THE RUNES

Hello, everyone! I am very confused about MANY MANY things! I am not sure if all of them are able to be answered, due to secrets given away, etc., but any help will be appreciated. Here are some things I am confused about:

-If it is a mainstream puzzle, will it have a title such as "Labyrinth" or "Gordian Knot," at least the first time it is shown?

-For the Gordian Knot, what does the number mean?

-Do I get the bottom word from the puzzles on the page, or from the letters on the perimeter?

-What do the colors on the letters represent? For instance, the green box for the 'o' in "Apollo".

-Can you explain my goal for The Tower of Babel?

-I generally understand the red symbols at the top but what about the blue one?

There are SO many more things that I am confused about but this is a lot as it is. Answers to as many of these questions as possible would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Everyone shares at least some of your confusion when they first look at The Runes.

Before answering your list of questions, it is worth pausing and understanding what sort of puzzle The Runes is. There are plenty of other puzzles around where it is clear what you have to do and there is the reassurance of having all the answers at the back. As you can see, The Runes is not like that.

You will do best if you think of it not just as a puzzle to be solved in sequence A to Z, but approach it rather as an explorer might when he reaches a new place. This means some things can be recognised and solved straight away, while others might need some thought and different things to be tried. Still others might remain mysterious for a long time, until later parts of the puzzle are solved.

You can read how much other solvers have been engaged in and enjoyed The Runes. This is mostly not because of the individual puzzles - it is because of the challenge of exploring their own new path through the puzzle while managing some doubts and uncertainties about how it is all going to fit together in the end.

This means that some of the questions that arise as you start and go through the puzzle will be left hanging, unanswered for a while.

On your specific list of questions, if you look through the first three page forums, you will get some guidance and answers to several of these. For example, my first posting in First Steps in this Page 1 forum gives a clear indication how the bottm keyword is arrived at.

Try some experiments as well to see what works. Concentrate at this stage just on finding the two page keywords and then moving on to the next page.

Having said that, if a problem remains with getting these keywords please post it and I will try to address that specific point.

But please watch out that you don't include a solution or part-solution in your posting. For the sake of those coming after, we have to watch out for that and if it happens by mistake you may that your posting will have that bit edited out.

Welcome to our world Kavin. I personally found that working on the first 3 pages at the same time helped sort out how some of the answers were arrived at.

Welcome Kavin! You have a wonderful time of puzzling ahead - and are right to ask the questions in order to get started. Yes, each type of puzzle is given a name when it first appears, for identification as you continue. They don't all appear on every page, which is just as well, as some of them are real stinkers (are you any good at chess......?) We all tend to have our favourites and our hates, although some appear more often than others and it is important to try and crack the basic method for each one, even if you can't solve it fully each time. Fortunately it is not absolutely necessary to solve them all every time, as you can often guess at the bottom words once you have the majority of letters and an odd missing one doesn't matter - it is the word that is important. It is the variety of puzzles that makes the fun - and that you have to work out for yourself how to solve it!
The top words are sometimes more challenging, because it really is essential work out the exact value of the two numbers (blue and red) which you need - so you can't just guess it. But it is wonderfully satisfyling when the answer emerges.
There are also a whole load of "extras" on each page - like little pictures and the coloured letters etc. Ignore these for now until you receive an instruction via a later puzzle. There is more to all this than meets the eye!
Just concentrate on the mainstream ones and by page 4 all will become much clearer.
Have fun!

A great big welcome from me too Kavin. You are about to embark on a journey. A very long journey for most. You will face many challenges, many uncertainties, many moments of confusion. But, hopefully, a lot of satisfaction as you solve the seemingly unsolvable along the way.

Don't forget there are loads of us here who are more than willing to check answers, offer advice and give hints if you need them. You only need to ask (PM).

Eyes down for a full house. BB

Thanks for replying, everyone. I think I will try looking at the first three pages and then see what I can do.

As a side note. this is the ONLY forum where it seems that everyone (or mostly everyone) types full, grammatically correct words. I don't like the constant i, u, 2, wat, etc. on other forums...

=)

prolly bcos if u dont, ur skrwd in teh runes

Another welcome to the madhouse. The only advice I will give you is not to give up. There will be times when you decide that the whole thing is beyond you - I promise that it isn't. Honest!

Well said Scurra!