What's the code on the Valentine's Day card backs?
StellaHelen
REGISTERED
It's not Morse, and there aren't enough dots for Semaphore or Braille.
StellaHelen
REGISTERED
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To me it doesn't look like a code, just a repeated design to form the heart shape.
It is a code, but I don’t know what it says!
Feel free to message @Michael with your solution. I’m still working on it!
A code? Can someone post a screenshot pls, I’m in a different time zone and the valentine cards have already disappeared. Thx
I don't know why it posted the screenshot twice. Anyway, it's so small I have trouble seeing it well enough to tell the differences, that why I assumed it was just a pattern with no meaning. Enlarging it didn't help me either. Maybe @Michael could post a bigger or higher resolution image.
Thank you @kat14 👍
Attempting screen shot...
Thanks @StellaHelen that’s clearer - no closer to solving it though. Looking at it reminds me of the old space invaders arcade game 👾
I like the way hearts & diamonds are black as often as red. Wonder if there is information encoded in the degree of wrongness of the dot groupings?
Secret code - that's a bit exciting. Just remember, sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one.
Only code I can see is G F situated on the top and bottom stands for perhaps Green Felt. The card 9 of diamonds could represent the number of rows of card symbols. Does anyone know why the number 9 would be important to Green Felt? Perhaps an important time or symbol in their development?
Hi @anglais the nine of diamonds isn’t part of the puzzle as far as I’m aware. It was just a random card on the board when @StellaHelen took a screenshot from a game to show a clearer picture of the valentine card.
My best guess so far is that the falling cards look like bombs dropping in a heart shape so the message is ‘Make Love Not War’
@Michael 👍 or 👎?
Here's the biggest size we render of the card back so you guys can get a good view:
@StellaHelen We added the "Love" card backs in 2021. I don't think anyone has asked us if it's a code—I think you're the first!
@fingsaint Incorrect.
ah well, back to the drawing board to fathom it out 🤔
in the meantime, here’s some John Lennon
there are 4 groups outside the white lines and 40 groups inside . The 160 symbols inside the lines when divided by the 2 inside rows , then multiplied by the outside symbols will result in the square root of the radius of........Valentines day is over forget it .
@braynededd 😀
although you’re probably right about calculating the answer. I was working from the premise that @Michael would devise a visual pattern because he is a designer creating the card backs.
But then again, greenfelt is all about numbers so I’ll leave it for a maths whizz to come up with the answer.
@fingsaint Your knee must be hurting you a bit now from the ''leg pulling '' . I just thought I would confuse the discussion a bit more by throwing in something from left field lol . I actually failed grade 6 math . To be truthful when I turned my laptop upside down and looked at the picture it looked to me like a christmas tree with the top cut off .
nah, I was with you all the way @braynededd 😉
I said "YES! Hexadecimal groups of 4 -1,2,4,8 - add in that the color can be red OR black and..." I have no idea.
In my career years idea's and AHAH's would POP into my head, now the popping's are my brain cells going to bed.
I do believe @braynededd 😉 is on the right track, "Valentines day is over" love your FAMILY and enjoy Greenfelt.
Thanks @fingsaint but have a sort of a hard head...sticking to my 9 rows of card symbols for now.
If we go back 9 years of Green Felt that gives us year 2016...several things happened that year...good and bad.
Server breakdown which the guys, after long hard work, got it running again and to their surprise, the server started to repair itself. For some reason they were not too happy about that.
The really big deal for 2016 is that on July 30th, the day after my birthday, Green Felt reached 1,000,000,000
games on the data base. A billion games...wow!
Hi @anglais interesting GreenFelt history, thanks. That was just before my time, I joined in Jan 2017. I think I remember @jabba saying that s/he had joined greenfelt in 2006, so there’s been plenty of games since then!
And you never know, number 9 could well be the Rosetta Stone we’re searching for to unlock the Valentine encryption 🤔
I'm glad these card backs are getting interest. i had a lot of fun designing the code. I hope it's not too difficult to crack. I definitely crafted it more as a programmer than a designer.
Hi @fingsaint, there are more interesting history recalls where mine came from if you are curious...very easy to find.
For instance...I joined GF May 2018 you joined in January 2017 and Jabba February 2015. She is the oldest member between the three of us 🙂. I have a deep respect for her, she seems to know what's going on and where to find it plus is most willing to share her knowledge about the games with anyone who needs it.
The "guys" started to work on GF, as Jabba pointed out, in 2006. They spent that August working on the format and design while at the same time working at their normal jobs. Amazing when you think of it...dedicated people...inspiring. Michael also had a hand in design especially the cards...thank goodness.
There is much more information about GF, how it evolved and why certain steps were taken. Everyone can learn about GF and it's history and here's how. When you log on to GF you log into the forum in the Contact Us box. There are a list of items of which the forum is one of them but...if you go to the bottom line of the box and click on "Read the Latest News in the Blog" you will get Michaels sensational card backs plus on the righthand side of the screen you will find a list of years dating back to 2006. Click any date and you can find out what was happening that year. Happy reading
Hi @Michael, thanks for giving a bit of a hint although I'm not sure it will help...not being a programmer but I may find other means. I also hope it's not too difficult to crack but nevertheless, trying to solve puzzles can be just as interesting as finding the solution. Thanks for the encouragement. Although very tempting...I won't ask if the number 9 is part of the solution.
