Here’s a puzzle write-up that ended up becoming puzzle 1.3 for NoKnownSurvivors.com, which stood unsolved for the duration of the campaign. It was deliberately difficult and was posed with no hints as to how to solve it.

Puzzle #3

In this puzzle, we will use a sans-serif alphabet with a particular number of strokes in each letter. The alphabet is as follows, with the numbers of strokes needed to draw each letter noted underneath:

In order to solve the puzzle, first the player must know the numerical position of each letter of the alphabet:

A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8, I=9, J=10, K=11, L=12, M=13, N=14, O=15, P=16, Q=17, R=18, S=19, T=20, U=21, V=22, W=23, X=24, Y=25, Z=26

Using this notation, the quote “I must put Jane back together again” becomes this:

9
13 21 19 20
16 21 20
10 1 14 5
2 1 3 11
20 15 7 5 20 8 5 18
1 7 1 9 14

However, taking this a step further, we can turn these numbers into letters again by converting a “5,” (which would be an “E”) into one of the straight stroke letters that has a value of 5, like “Q” or “B.”

Using this encryption method, “I must put Jane back together again” would look like this:

With the numbers, which should not be included in the final puzzle, the quote looks like this:

To solve it, the player converts the number of straight strokes in each letter to a number. The dot means zero. Letters that are boxed together should have the number of strokes added to each other. Using this method, the numbers above would be:
9 1 3 2 1 1 9 2 0 1 6 2 1 2 0 1 0 1 1 4 5 2 1 3 1 1 2 0 1 5 7 5 2 0 8 5 1 8 1 7 1 9 1 4

This corresponds with the letter to number encoding from earlier:
9 / 13 21 19 20 / 16 21 20 / 10 1 14 5 / 2 1 3 11 / 20 15 7 5 20 8 5 18 / 1 7 1 9 14

In order to provide the player a visual clue, a sample as if from a children’s “Learn to Write” workbook could be displayed or doodled with the puzzle:

Here’s how the puzzle appeared on the site: