Puzzles for Adults and Children
The first step in solving this puzzle lies in noticing the abundance of words from the NATO phonetic alphabet. In order, those words are Whiskey Oscar Romeo Delta Sierra Papa Echo Romeo Sierra Echo November Tango Echo November Charlie Echo, which spell out the phrase WORDS PER SENTENCE.
Counting the number of words in each sentence gives 1, 14 19, 23, 5, 18, 3, 15, 22, 5, 18, 20. With A=1, B=2, etc., this translates to ANSWER COVERT. The answer is COVERT.
Each of the clues leads to a phrase beginning with the name of a card, given in order from ace to king:
The cards given with each clue are the length of the answers, not counting the card names. This allows solvers to create a cipher key based on the answers. For example, the first row of cards spells out VENTURA, so the ace of diamonds must represent V, the two of clubs is E, etc.
Applying this cipher to the unclued cards at the bottom spells out the phrase A TWO SLANGILY. A slang term for two, used most commonly when referring to cards, is DEUCE.
Each of the rows is missing all of its vowels. Once the words are reconstituted, they look like this:
Indexing into each of the full answers by the given numbers reveals the phrase I’d like to what a vowel, Pat. This is a reference to a commonly spoken phrase on Wheel of Fortune, where contestants must buy vowels. The answer is BUY.
This puzzle consists of seven very simple mazes, each with a single yellow line through it. Solving the mazes and paying special attention to where the path intersects with that line gives the following:
The flavor text of the the puzzle references both Samuel and telegraph, suggesting that Morse code is necessary to get the answer. Reading the path/yellow line overlaps as dots and dashes gives . ... -.-. .- .--. . ... which translates to ESCAPES, the answer to the puzzle.
Each of the words can be preceded by either TRUE or FALSE to make a common phrase. (In certain cases, the reverse can also be a phrase, but it is always quite rare.):
Converting these True/False answers to binary (TRUE=1, FALSE=0) gives 01000111 01110010 01101001 01110100. The flavor text clues ASCII which can turn eight-bit binary numbers into characters. Translating these four numbers gives Grit. The answer is GRIT.
This metapuzzle consists of the following image, along with the answers to the feeder puzzles: MOZART SYMPHONY, YOU ARE HERE, FIFTH GEN CONSOLE, CANDY BAR, OBERON, TRIDENT, THERMOMETER, and CARNIVOROUS PLANT.
This image suggests the planets of our solar system, moving outward. Each answer corresponds to one of the planets:
Indexing into each answer by the number written on the planet spells out the solution, MOONSHOT (or MOON SHOT), referring to an ambitious, groundbreaking effort, such as the 1969 moon landing.