Solution: Demo Jigsaw
Answer: AUTOMOBILE
Written by Adib Surani
There's no one correct way to find the aha in this puzzle -- chances are you might have noticed that certain words have smaller words hidden in them (like SNAP PLEDGE). You might also notice that some phrases are just completely infeasible and must be anagrams or Caesar shifts.
Regardless of the approach, the five items at the bottom should each decode to an emoji platform using five different encodings.
| Clue | Platform | Encoding | Colour |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNAP PLEDGE | Apple | Hidden | Red |
| TRY LEER | Synonyms | Orange | |
| MEGA HARD | Microsoft | Antonyms | Yellow |
| MASS GUN | Samsung | Anagram | Green |
| ALEX WETT | Caesar Shift | Blue |
These encodings are also present throughout the grid in the form of a Latin square, to further confirm the mappings. We will colour them here as a visual aid.
| EVEN POLE → ENVELOPE | FAUX Q.F. → TOILET | FROM: PA FRO → TOMATO | TRY RUSSIAN PANCAKE → GOBLIN | SOCCEROOS' TERMS → ROOSTER |
| TASTE A POTION → TEAPOT | PULL DETACH → PUSHPIN | BET FORTUNE → FREE BUTTON | KEG → ICE | SACK BISCUIT → FIRECRACKER |
| BOA'S PORUS → NAME BADGE | HALT SYMBOL → STOP SIGN | ACQUIRE DAP PLEDGE → RED APPLE | FRONT UNBOX → BACKPACK | MASK RISK → KISS MARK |
| CRACKED CORE → BROKEN HEART | VERBAL LOONEY → BALLOON | PENO → CRAB | BLOOD COKES → CLOSED BOOK | YES, EXIT → NO ENTRY |
| EWE → RAM | 8LB APOLLO → POOL 8 BALL | ENSIGN: LITTLE RED DOT → FLAG: SINGAPORE | VERTICAL-END ARCH → CALENDAR | CLOTZ M. FEEZY → RADIO BUTTON |
Now, if we replace each grid item with the actual emoji from that platform, we can get a 5x5 grid of emojis that is mostly red.
Either by squinting a bit, or noticing the two wheels, we can conclude that the whole grid is in fact a depiction of the AUTOMOBILE emoji, which is the final answer.