Another Stacked Cube Puzzle - Help me beta test?

[impossibleroot]

The stack-of-4 cube puzzle that you all helped me test a couple of months ago turned out great. The students enjoyed and were frustrated by it, and two people on campus were able to solve it from scratch, winning the prize.

With another term about to start, people have been asking for a new one. I wanted to try making a modified version of the famous self-referential quiz with the extra component of cube rotation.

Can you help me test this out? I want to see if the answer that I came up with is correct, of course. I also want to see if this is a unique solution -- if there is more than one, that could be helpful in designing a second phase of the puzzle.

I know that these have been solved by brute force with computer algorithms, and I know that they can also be solved logically by eliminating false answers. If you take a crack at it, I'd love to know your approach in detail!

Thanks in advance, and I'd be happy to post the full puzzle when I write the next phase.

Remember, since the blocks can be rotated, each of the 4 horizontal rows can be shifted relative to each other. The faces in any given strip will stay fixed, of course.

Self-Referential Block Faces

[Trojan Horse]

Assuming there's only one correct arrangement of the blocks, wouldn't the odds of getting it with a random spin be 1 in 64? The first block can end up however you want, and then there's only one correct orientation for each of the other three blocks.

[impossibleroot]

Yes, good catch, thanks. I've updated it. The correct answer is obviously D.

[Nsof]

face 8: what face does "next" refers to? (or is it part of the puzzle?)
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Will sell this place for beer

[Trojan Horse]

My interpretation is that the face "next to this face" could be any of the four faces adjacent to that face: the face above, the face below, or either of the two faces on the sides. And it's up to the solver to figure out which one.

[impossibleroot]

Face 7, right? Yes, it's intentionally vague, though my definition was a bit stricter than Trojan Horse's.

This is the kind of stuff I want to find out, though -- does the vagueness lead to a broken solution? In this case, it looks like it would work if either 6 *or* 8 had the given answer.

[ralphmerridew]

If it says "the face", then it had better be exactly specified.

[impossibleroot]

[Suspence]

Not to digress, but I don't believe we ever found the final solution to the previous one. Can you hint or spoil?
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[impossibleroot]

[Suspence]

So for this part -
The letters come in pairs, and the sharp puzzler will pick up on the correct way to read them. One of the pair is used to read left to right, around the blocks, top to bottom. They read, COLORBLIND AUTHOR. The other requires the blocks to be lined up in the correct sequence, the same sequence that leads to the 4 sentences. The other letter in the pair reads top to bottom, then going around the blocks. They read MARK AT TWO FATHOMS

There was no way we were supposed to know which letters belonged to which group. We just had to figure out that one of the pair was needed for reading in each direction, and figure out which was which on our own. Is that correct?
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[impossibleroot]

[Suspence]

No issue with it, just making sure I understood.

The left-to-right reading was so close when choosing the first letter. Only two letters off. I think I got stuck here thinking that something I did was wrong, rather than think to choose the second letter on those two faces.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[impossibleroot]

With some insights from some puzzlers, here is my second draft of this self-referential blocks puzzle. I am now righting a script to check every possible combination of answer and block rotation, so I should find out soon if my solution is unique or not.

As always, any criticism or feedback is appreciated!

[impossibleroot]

Here is the final (?) draft of my self-referential blocks puzzle before I make it in real life for the students at my school. The 16 faces feature a multiple choice question and some other letters. Can you solve the whole thing?

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the blocks can rotate independently. So when a face refers to the face above or below it, it could be any of the four faces on that block.

I ran some tests and I believe there is one unique correct solution (which leads to the final answer). I'd like to find out if I'm right!

Pictures of the puzzle and the 4 faces on each of the 4 cubes.

Let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or criticism, thanks.
Also, if anyone gives it a try, I'd love to know your method of solving it, eg. which face you picked first and where you went from there...

[Zandor]

Here is my attempt

Rotation of the cubes: 1, 6, 11, and 14 together in one column.

1: C
2: D
3: B
4: A
5: C
6: D
7: B
8: D
9: E
10: C
11: D
12: D
13: B
14: ?
15:C
16: B

I got stuck at question 14. There are only 4 C's but I cannot answer A because question 5 only allows 2 vocals. Of course I can change that to 3 vocals, but then I am left with only 3 C's.


My second attempt went with the red, blue and green clue:
Red clue: Orient faces correctly. Read blue vertically. Start at one.
Then I tried to orient the faces (1, 8, 10, 15 in one column) and got the blue clue: Big letters are final clue. Read green backwards to find it.
Green clue: Start at five. Go down right right down then around back to 5.
Big letters: THEOU. Didn't understand what you mean with "around back to 5", maybe "THE OUT"?

I then tried to solve the puzzle again with this orientation of the cubes but came to a contradiction early:

- Solution to 4 must be C
- Solution to 7 must also be C, as 4 is adjacant to it.
- When 7 is C, then the solution to 6, 8 and 9 must also be C.
- When 6 is C, then 11 must be C
11 reads, that the only oddly numbered face with an answer of D is 9. But 9 is C.