Word Puzzle Help?

Ben Again

Could someone help me solve this word puzzle? I got it from my friend as a cryptic hint to me (early) Christmas-I mean Decemberween preasent from him. Here it is:

Key word:
SAM HOUSER

SAMHO
UERBC
DFGIK
LNPQT
VWXYZ

PG EW KL AB KN SE ZC PC DQ MK VH CN

(Sorry for bad formatting, I wrote this with my Wii) So, if anyone knows what kinda puzzle this is, could you tell me? I'm really stuck here. Thanks!

Falanca

Possibly you need to arrange the letter bits to form a square. Judging by the amount of letters, it's 7x7.

VWXYZ looks suspicious though. Maybe you have to eliminate the ones that doesn't look normal.

Or maybe the grouping of some letters is just done to confuse you, so you have to form a sentence by using all those letters.

EDIT: Don't mind me Never heard this type of thing before, but sounds fun.
EDIT2: Solved it, thanks to puzzlebox. The guy mentioned in the keyword, is behind all of it.

puzzlebox

This should help, it describes this cipher (Playfair) and how to crack it.

Let us know if you need another nudge... I love stuff like this. What an awesome friend you have!

Edit: Be warned, the solution is not just a hint - it tells you exactly what you're getting. Enjoy!!

Ben Again

Uhh... that's soo confuseing! I can't... tell how to crack it. I've looked at the site, and a few others, but none tell me DIRECTLY how to crack it. Puzzlebox, would you be oh-so kind as to explain how in newbie terms?

EDIT: Never mind. I figured it out.

puzzlebox

Ben Again wrote: »

EDIT: Never mind. I figured it out.

Sweet! Wish my friends were that cool.

Since I typed this anyway, will post it for anyone who cares:

---

Each pair of letters in the coded message represents 2 different letters found in the grid. There's a reason we work with 2 letters at a time - we need to look at the "rectangles" created by each pair of letters in the grid.

Let's start with the third pair, KL, as an example (the first two pairs are a bit special, we'll come back to them).

When we look at the letters K and L in the grid, they form 2 corners of a rectangle:

Attachment not found.

The decoded letters are the ones in the OTHER corners of that rectangle - in this case, K=D and L=T.

Now we've decoded that pair, let's note it down.

Coded:   PG EW KL AB KN SE ZC PC DQ MK VH CN
Decoded: ?? ?? DT ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??

Next, we can look at the fourth pair, AB:

Attachment not found.

In this rectangle, the decoded letters are H and E (A=H, B=E).

So now we know that pair too:

Coded:   PG EW KL AB KN SE ZC PC DQ MK VH CN
Decoded: ?? ?? DT HE ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??

And keep going like that until you have your decoded message!

Back to the first 2 pairs... they are a little different because the coded letters appear in the same column, and don't make a rectangle in the grid. For these ones we "slide up" one space in the grid to get the decoded letters. Don't worry too much about those ones if it's confusing at the moment - I'm sure you'll be able to work out the message without doing them.

Ben Again

Thanks for that clarification! Too bad, though. I already have GTA III, VC and SA. For PS2 and PC. Not Xbox, but I don't have one anyway. I don't want to, but I may have to, *shudder shudder*, sell them.