Sorry to bother you, do you think you could put out a guide for SQU4R3STUCK? I'm pretty lost. (':
Of course! I actually only just... figured it out right this moment, ironically, which is deeply embarrassing, but here’s how to complete SQU4R3STUCK (with the detailed guide/answer below the cut!):
Input the old passwords on the grid. Use the images to help you figure out where to place them (and remember, each password is 8 letters long, so that’s 4 letters on each side). (1)
Use the targets to find the letters that will help you most - the white squares are what you need to focus on. You need four letters to pick out on each side. Rotation is your friend, here. (2)
Use the key from C4RTOGRAPHYSTUCK to translate the letters you got from the right side. (3)
Use a word scrambler and boom! You’re done. (4)
(1) The passwords need to go in the spaces on the grid divided into half, going from left to right. It should look like this:
(2) Below the grill, you’ll find this image:
This is a fleissner grille cipher. Essentially, you have a grid with letters on and an associated sheet of paper with holes punched out. When you place the sheet on the grid, it’ll line up with some of the letters, which you then know you have to pick out as part of your password.
The targets are what you need to focus on. These are the holes on your sheet! You have to use them to find the letters on the grid that land on the targets and are on white squares, rotating the image (but not the letters) clockwise. Like so:
As you can see, the target that’s on a white square gives us the letter U. Rotating the overlaid image clockwise will put the targets on L and T, but since T is on a red square, we know that it has to be L. Rotating clockwise again puts the targets on C and V, but only C is on the white square, so that’s our letter. And rotating once more gives us E and P, with E on our white square.
Essentially, the targets will always land on a corner square the square diagonal to it. You just need to take out the letter on the white square the target lands on.
On the left side, this gives you: ULCE
On the right side, this gives you: OSEN
(3) If you look closely, you can see a set of stairs on the right-hand grid. This is an indication that we need to use the cipher from the C4RTOGRAPHSTUCK puzzle - but ONLY on the letters we got from the right side.
So O = S, S = O, E = A, and N = T. SOAT.
Together, that’s: ULCEOSAT.
(4) Using a word scrambler gives us OSCULATE. Congrats!! You got the word!