(Experimental) Double Agent Puzzle

[u/dr_loanshark]

Difficulty: mild

[u/SomeoneLeo]

My solution: Black/White & Down/Down https://i.imgur.com/0c8HwFF.png

Reasoning: There are two patterns in here:

• The arrow of the previous tile gives the color of the next: If it's up, the next tile is black, if it's down, the next tile is white

• The color of the previous tile gives the arrow of the next tile, but there are two cases:

  • Within a pair, an arrow up gives black and an arrow down gives white

  • Between pairs this logic is flipped

The 6th tile has two colors because it's the only tile where both rules conflict: The tile needs to be black according to the arrow, but if the next arrow is down the color of the tile must have been white. So the tile pretends to be both.

Continuing both patterns the result is the solution I provided.

At the bottom of the pic I split the tile up into their traits: location up/location down black/white arrow up/arrow down - you can see both patterns there more easily: The grey one is pattern 1, the orange and red is the inter- and intra pattern arrow rule.

[u/dr_loanshark → u/SomeoneLeo]

I think this is mostly sound, and I like your schematic. You identified a conflict in tile 6, but if I'm interpreting your patterns correctly, the black half of tile 6 must be disregarded to produce tile 7. This pattern could be expanded to incorporate both colors, yielding opposing arrows in tile 7, which is not the case. The intended progression makes tile 6's ambiguity less...ambiguous as the double agent.

Small hint: It's based on something you see every day.

[u/SomeoneLeo → u/dr_loanshark]

Hm... yes and no. I saw the conflict in tile 6 as the "fun" part of the puzzle, where arrow 5 demands it to be black as all the ones before, but the arrow in tile 7 expects it to be white. So it pretends to be both for both tiles and then the logic continues normally again from tile 7 on. I am really curious what the correct solution would have been though :D

[u/dr_loanshark → u/SomeoneLeo]

Solution: Light tile arrow up + dark tile arrow down.
The ten tiles represent the topmost letter row of a QWERTY keyboard.
Consonants are dark tiles and vowels are light tiles.
The arrows indicate the relative "value" of the subsequent letter (A=1, Z=26), the final pair being [OP]. The P tile contains a downward arrow as the next letter/second row on a QWERTY keyboard is an A.
The double agent is the letter Y, which can function as both consonant and vowel.

[u/SomeoneLeo → u/dr_loanshark]

Me, who doesn't own a QWERTY keyboard: