Solution: I Replicate

Answer: TRIAL PIECE

Author: Violet Xiao

The logic puzzle can uniquely be solved with the following solution:

105 9
4516710982435
2921854637101
237915104682
348102175963
3452131096874
1106948237155
671029318545
418537649102
793648510213
81045672139
213 2

Highlighting only the cells with 2s and 4s yields:

RECREATING
ADVICEECHO
XEROXMATCH
WILLTOLIVE
LIEUTENANT
GAGWRITERS
PHOTOGRAPH
FURTHERADO
SCREWBOLTS
POWERPOINT

When put all together and read in typical reading order, this spells out the message INDEX TITLE WITH ROW TWOINDEX TITLE WITH ROW TWO. Using the values of row 2 (9, 2, 1, 8, 5, 4, 6, 3, 7, 10) as indices into the title I REPLICATEI REPLICATE yields the answer TRIALPIECETRIALPIECE.

Logic Walkthrough

Author’s Notes

This is the fourth puzzle I originally wrote for this intro round, but the first that actually made it into the round. I had originally written another puzzle for the intro round that used the same answer (and was later cut). While doing so, I noticed that the answer was an anagram of I REPLICATE, and pondered if I could write something on-theme using that title that clues a permutation of the title for extraction. This is the result!

Though I’m a somewhat avid fan of solving grid logic puzzles, this is the first grid logic puzzle I’ve written. I found the writing process to be extremely frustrating, but also extremely rewarding, having gone down a few rabbit holes that were either not thematic enough or reached a logical contradiction. I hope that people of all sorts of familiarity levels with grid logic had fun with this puzzle!