,
@Micheal, just noticed something unusual...every time I put my cursor on a card symbol the word Love pops up in fact, it happens with every card symbol in your design, Could it be...
Hi @anglais interesting thread here:
https://forum.greenfelt.net/discussion/12699/who-has-won-the-most-games-top-100-list
Hi! anglais .I noticed that a while back , but it shows ''love '' anywhere you put cursor either in or out of white lines , but you have to go back outside of picture to get rid of the '' love '' then go back and click anywhere again and it shows up . I thought I was on to something but that doesn.t seem to be any kind of code . Good guess though ...
Hi! again . After a bit more thinking , which hurts terribly , I wonder if as I said in last message about '' love '' showing up whenever you put cursor on picture surface , could the message be '' love is everywhere '' . C'mon , it's only a guess , lol...
Going down the John Denver route @braynededd
@fingsaint Hi! again , again. That was some concert , I sure remember it . I was just a young kid ( don't I wish ) 32 and still wet behind the ears . Its hard to imagine that he's been gone for 26 years . I still play his albums more than any others . Particularly partial to "Annie's Song ''. That graphic looks like me every month when I'm figuring how much I'll have left after groceries . Thanks for the video .
@fingsaint, thanks for the interesting thread. Wasn't aware you and Jabba were already knowledgeable about the beginnings of GF. My mistake my apologies. Still, there are some things that are not clear...Jabba is listed as a member January 2015 yet has recollections of playing before 2006. She is right about playing before that date...I discovered GF was "obtained¨, for lack of a better word, in 2005 and was redesigned in 2006.
Still looking for the valentine code.
@Michael & @David - does it have anything to do with Unicode?
The card back contains 40 glyphs (plus the four at top and bottom). All are drawn from an "alphabet" of 11 glyphs, pictured in the attachment. We can't easily make a correspondence to letters — the glyphs are too few. Likewise numbers — too many glyphs to map to 0-9. I somehow doubt that even a computer scientist would encode a secret message in base 11.
So we're not much closer to cracking the code, but perhaps this contribution will inspire someone's insight.
Binary uses 8 "numbers" two glyphs could be one letter - just need too figure out the key. ie: is the g at the top with 2 glyphs showing the letter g and at the bottom the two glyphs showing f???
One problem is that the symbol bottom right (red heart, red spade) is repeated as a set of 3 on the second row of the heart shape. I can’t think of any word that has the same 3 consecutive letters. So either it’s the end of one word and the beginning of another, or the words are read vertically or diagonally. And all this is assuming that the symbols represent letters. 🤷♀️🤷♂️
Unless the code is intuitive, I’ll struggle to decipher it because I’m not acquainted with program languages.
The best I can do is insert html commands to format
🙂
Hmmmm.....sometimes......I wonder. 🤔
Hi @zudensternen more than 11? Should there also be 4 symbols
all red in that sequence, and cards with 3 black and a single red at the bottom?
@Michael, could the code simply be "greenfelt" ?
@Michael, OK...how about GreentleF
The answer is 43......lol
@Fireweed 👍 😀
what we need is a code to break this enigma machine 🤓
Earlier @jim posted “It is a code, but I don’t know what it says!”
“Says” = words? so maybe @zudensternen and @jabba are on the right track
I’m really intrigued by this puzzle. Thanks greenfelt guys.
Wow! Lot's of interesting stuff about the card backs. Usually someone complains about the card backs...when will they go back to 'normal'.
@Michael...how about GJimDaveF...or GDaveJimF 😉.
Sorry @Fireweed - the answer on the cartoon is wrong and so is 43. The answer to the universe and everything is and always will be 42. I like "Love is everywhere" as the code answer myself.
Here's one more stab at winkling meaning out of 44 glyphs from an alphabet of 11: glyph frequencies. Letter frequencies in English are famously "etaoinshrdlu" and if we try the commonest glyph as the letter "e" — it doesn't get us very far. There is one run of three "e"s, no matter whether we are going left-to-right or top-to-bottom, so there is no word that fits. Unless there are no word spaces and the run of three spans two words.
One unresolved problem: those counts add up to 43 and the total number of glyphs is 44. I have been over it multiple times and can't see where the error is.
https://news.mit.edu/2019/answer-life-universe-and-everything-sum-three-cubes-mathematics-0910#:~:text=The number 42 is especially,the Universe, and Everything.”
I thought EVERYONE knew "the answer is 42" type the phrase in any search engine on Earth and you will understand.
AND then MIT gives us this fascinating article PROVING the number 42 is the real deal
Hi @zudensternen I don’t understand why there is an alphabet of 11. Does that represent a number of the variations to the card patterns?
The part I don’t understand is why some variations are excluded. For example, you have a card that is all black but not one that is all red. Also missing from the sequence are two cards that would have 3black and one red at the bottom. Is there a reason for just 11?
TIA 🤔🙂