I have been doing the game of the Petals around the Rose today. I need to admit that I needed a damn long time to get to such an easy solution. :-)
You can learn about the game at the Fraternity of Petals Around the Rose. Read that now, and try it.
Remember, the important stuff is:
The name of the game is Petals Around the Rose, and that name is significant. Newcomers to the game can be told that much. They can also be told that every answ er is zero or an even number. They can also be told the answer for every throw of the dice that are used in the game. And that’s all the information they get.
As soon as I had found the solution, of course I quickly implemented it in Ruby:
eval "ZGljZSA9ICgxLi42KS5tYXAgeyByYW5kKDYpKzEgfQpwZXRhbHMgPSB
kaWNlLmluamVjdCgwKSB7IHxhLCBifCBhICsgKGIlMiA9PSAwID8gMCA6IGIt
MSkgfQpwdXRzICJgUGV0YWxzIGFyb3VuZCB0aGUgUm9zZScgb2YgI3tkaWNlL
mpvaW4gJyAnfTogI3twZXRhbHN9Igo=".delete("\n").unpack("m*")[0]
It has been scrambled, because you shouldn’t read now how it works. Getting it on your own is the most important part of the game. (Of course, if you did it, go ahead and read the code. Stop! First solve the puzzle! (I know my readers… :-))
Some example output (I don’t think you can get it my just reading the numbers. You need to imagine dices.):
`Petals around the Rose' of 3 5 4 1 5 1: 10
`Petals around the Rose' of 4 4 3 3 6 4: 4
`Petals around the Rose' of 4 1 6 6 1 5: 4
`Petals around the Rose' of 5 2 5 1 5 5: 16
`Petals around the Rose' of 4 6 4 2 2 1: 0
`Petals around the Rose' of 4 1 2 1 1 3: 2
It’s really a great puzzle, so easy but so distracting… When you have found out how it works, you can punch yourself in the face. :-)
NP: Die Toten Hosen—Das Mädchen aus Rottweil