HOW TO PLAY
The ultimate goal is to crack the vault, but to even get to the vault, you must first pass through all six firewalls. Each firewall is a four-color code comprised of some combination of
red,
yellow,
blue, and
purple. Not all colors have to be used in each firewall, and they can have repetitions, as well. For example, the code may be
yellow yellow
yellow blue.
To pass, you must guess the correct code. To do so, select you colors in the order you think they appear in the code. (Formatting is not required, so long as I know what color you mean.) When the guesses are processed (roughly once an hour, likely more frequently), you will be told how many of the colors in your guess matched the answer, and how many of those were in correct place.
For example, let's say the code was the one above,
yellow yellow
yellow blue. You guess 'purple yellow blue red'. My reply to your guess would be '2 color, 1 location' meaning two of your colors matched the ones in the answer, and of those, one was also in the right spot.
Each individual firewall has its own color, as well, but this is merely to show progress, and will always be in the order of: the
red firewall, followed by the
orange firewall, followed by the
yellow firewall, followed by the
green firewall, followed by the
blue firewall, which is, finally, followed by the
purple firewall.
Once past the firewalls, you will arrive at the vault itself, and must crack that code. It's a ten-digit code, with each number any of the possible colors. The main difference besides this and the firewall codes is that everyone is guessing the same vault code once at least one person has gone through all six firewalls.
When you pass a firewall, you will get a clue to a color or a number in the master vault, which will be put in the master vault post (so you don't have to worry about keeping up with it). This goes for
everyone, not just you, so five people cracking through the firewalls could easily solve the vault before anyone can even get to it. (In such a scenario, the one that gets to it first is considered the winner, judging by post order.)
An alternate explanation below was provided by Death by Mirrors:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Death by Mirrors
Do you know the game Mastermind? It's the same procedure.
There is a secret code you don't know yet. This can be any combination of the colors blue, purple, red and yellow. For example your code might be blue blue red purple. But since you aren't actually told what it is, you need to figure it out by guessing combinations.
Say you guess yellow purple red yellow. Then you receive a reply of 2 colors, 1 location - because when compared with the aforementioned example, there is no yellow in the code you're supposed to guess. There is however a purple and a red, so you already guessed two colors. One of these two, red, is also at the exact location you guessed.
But of course from that alone you can't figure out yet what exactly the correct colors are. That's why you guess again. Say your next guess is yellow yellow red red. Now you have 1 color, 1 location. Whoops - what happened? That purple you took away has to be part of the solution, it seems. You now also know that the code contains either red or yellow, but not both (otherwise you would have gotten 2 correct colors from your second guess). It also neither contains two or more red, or two or more yellow (again, if it did, you'd have received 2 color as a reply).
You decide to go with yellow, and you know for certain there is a purple in there. So your next guess is yellow purple purple purple, which still yields 1 color, 1 location. Now you know that there can't be more than one purple, and also (since you already established the code contains at least one purple) yellow isn't part of the solution. Therefore you know it is one purple, one red, and the rest has to be blue.
You take a look at your first guess again and see either the second color is purple, or the third color is red. You compare it with your second guess. If the second color is purple, then red has to be the fourth, meaning the solution is blue purple blue red. If instead the third color is red, purple has to be the fourth, meaning the solution is blue blue red purple. You don't know yet which of the two possibilities is correct, but you already have a 50% chance of picking the right one. If you do, you solved the puzzle and start over with a new code. If you picked the wrong one of the two by chance, just submit the other with your next guess, and you've also moved on to the next puzzle with a new code.
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