Y E Z L Q
H L Q X O I Z A I B N Y A
J B N Y C P Z Z O Y C P P
K F P P X O Y U L A F O P I
F B I C M L G G Y E
A P L E U B I C G

Catspaws got the list in 11:13 for first. By this time, several players had gone off to the April Fools party and Gilar was the only other player left, and he gave up on it, so Catspaws got the only three points this round.

Our final scores today were: Catspaws 11, Gilar 7, Gwaptiva 5, Zand 3, Honoria 1. Congratulations to Catspaws, winner of this week's game of Cryptograms, and to Gilar and Gwaptiva for also finishing in the top three. Join us Saturdays at 4.00pm eastern for Cryptograms.