A woman named jessi was kidnapped and lock in 1 of 5 rooms. use the clues to figure out which one she's in.

1. jessi is not in room 1
2. jesi is not in room 2
3. jessi is not in room 3
4. jessi is not in room 4
5. jessi is not in room 5

She's in room 2

Winner...........i thought I might trick a few people.

You should have written :

Jessi is not in room 1, Jessi is not in room 2, Jessi is not in room 3, Jessi is not in room 4, and Jesi is not in room 5.

Even this is too easy, but the original format is exposing the trick. Magician need Misdirection and Camouflage.

Hideo Kato

Something like, where is Chris?

In room 1 the walls are bare and cracked. One solitary window, the panes dark through dust and grime. One chair, stark in the middle of the room, its back broken, its sides betraying the markings of strong rope. Something else on the floor catches the eye. A small tooth with a long, bloodied root.

In room 2 the ceiling is bowed and damp as if some huge aquatic catastrophe is but moments away. No window, the only source of illumination is a single bulb suspended in the middle of the ceiling. A mattress, damp and sodden, lies uncovered on the floorboards. Beside it a half-eaten sandwich.

In room 3 the decor looks like the result of a Laura Ashley brainstorming session. Print wallpaper, top to toe, on all four walls; a dazzling plethora of floral overkill. The same floral print on the curtains that cover not a window, but a large picture window. An idylic English country scene; lambs frolic in green fields, with the village nestling in the background..

In room 4 you are immersed in blue. Shocking blue paint splashed across every wall, accasionally broken by flecks of white flume, suggesting a sea scape. Dark blue carpet on the floor, though heavily faded and well trampled. The ceiling is mirrored which serves only to emphasise the blue surround. Thick knotted rope has been flung down in one corner, and fisherman's netting in another.

In room 5 a rather elegant Grandfather clock ticks remorselessly in one corner. Two heavy armchairs, covered in white sheets, almost inviting you to peek underneath. On the wall a solitary picture from the glorious age of steam. A locomotive puffs its way across an iron bridge, its tall central arch rising majestically from the fast flowing river below.

5

Say why? I'm not going to argue with your result, but why 5?

Look at the bottom of the sentence ,,,arCH RISing,mike

I knew it wouldn't hold you up for long, as I came up with it on the spur. It's a while since I visited the Puzzle room, I'm a bit rusty.

Next time ...

Ouch! Of course, I'm the guy that got stuck on Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy because I didn't realize they were changing one of the descriptions and I was supposed to read it.

Hey dr chutney, I thought it was a good one,mike

"where is Chris?" -> where is "chris" ? loss of proper name.

When moving between text and auditory frame, capitalization problems can occur. Riddles are usually spoken. Perhaps it would work better if you sought an object by name?

Well it obviously didn't prove a hurdle for mike ... sorry Mike.
I think there's enough leeway in a text puzzle like this. Look at the zillion cryptic crossword clues that use this same mechanism. The convention is you ignore the casing and just hunt down the letters.

Oh, why not get clever and work with every nth letter or use a polynomial to rationalize almost any answer then?

How about a diagnal solution set up by moving the text into an array?

The problem I see here is that when does not get the framing (text or audio) stabilized, one is left with either no answer or a possibly infinite number of answers depending upon how clever the "solver" cares to be.

Jonathan, when you bring out your polynomials we're heading into a dark place.

In the context of this thread, and in trying to illustrate a 5 room puzzle with a bit of depth, particularly when written on the fly, then Chris to ch ris is perfectly acceptable.

If I was offering £1 million for the solution then we might have to rationalise and get the framing stabilised. The answer would be a d**m site harder to decypher as well!

Of course, what I should have done in the above example is simply add the caveat, "Author's decision is final."

If you had looked at dr chutney,s original post you would have noticed that he wrote, something like where is chris? so the clue was in the question,(something like), mike

Dr chutney, why don't you drop the word "if" I would love to be a millionaire he he ,mike

Mike, here is the line "Something like, where is Chris?"

Typography counts in textual puzzles. In auditory puzzles...

Thank goodness I remembered to put that 'if' in. I don't think I could quite stretch to a million at the moment.

Jonathan, I will return with something more contextually satisfying for you. And when I do I know you'll be up for it.

Thanks Doc. I love puzzles, especially when I get stumped and learn a new way of looking at things which permits a solution.