34

The answer is three digits. You get this picture and the following list:

  1. RIGHT AWAY
  2. UPHILL
  3. LEFT HOOK
  4. THROW UP
  5. DOWN UNDER

enter image description here

Bonus Hint

You cannot figure out #2 without first understanding #1.

Stiv
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Connor MC
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  • I noticed an minor error, but the error should in no way inhibit someone from solving this. Sorry. – Connor MC May 03 '20 at 22:23
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    No need to apologize! So far I'm thoroughly lost and loving it... hoping I don't lose sleep on this one. Love the creativity on this site. – TCooper May 08 '20 at 00:14
  • I'll add a hint each day starting tomorrow if this is not answered by then :) – Connor MC May 08 '20 at 19:29
  • My idea, which I managed to get some progress with was rot13: Gur vafgehpgvbaf ner fvzcyr ohg vgrengvir hc, qbja, yrsg, evtug vafgehpgvbaf juvpu lbh ercrng. Lbh fgneg va gur yrsg naq sbyybj gur vafgehpgvbaf, onfrq ba gur qverpgvba gur yvar lbh qenj vf snpvat. Vs lbh ernpu gur obggbz lbh pna 'gryrcbeg' gb gur gbc nf ybat nf n cvcr vf snpvat qbja ng gur obggbz bs gur pbyhza nqa hc ng gur gbc bs gur pbyhza. – Beastly Gerbil May 09 '20 at 12:25
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    Connor - Great puzzle! My only piece of feedback is that you really shouldn't call items 1 through 5 "hints". "Hints" are things that a puzzle can be solved without, but which provide extra help. In this case, items 1 through 5 are essential elements for solving the puzzle. I am not sure what is the best word to use to describe them, though. Maybe just "statements". Perhaps "clues". – Lanny Strack May 10 '20 at 08:39
  • Lanny, thank you very much :) I changed the question so that I don't call them hints. – Connor MC May 10 '20 at 12:16

1 Answers1

24

The answer is

Hymn 275 (credit to Enigma - I made the cardinal mistake of failing to read the instructions): MEN ARE THAT THEY MAY HAVE JOY

This is found by

Finding a synonym of each clue, in order, and then shifting that row or column in the direction included in the clue. Ends wrap around. Here are the shifts:

enter image description here

The result of all of this is:

enter image description here

hdsdv
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    275 is the hymn number https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/music/library/hymns/men-are-that-they-might-have-joy?lang=eng&_r=1 – Enigma May 10 '20 at 08:32
  • Thank you! I should probably read the instructions more carefully :) – hdsdv May 10 '20 at 08:42
  • Fantastic! Well done! I wasn't sure if SE Puzzling would be able to do it. This is such an impressive community. How did you make that visualizations? It looks like you put a decent amount of work into it. – Connor MC May 10 '20 at 12:19
  • My minor error that I mention in a different comment is that the original hymn uses "might" instead of "may." Oops.

    The answer "225" would have also been acceptable, since the quote originally comes from 2 Nephi 2:25 in the Book of Mormon.

     – Connor MC May 10 '20 at 12:21
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    @ConnorMC I did the top picture in Excel; it was mostly transcribing, copying and pasting. For the bottom part, I just copied the picture into a Powerpoint slide and made 2 copies of it. Each of these copies was cropped down to contain just the relevant row/column, then they were swapped. Select all 3 images, "save as picture", and repeat. You can see some white artifacts where I was lazy in my cropping. – hdsdv May 10 '20 at 15:09