Last January, I organised my KK Challenge 3. In it I included a simple challenge. Teams were required to supply the fist names of characters obtained from the Disney cartoons. I gave coloured pictures which I downloaded from the internet. The above was one of those pictures. Some teams answered Ariel. The correct answer was Melody. The reason I printed coloured pictures was because I wanted to leave no room for disputes from the hunters. Ariel was Melody's mother, and she had red hair. Without knowing the colour of the hair, there might be a remote chance that someone in the audience will challenge my answer. That's why I decided to print the picture in colour, so that the hunters could actually tell that the colour of the hair was black.
Colours are rarely an issue in treasure hunt clues. But sometimes, for some specific items, the colours are significant; those items are "colour-coded". By changing the colour of a picture, it may have a different meaning.
Take the above logo for example; it is commonly associated with the medical field, particularly first aid. They are associated with red colour, and only the red colour; and that colour is known worldwide. Now imagine what would happen if you are given those shapes—either the cross or the crescent—in different colours; say green or purple or yellow. Would an average person in the street still associate those shapes as connected to the medical field? Maybe yes, maybe not.
I browsed through some sources and have found that the shape of the crescent can be used as a symbol for Islam. I am sure if I investigated further, I will find at least several other things which the crescent can represent. But somehow when the colour of the crescent is red, it is almost always associated with the first aid. Apparently it is a universally accepted logo for first aid.
Last Saturday, the hunters were up against the crescent twice. Firstly, as a black-coloured picture as part of a treasure clue; and secondly, during that killer third K Events where teams were required to count moons and stars within a timeframe of 60 seconds.
In the treasure clue, the crescent was printed in black; in the K Event, they were in white against a black background. The appearance of those crescents in the treasure clue and the K Event were totally unrelated, but for this thread, we are concerned with the crescent of the treasure clue.
I meant to publish the entire treasure clue here exactly as it appeared on the question paper, but to do that I would have to scan it and then paste it here, perhap as a jpeg format. Anyway, that is not really necessary, as it is sufficient to describe those pictures.
For that treasure clue, teams were given 4 pictures arranged horizontally. All of them were in black and white. To the extreme left was the picture of a man in a white lab-coat and he had a stethoscope around his neck. He was apparently holding a clipboard or some documents. In fact, it was quite obvious that he was either a doctor or a male nurse.
Next to that "doctor" picture was a picture of a cup with the words "STARBUCKS COFFEE" on it. The cup was tilted slightly and some coffee was apparently spilling out of it.
Next to the cup was the picture of a woman scratching her back with a wooden claw (or was that a metal claw?). However, her other hand was also scratching her upper arm.
The final picture on the extreme right was that of the famous crescent mentioned above. To repeat, that crescent was in black.
So those were the pictures given for that clue. How should we interpret them to arrive at the required item?
Well, the first picture was of a doctor. This may be surprising to the new hunter, but "doctor" can be an anagram indicator when written as a word. It is quite debatable whether it could be an anagram indicator when it appears in the form of a picture. My vote is that the picture version shouldn't be allowable as an anagram indicator. My reason is quite simple. When the "doctor" is written out as a word, it can be a verb or a noun. The doctor as a noun does not qualify as an anagram indicator. But as a verb, the word "doctor" can mean "to change something in order to deceive somebody". It is in this verb form that that word "doctor" qualifies as an anagram indicator. However, in the picture shown in this subject clue, it was not a verb "doctor". Instead, we had a noun doctor, i.e. the picture showed a person (noun), and not an action (verb).
How about the the spilling coffee? In my opinion, that "spilling" was an illustration of an "action", i.e. a verb. So I can accept that spilling action in the second picture as an anagram indicator. If indeed it was meant to be an anagram indicator, then perhaps we need to rearrange the letters found in the word "coffee" to form another word.
Next, we come to the picture of the woman scratching her back (and upper arm?). This was a tough one to crack. That "scratching" action could also qualify as an anagram indicator, meaning that we might have to rearrange the letters found in the word "itch" to form another word. However, there is another possibility. Since that woman was scratching her back, it might also mean that we need to reverse the word "itch".
Finally, the mysterious black crescent. What is it, exactly? Maybe it's a black "red crescent"? But black is black; and red is red. Or perhaps we should just interpret that black crescent as a huge letter "C"?
The official solution:
First picture = MO (medical officer)
Second picture = PIKO (anagram of KOPI)
Therefore 1st picture + 2nd picture = MOPIKO
As for the third and fourth pictures, there's nothing specific about them; just make some guesses as you wish. There's not much value in those pictures to form a concrete help for the solver to arrive at the answer. In a very loose way, the solver is given a hint that this whole riddle has something to do with "itch" (not necessarily back itch, in spite of the picture). Then the solver has to imagine that the colour of the crescent is red (of course it might have been purple or green too)—even though he's seeing black—so that he is able to interpret that crescent as something to do with first aid.
And because the solver has correctly imagined a red colour crescent to arrive at the hint of first aid, he combines that with the "itch" picture to arrive at "ointment for relief of itchiness"—voila!
And because of all those guesses with the third and fourth pictures, the solver is then able to confirm the MOPIKO as the exclusive fit.
Our guessing power was having a holiday during the hunt. We therefore failed to deliver this treasure.
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