What's On Your Mind? (Silly or Serious!)

[DeadPoolX]

Why is MK11 so ... well, exaggerated? Outrageous? The Rambo "fatality", for instance, has him kill someone in four different ways. Not to mention, every single player character has at least 3 different outfits. What's going on here?

Because it's fun? Let's face it, MK11 is the only opportunity we have to see Robocop, a T-800 (from the Terminator movies), and Rambo fight it out.

As for the outfits... that's a longstanding tradition in fighting games. Early on it was mostly color palette swaps, but nowadays we see entirely different outfits. Sometimes different outfits have different capabilities, but that depends entirely on the game.

[BBP]

Darker than Christmas - but your post reminded me of "difficult puzzles" - FBI Claims the Zodiac killer's code was recently deciphered fully.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/z ... roken.html

But back to a lighter note, where's this NBV Christmas thing?

https://www.aivd.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020 ... publiceerd

Download from here:
https://www.aivd.nl/documenten/publicat ... dformulier

Not speaking Dutch might actually be an advantage for some questions. So far, I have solved questions 1 and 19.
Question 1 is easy - recognise the famous Christmas characters.

The theme is retro and many of the questions refer to older questions.
Question 19 is a reference to the Monsterpuzzle from 5 years back, but this is a Mini Monster Puzzle:
a sudoku, jigoku, kakuro and number crossword uilising only digits 1/4 , equal letters is equal numbers.

[Rath Darkblade]

Why is MK11 so ... well, exaggerated? Outrageous? The Rambo "fatality", for instance, has him kill someone in four different ways. Not to mention, every single player character has at least 3 different outfits. What's going on here?

Because it's fun? Let's face it, MK11 is the only opportunity we have to see Robocop, a T-800 (from the Terminator movies), and Rambo fight it out.

As for the outfits... that's a longstanding tradition in fighting games. Early on it was mostly color palette swaps, but nowadays we see entirely different outfits. Sometimes different outfits have different capabilities, but that depends entirely on the game.

Hey, fair enough. Depends on your idea of "fun". To me, the fatality in the first few MKs were fun enough. To be honest, I think that "fataliting" (to coin a word) an opponent in 4 different ways, all at once, is gratuitous and over-selling it. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

And I just saw that there's a new Warcraft movie. (Based on the game from 2003). About 20 years late, but hey -- not too bad for Hollywood. Then again, I'm sure Blizzard would've blocked the idea all the way, "'cos it's their IP, darn it" etc.

I don't know what the first Warcraft movie was like, but IIRC, it wasn't too popular. What do you think of this new one?

[Tawmis]

And I just saw that there's a new Warcraft movie. (Based on the game from 2003). About 20 years late, but hey -- not too bad for Hollywood. Then again, I'm sure Blizzard would've blocked the idea all the way, "'cos it's their IP, darn it" etc.

That Warcraft 2 is a fake trailer. It's cut from a bunch of different movies.

[Rath Darkblade]

Whoops! Sorry. Thanks, Tawm.

Darker than Christmas - but your post reminded me of "difficult puzzles" - FBI Claims the Zodiac killer's code was recently deciphered fully.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/z ... roken.html

But back to a lighter note, where's this NBV Christmas thing?

https://www.aivd.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020 ... publiceerd

Download from here:
https://www.aivd.nl/documenten/publicat ... dformulier

Not speaking Dutch might actually be an advantage for some questions. So far, I have solved questions 1 and 19.
Question 1 is easy - recognise the famous Christmas characters.

The theme is retro and many of the questions refer to older questions.
Question 19 is a reference to the Monsterpuzzle from 5 years back, but this is a Mini Monster Puzzle:
a sudoku, jigoku, kakuro and number crossword uilising only digits 1/4 , equal letters is equal numbers.

Whoops! Sorry, BBP -- I missed your post last night.

Question 1 is (from left to right) Edvard Munch's The Scream, Tiny Tim, and er ... sorry, can't make out the other one.

Question 19 is strange. It asks:

Mini-monsterpuzzel! In de sudoku, jigoku, kakuro en doorloper zijn alleen de cijfers 1 t/m4 gebruikt.
Gelijke letters zijn gelijke cijfers. Geef de som van de vier aangegeven diagonalen (bijvoorbeeld 1234
+ 1234 + 123 + 1234 = 3825).

The only things I can understand from this are:

1. Mini-monsterpuzzel (monster puzzle);
2. The word "sudoku" (which I will be bad at, because I've never done soduku); and
3. Um, the sum 1234 + 1234 + 123 + 1234 = 3825 = 0.

So I don't know what this is all about.

[BBP]

There are 4 mini puzzles in question 19:
Top left: sudoku
Top right: a jigoku or greater than sudoku - the greater than symbols indicate the number in one square is higher than the other
Bottom left - kakuro, the numbers on the sides indicate the sum of the numbers in that row or column. Each digit is unique in each number - no double numbers (so for number 7, 124 is a valid combination but 223 isn't)
Bottom right - "doorloper" or a type of crossword of which I couldn't find the English translation - there are no black squares. Clues are presented per row or column - if there's more than 1 you can't be sure how long the clue is until you've solved it.
Below the puzzles are the clues for the doorloper.

Also important to know is that equal letters are equal numbers. The A in the Jigoku has the same number as the A in the kakuro and the A in the doorloper. (gelijke letters zijn gelijke cijfers)
And: only the digits 1 to 4 are used!!!

