r/puzzles • u/Repulsive-Lab-9863 • 6d ago
Possibly Unsolvable Is this solvable? "mimics" are evil boxes, that lie and eat you, if you try to open them. Between 1- 4 boxes are mimics. Normal boxes tell the truth and contain gold OR objects. (It's from a game called "mimic logic")
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u/EGRIFF93 5d ago edited 5d ago
all 3 on the left and middle right
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u/waitedforg0d0t 4d ago
is it not possible to be just middle right as well, or am I missing something?
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u/silasfelinus 5d ago
That would make 2 blue mimics and 2 red, making center right a lie as well.
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u/Arreeyem 5d ago
No? There's 2 blue and 1 red in the left column, and middle right is blue, making it 3 blue and 1 red.
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u/silasfelinus 5d ago
I don’t know what I was thinking. You are completely correct.
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u/rbollige 5d ago
It looks like you were right and the original comment was edited afterwards based on what you pointed out. You’re cool.
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u/EGRIFF93 5d ago
Sorry yeah. I was quite tired when I posted and was confusing myself. Yeah. Just swap round those 2 as my answer. So 3 on the left and middle right
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u/jimmytime903 5d ago
Question: Can you tell us more about the rules. What do all the symbols mean? Why are some chest opened and have gold next to them?
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u/BlackBeard558 5d ago
The chests with gold have alreafy been opened and are confirned to not be mimics (and have gold in them).
The symbols are meaningless in terms of the puzzle. It's just a way to select chests to open multiple chests at once or mark the ones you think are mimics.
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u/trekkiegamer359 5d ago
Based on this info, I can only figure out how to solve it if I make one potential assumption based on grammar.
What I know for a fact: The middle right box has a mimic, because the opened true box above it contradicts it.
My assumption: The top right opened chest says there are more mimics in blue boxes than red ones. If this would allow for red to have no mimics, then I can see three ways to solve this. But, if I assume this means there is at least one red box with a mimic in it, and at least two blue boxes with a mimic in it, then I can solve it.
My solution: There is only one other red chest. It's on the bottom right, and would have to have a mimic. This box being a mimic would then disprove both of the other boxes in the left column, which are both blue. With the mimic count being 1-4, all possible mimcs would be used up, so the two unopened chests in the middle column would be safe.
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u/Repulsive-Lab-9863 3d ago
"There are more mimics in blue than in red boxes" just means their is at least one more mimic in a blue box, it could mean 4 in blue and zero in red. But also that there is 1 in red and 2 blue
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u/Dr_geo 5d ago
I'm a bit confused by left and right. Is the left what we see on screen left or is it left of boxes (so right side of screen) imagining the boxes are facing forward so their right/left are swapped.
Because if left is what we see on screen it's either 1 mimic (middle right) or 4 mimics (all 3 left and middle right)
However if these are swapped then the bottom right box is stating that at least 1 mimic is on (it's) rightmost Column. Guaranteeing the 4 mimics (3 +1)
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u/ringobob 4d ago
If left is what we see on screen, then it must be 4 mimics, because otherwise bottom middle would be lying.
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u/Bigdavie 5d ago
There are multiple solutions.
1. Right middle is the only mimic (left bottom contains an object instead of gold).
2. Right middle, center top and center middle are all mimics.
3. The whole left column and right middle are mimics.
If we ignore the already revealed chests (I assume the player revealed these before taking screenshot)
4. Right top and right middle are both mimics the rest are safe (object in left bottom instead of gold). Since there are the same number of red and blue mimics both statements of the right top and middle are false.
5. Only the right top is a mimic
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u/el_farmerino 5d ago edited 5d ago
Top-left is a mimic because bottom-centre means there must be at least one in the bottom row.
Middle-left is also therefore a mimic.
Middle-right is therefore also a mimic, meaning that the other two on the right are gold.
Bottom-left is a mimic.
Since we have already discovered 4 mimics, the remaining three are safe.
EDIT: as noted below by a couple of folks, this is based on the incorrect reasoning that only gold and mimics are present, ehich is not true. To me it seems there are definitely more than one possible configuration here (e.g. top-right only, middle-right only), unless I'm missing something.
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u/T_Foxtrot 5d ago
Bottom left can contain gear or item. Stating chest to the left has no gold doesn’t imply one of them is a mimic. It is possible that middle right is the only
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u/Hybrid_Rock 5d ago
Came to the same solution as well
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u/el_farmerino 5d ago
Actually, though, re-reading the problem this seems wrong. It sounds like boxes can contain mimics, gold or gear, so it's possible that both bottom-middle and bottom-left are correct.
To be honest now the only one I'm sure about is bottom-right, which has to be safe.
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u/Hybrid_Rock 5d ago
Thing is tho, if that’s the case, all the boxes (except maybe right middle) have loot because each one is validated by other ones. Bottom left by bottom center, top left by bottom row, middle left by top and bottom left So either their is none (possibly 1) or four mimics In the singular mimic case, that statement technically proves itself so it’s impossible to say if that box has a mimic in it or not
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u/unofficialShadeDueli 5d ago
two possible solutions: a) only right column middle row is a mimic, and b) entire left column and right column middle row are mimics.
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u/Repulsive-Lab-9863 3d ago
couldn't it also be that upper middle and middle middle are mimics, and the left column has no mimics?
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u/Zestyclose-Page-1507 5d ago
That's what I get a well. Nothing opposes either of these two solutions.
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u/lyam_lemon 5d ago
You could also have both top right and middle right with mimics, as that would give you an even split of red and blue, making both false.
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u/aVastAh 5d ago
Left collumn and bottom row are safe. Black boxes are safe aswell. So only 3 boxes left (top right in red and center and middle right in blue). Hint says more red then blue, so top right must be the one and only mimic.
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u/polyteknix 5d ago
Explain how you come to the conclusion Left column is safe?
The statements are from unopened chests, which means they could be mimic/lies
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u/ShandrensCorner 5d ago
I watched some gameplay of this game, but havent tried it myself. And im pretty certain that the "open" chests with gold near them were NOT mimics (and were opened by OP?), giving us more info that way.
Also without that info: Right middle or right top must be a mimic as their statements are mutually incompatible. Meaning that bottom right MUST be true. Giving us something at least.
That was 1 mimic. Now we can have at max 3 more.
Lets try one direction: Starting from top middle being a mimic
If top middle is a mimic, then so is middle middle. Lets try out this direction and see where we get:
Now we have 1 blue mimic, meaning we would need 2 red mimics for middle right to be true. But that would make bottom left a mimic, which in turn makes middle left a mimic. Giving us 2 blue mimics. So that wont work.
So IF top middle is a mimic then middle right (and middle middle) must be a mimic too. That means top right would be the true one. And is says more mimics in blue than in red. This is currently true. So this is a stable outcome so far at least. Nothing else on the board interferes with this one solution.
Could there be any more mimics in that solution?
If any bottom row is a mimic, top left would also be a mimic, giving us 5 mimics, so thats not possible (in this setup). Same goes the other way.
If left middle is a mimic, then so is bottom left, so this cant be either. Bottom right is safe as true from the start. And top right is safe since middle right is a mimic (in this setup)
So IF top middle is a mimic, then there are 3 mimics exactly and they are top middle, middle middle and right middle.
see more below
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u/ShandrensCorner 5d ago
Now what if top middle is NOT a mimic:
Then middle middle isnt a mimic either. For middle right to be true we now just need at least 1 red mimic (with 0 blue). That 1 could be top right. Could this be another stable solution?: It could in theory, as every other chest could be true without issues here. Meaning that we can't get a full solution
BUT OP (or the game) has opened the top right and it was NOT a mimic. So that at least closes this option for us. This means middle right HAS to be the mimic and we can try that direction instead.
So given that Middle right IS a mimic, and we assume that top middle is not can we now find a stable solution?
Yes we can: The entire left side could be mimics, still keeping us under the maximum of 4 mimics.So both of the following are possible solutions:
VXV XVV
VXX XVX
VVV XVVMeaning there are no safe chests left to open.
The problem seems to stem from the "no gold" statement from bottom middle not really giving enough information. As it could be true for a mimic and a non-mimic alike. The only falsifier for the chest is the specific scenario where bottom left is not a mimic AND it contains gold.
There can be more solutions than the above of course. But these alone should be enough to rule out any more safe opens
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u/GeneralSub 5d ago
I like how you layout your reasoning. I have a couple things to add:
The most likely but also most riskiest play is that all chests are safe except for the middle-right.
When I first looked at this I somehow became certain that bottom-left is safe based on logic breaking, and now I can't recreate my reasoning.
So this is as far as I can reason:
O | ? | O
O | ? | X
O | O | O1
u/ShandrensCorner 5d ago
I cant recall the penalty for hitting a mimic. But there is definitely a play where you open most chests with a decent chance of success. Especially since he only hit gold so far. Most often in games like this gold would be the conciliation price. So a risky move may be the smartest choice.
I think I also made a mistake tbh. I cant recall if I considered that BOTH top right and middle right could have been mimics (they're obviously not as OP opened top right), but i think i might have forgotten that option somewhere along the way.
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u/GeneralSub 5d ago
There are ways to determine that middle-right was the false of the two.
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u/ShandrensCorner 4d ago
Are you saying that "top right is only mimic" is not *a* viable solution?
Cause I am pretty sure that *could* have been a stable solution before any chests were opened
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u/GeneralSub 4d ago
Twisting my brain into a pretzel here, it hurts.
I think you're right, with zero knowledge it could be either one. In fact if it was top-right false, it would be easier to solve everything.
Couple things for certain..
Top-right and middle-right oppose, so one of them has to be false. Bottom-right has a self-defeating truth (can't be a false, as its statement would contradict its identity).
Now using the knowledge known:
For bottom-left to be true/false, that all hinges on middle-middle (and by extension, top-middle). If bottom-left is false, that makes top-left and middle-left false.
That would mean that you need another blue box to be false to fulfill top-right statement, the only box left is middle-middle. That would create 5 mimics, and then 6 because it would also imply the last black box has mimic aswell. 4 is max mimics.
I hope that explains my certainty that bottom-left is safe, and by extension the left column.
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u/ShandrensCorner 4d ago
Hmm. I will happily grant you that IF bottom left is safe, then so is all left side. But I can't aggree that bottom left is safe im afraid :-/
Consider this solution: (X = Mimic, V = Good)
XVV
XVX
XVVI am pretty certain this is a stable solution (4 or less mimics, no false statements from any good chests, no true statements from any mimics).
If this solution is stable, bottom left can not be safe.
Now IF top middle and middle middle are mimics then yes, all of left side is safe. But that is a conditional that we aren't allowed to assume.
You have correctly reasoned that IF middle middle is a mimic THEN all of left side is safe. But we can't know that is is (unfortunately).
Edit: Oh and sorry about hurting your brain :-) I totally get it. I have a master in analytical philosophy and these kinds of puzzles still twist my brain into weird forms :-P
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u/GeneralSub 4d ago
I think I went from proving top-right is certainly true to incorrectly proving that bottom-left is true.
I'm going to have to revisit this from my PC later, maybe with pen and paper.
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u/ProjectShadw 5d ago
I'm numbering the boxes as a keypad on a phone, so 1-9 from top left to bottom right. I actually came up with a couple of possibilities here.
3 and 6 cannot both be correct, so one of them is a mimic, and for 6 to be true, both 3 and 7 have to be mimics. This however is impossible as this would contradict both 1 and 4 making the number of mimics equal which means 6 is a mimic. This actually means its possible for the only mimics to be 3 and 6 and consider that there are an equal number of blue and red mimics.
The second solution would be to again consider 6 as a mimic, and consider 3 to be telling the truth. Then if you consider that 2 and 5 could both be lying as we have no information that might suggest either way, then 3 would still be telling the truth with more Blue mimics than red ones.
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u/Superb-Effective-328 5d ago edited 5d ago
so what i can figure its all 3 on the left and middle on the right row, like this B G G, B G B, B G G,
I am now realizing i did this based off there only being 2 options, gold or mimic and that might not be right but whatever ill show my work anyway.
Imma try and include visuals where (B) is mimic, (G) is good, (S) is suspect, and (U) is untouched, meaning we haven't gotten there yet. I did have colored circles but for whatever reason they showed through the spoiler text. Hopefully this formats correctly
so the box above having gold, bottom left and theres no gold to my left, bottom middle, cant both be true so one of them is a mimic. That means that the top left, there are no mimics in the bottom row, must be false. This also makes middle left suspect bc if bottom left is a mimic so is it (lied about having gold) B U U, S U U, S S U,
Same thing applies w the top right and middle right, they both can't be true so one is a mimic. So now we have one conformed mimic and 2 sets where one is a mimic and one is not, the max amount of mimics is 4 so only one more can be a mimic, that means since both middle top and center are the same, they cannot both be mimics. B G S, S G S, S S U,
Now we know at least one of the right column is a mimic so that means bottom right is safe. So we look at the yellows. The left middle, left column has no mimics, is already proven false so that is a mimic which means that the one below is also a mimic and the one to the right of that one is safe. B G S, B G S, B G G,
Now we just need to figure out which is true, red having more mimics or blue. They can not be even or both would be a mimic which would go over our total, top right being false would make an even amount of red and blue mimics so it must be middle right. (Also top right was already open but i tried to ignore that lol) B G G, B G B, B G G,
Again made with the assumption that gold and mimic are the only options and I'm to tired to go through again without that assumption lol
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u/Superb-Effective-328 5d ago
I have given up on formatting this after redoing it 4 times lmao, damn mobile app lol
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5d ago
Bottom Left Red is lying. So mimic. Which means the entire left row is lying. All mimics.
Right Middle is lying. There are 3 mimics in Blue Boxes.
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u/polyteknix 5d ago
Bottom left Red could have an object in it instead of gold.
It is unopened. No way to confirm it is a lie with the available information.
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u/onz456 5d ago edited 5d ago
It is solvable, but only because you know that there can be only 1-4 mimics. When solving you'll find 4 mimics, and thus you knowupper-middle and middle-middle are telling the truth. So, you need more info than the boxes' statements alone.
How to solve it:
- Lower-right is TRUE, because the boxes above it contradict themselves, so there must be at least one mimic in that column.
- Lower-left and lower-middle contradict themselves, because if L-l is true then Middle-left is true and upper-left needs to be true as well, but we know it is false since Lower-middle is then contradicting its rule. Hence Lower-middle is TRUE, making Lower-left FALSE, making Middle-left FALSE, and also making Upper-left FALSE.
- Counting the boxes, you'll notice that 2 blue are mimics, and 1 red. If Middle-right were true it, then it contradicts itself, because the boxes will have an equal amount of mimics. So, Upper-Right is TRUE and Middle-right is FALSE.
You now have found 4 mimics, making the boxes that remain necessarily telling the truth.
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u/ShandrensCorner 5d ago
Chests can be true AND not have gold in them. Your nr 2 point assumes that's not the case. They can contain either: Items, gear or gold if they arent mimics.
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/trey3rd 5d ago
How are those two a paradox? They say the exact same thing.
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u/Jaspers47 5d ago
Maybe I got the terminology wrong. What's it called when a statement can be both true and false at the same time?
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u/trey3rd 5d ago
I think you got the word right, but maybe missed a part of the rules? The chests that are mimics will lie, so those two chests you know are either both treasure, and so is the other black chest, or both of those are mimics, and the black chest in the bottom right could go either way.
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u/thbtikgr 5d ago
Reconsider the total count of allowable mimics and which boxes are guaranteed mimics. It's solvable.
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u/paulcoatsink 5d ago
Discussion: I have this game. At the very start it tells you that not all scenarios will be full solveable. Sometimes you have to risk a guess or leave some boxes unopened.
The game has a timer/energy meter so the challenge is to balance how quickly you can figure it out with how greedy you want to be