Welcome back, code breakers and language translators. This past week's puzzle had you decoding the message of some very smart Italian mice. Here's the puzzle as it was presented:
Puzzle:
This weeks puzzle takes us to the prestigious and totally fictitious Istituto Italiano di Ricerca Roditori (Italian institute of Rodent Research). The institute's Dr. Francesca is teaching mice to build mazes for other mice. With her workday done she says goodnight to her little experiments. "Buonanotte i miei bambini ho bisogno di andare al negozio" (Goodnight my babies I need to go to the store). The mice begin squeaking excitedly and start rearranging the various maze pieces until they create the pattern shown above. Being an amateur cryptographer Dr. Francesca looks over the pattern for a awhile and recognizes it as a variation of a popular cipher and begins to laugh. "Sì mi ricordo ... ci vediamo domani" (Yes I'll remember .. see tomorrow)
Solution
The mice are using a modified version of the pigpen cipher based on this key:
Like the pigpen cipher we use dots and lines to represent the letters. Like this:
Decoding the Message above we get "Abbiamo Bisogno Di Formaggio" which Google Translator converts to "We Need Cheese." This week's randomly chosen decoder is Ivan Pontino who will get a $50.00 ThinkGeek Gift Certificate. The rest of you get this code: GEEKDAD93SF for $10.00 of an order of $50.00 or more at ThinkGeek. They don't carry cheese but they have a whole lot of other awesome things.
Come back next week so the great Gareth Sundem can make you work your brain cells off for another chance to win a $50.00 ThinkGeek Gift Certificate!