[Rath Darkblade]

Yikes. I'm sorry, I have no idea of the rules of sudoku, jingoku, kakuro etc. (I don't even know what those are, other than sudoku).

The only things I know in Japanese are (some of) the names for samurai/ninja equipment, the daily life of a samurai/ninja, some stories of famous samurai/ninja, some famous daimyo, and so on -- especially those in the Sengoku Period (aka the Age of Warring States, 1467-1615) and the Edo/Tokugawa Period (1603-1868, when Japan slowly consolidated into becoming a unified country).

Naturally, I don't know everything about these periods (nor do I pretend to). But I do know some of the more famous battles (e.g. Nobunaga's entry to Kyoto (1568), the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), and the Siege of Osaka (1615)). I also know a few things about the Three Unifiers of Japan (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu), as well as the Portuguese entry into Japan and how it changed Japan -- briefly -- between 1570 and 1600, before the Portuguese were forced out in 1614. Hideyoshi is also famous for his attempted (and failed) conquest of Korea, which nearly succeeded until the intervention of the fabled Korean admiral, Yi-sun Sin (or Shin) and his famous Kobukson (or Turtle Ships).

All in all, it's a fascinating period of Japan's story. But, alas -- I've no idea about sudoku etc. Sorry.

[BBP]

How about question 21 then? IIRC you play chess...

Question 21a is "fill in the letters B, N, R, Q, K at the question marks". The last move is Qd4++
Question 21b is "who plays black in this party?"

At the start I decided to skip question a, since this was such an unusual game I thought I'd be able to find it online with relative ease.
Unfortunately, the only hit I found with it was from a few days ago - somebody on a chess forum asking the exact same question, and it was a Dutch forum member, so I guess he's also playing.

I couldn't find the match but I eliminated at least 10 chess games in fiction from the list, plus I made sure it wasn't the quantum chess game with Stephen Hawking. Since I can't find any online reference to it I guess it might be a Dutch game.

So I'm thinking of skipping 21b and just doing 21a.

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm ... question 21 is very difficult to follow. *pulls out his chess travel set, sets up the pieces* Let's see:

"Opgave 21
1. e4 e5 2. h4 h6 3. ?h3 ?h7 4. d3 f6 5. ?h5+ ?e7 6. a4 d5 7. ?g3 ?f5 8. ?xg7+ ?xg7 9. ?c3 ?f8 10. ?f3 ?g6
11. b3 c6 12. ?d2 ?a6 13. ?a3+ ?e7 14. ?b2 ?d6 15. ?e2 ?b4 16. ?a3 ?c5 17. ?e3 ?c8 18. ?c1 ?a2+ 19. ?xa2
?e7 20. ?f3 ?f5 21. ?xe5 ?d6 22. ?xg6+ ?f7 23. ?h5 ?e6 24. ?d1 ?h8 25. ?b2 ?a3 26. ?f4+ ?e5 27. ?c1 ?xc1+
28. ?xc1 ?hc7 29. ?a1 ?g8 30. ?b2 ?g7 31. ?e2 ?d4 32. ?b5++ ?c5 33. ?d2 ?xh4 34. exd5 cxb5 35. axb5
b6 36. ?e6+ ?xd5 37. ?e1 ?e8 38. Dd4#

Vul op de vraagtekens P, L, T, D en K in." (Fill in P, L, T, D and K on the question marks.)

This is difficult for me because I don't know what P, L, T, D and K are! In English notation, things are different: it's N (knight), B (bishop), R (rook), Q (queen) and K (king). *looks it up* OK ... so: in Dutch, it's K for koning (king), D for dame (queen), T for toren (tower/rook), L for loper (counsellor/bishop), and P for paard (horse/knight).

I'm pretty sure it goes like this:

1. e4 e5
2. h4 h6
3. Th3 Th7
4. d3 f6
5. Dh5+ Ke7
6. a4 d5
7. Tg3 f5
8. Txg7+ Lxg7
9. Pc3 Kf8
10. Pf3 ... and there's no piece that can go to g6. What's going on here?

As for question b (i.e. "Wie is de zwartspeler?" (Who is the black player?)), Sorry, I can't help you there. The only Dutch players I know of are Max Euwe, Hans Bouwmeester, Jan Timman and Ivan Sokolov ... and frankly, none of them would have played chess this badly!

[BBP]

Yeah I have that issue every time I play it - sometimes there are 3 or 4 possible moves for something and it can take more than a few moves before you noticed.
In move 7 I move the bishop to F5, that's the piece that goes to g6 later.

Because it's a poor game and because it can't be found online it's either fictional and obscure/Dutch, or a very early battle of chess computers. A bit like the one I had that let me mate for the first time - I had three queens.

Dutch chess fiction immediately points to the film Lang Leve De Koningin (Long Live The Queen), a 1995 children's film about chess that I watched again for the occasion, but I couldn't find the game in it.
Basically when looking I went for the first two turns since the h6 is not really a known response to a straightforward King's Pawn Chess game.

[BBP]

I have finally solved that question - and it's utterly brilliant. Wow. I'm in a mix of awe and in a hallelujah mood.

[Tawmis]

I have finally solved that question - and it's utterly brilliant. Wow. I'm in a mix of awe and in a hallelujah mood.

Congrats! <3

[Rath Darkblade]

Congrats, BBP! What did the game look like?

[BBP]

I'll PM that since you're not supposed to publically share answers

[Rath Darkblade]

Thanks, BBP!

I had an idea over breakfast, and quickly created it in Paint. Here you go!