WORDLE! Mystery Cache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Can there be ANYONE in the universe who hasn't heard of WORDLE?? One of my Geocaching/Wordle friends challenged me to write a Wordle-themed GC puzzle. So here we go! You don't really have to solve a Wordle to solve this puzzle. In fact, it's more like "reverse engineering" Wordle puzzles. But you do have to understand the basic concepts of the game:
In Wordle, you are trying to guess a five-letter word by entering other five-letter words as guesses. For each letter that is correct in your guess, and is in the right position, the background of that letter turns green. For letters that are in the solution word, but in the wrong position, the background turns yellow. Based on information from that guess, you try another word, the goal being to come up with the solution word in no more than six guesses.
Below are three Wordle grids, showing the results of guesses; without showing the words, of course. These would actually be VERY bad guesses, with the word miraculously discovered on the fifth guess. But, they work well for the purposes of our puzzle. There is also another type of word puzzle involved, with a few hints about that in this description. Then there are some "daffy definitions" of all fifteen of the words below, sorted in order of the (yet unseen) words. You just need to fit those words into the columns of the three grids so that they follow the rules for solving a Wordle, and the other type of puzzle. (Oops! Did I say COLUMNS? Maybe should have said ROWS? Well, it really doesn't matter!)
When you have filled out the three grids, take the letters from the top-left to bottom-right long diagonals from the grids, in the order that the grids are shown. Next, use the well-known method of converting those 15 letters to numbers. Finally, apply the adjustments shown below to those numbers in order, to come up with 15 one-digit numbers for the final cache coords. Nothing to it!
I hope you are able to find every WORD in this puzzle! And when it's time to go to the location of the cache: "Be there, or be SQUARE!"
THE WORDLES
THE WORDS
- Can be mental or physical; or involve drugs or alcohol.
- Zombies seem to be this; but aren't really.
- Some songwriters say love is but a burning one.
- This needs a venue.
- A color.
- Washington Senators sang that you gotta have it.
- Quiet Riot made a lot of this, but didn't seem to know how to spell it.
- Pens and pencils need this.
- Great singers have great ones.
- Part of cannabis used to make hashish.
- Places where musicians stop playing.
- Past tense of Gordon Sumner?
- One size of a family of wind instruments.
- When the Dow goes up or down for a while.
- Switch two letters, and this means it's opposite.
THE ADJUSTMENTS
Mod4 +3 /5 -19 /2 /2 /2 -15 /7 Mod3 /4 -12 -19 SqRoot *2
Congrats to ecrane for FTF; a quick solve, and burning some $5 ($6?) gasoline for the drive over.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Frpbaq cbyr sebz gur fvta. Hc.