Tessera

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 7d ago

And of course, how could I necro my account without posting dumbass puzzles alongside it? This time is one that is most likely going to be scrapped from S-E due to lore incongruence. Only 1 rule to solve: [You can only press each button once.] @villalactea.bsky.social doit uwont bet

$4 puzzles composed of blank numberpads, a number sequence, and typewritten pages or text. Text is stylized based on relevance. For alt-text, {bracketed is bold}, [keyed is visual information], --dashed is a new segment--. Segments are separated by a golden frame, they are as follows: --Title-- "R3: Puzzles for Villa & Chat by Alice G. M. | 'Code of past, used by three, seen by four.'" --Number bar-- Has the sequence "1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55" in a square pixel-like font. --Septrentional puzzles-- A standard door numpad (ten buttons in a 3x3 grid with a center bottom) and a page that reads: "That was it, wasn't it? A {four}, a {six}, a {mirror of nine}, the {set of four}, and {half of twelve}." --Meridional puzzles-- Two pages and numpads, with the lower ones being inverted in axis and color. Upper numpad has ten buttons in a 3x3 grid with a left bottom. Lower numpad has eleven buttons in a 3x3 grid with a left and center bottom. There's also an ornate in the background. Upper page reads: "Another memory of ours? From my {first to my fourteenth}, ah, but I recall the {latter four didn't matter} at all{1} [bold 1 corresponds to blank_A], correct? Nevertheless, the code was: {1} [blank_A] [blank_B] {5} Of that I'm sure, for I defer to {2} [bold 2 correspond to blank_B] {proper grammar as a prerogative} in matter of secrecy." Lower page reads: "A {bar already passed}. It {wasn't four that didn't matter}, do you recall? Please tell, Signe." --Depth puzzle-- Text in a different font without a page background, crayon-like doodles, Signe's arrow, and an ornate on the background. Text is as follows: [Upper left] "For my {1st} life, {2} drinks." [Upper right] "For my {2nd} life, {1} drink." [Middle center] "And for my {9th} life, well, you already know by now, don't you {?} Perhaps what you thought this would be? Perhaps an {expectation} I toyed with?" [Lower center] "From another bar in Amiens to Pisa, yours truly, -Alice G. M."$

Image featuring the miscellaneous decorations in the puzzle.

There's a full-opacity version of the ornate used in the background of the last puzzle with the text "here's how this looks!", and also the full set of square numbers used in the number bar with the text "the full set".

The doodles, entirely irrelevant to the puzzles or lore, are as follow:
[Upper left] A Martini glass garnished with a cherry, and an Old Fashioned glass with streaks scribbled inside the upper part of the drink.
[Upper right] A champagne flute with a carbonated drink garnished with a fruit twist.
[Lower left] A left-eye blind striped cat with a top-hat drinking milk from a square coupe glass. It has the text "[arrow pointing the the glass] (Milk)" and "[arrow pointing at cat] Mr. Anatole the Cattington"
[Lower right] An abyss angel.

The drawings were made to look as if a child made them using oily crayons, so I used my non-dominant hand (right one) without looking at the canvas. Additionally, I added "random pick", "oil paint", and "blur" filters in that order.

Why cocktails? Because they're fun to make! And I've been recently reading up more on bartending stuff. See next alt-text for specifics.

What's is a "cattington"? An elegant cat. As a side note, Mr. Anatole pronouns are he/they (they just chill like that) and he speaks english & french. And he's 23 years old, ancient for a cat.

What's an "abyss angel"? LISTEN TO THE BAND "GLASS BEACH"!!! (an in general, anything Autumn/J does, she currently works solo under the alias "you are an angel" with the branding "awawawa.world", it's an awesome person doing cool musics).
Anyways, the album "Plastic Death" has the answer, listen to it, one of my all-time faves, Autumn's singing voice makes me jealous.

Image featuring non-child, but still crude, drawings of the drinks with the title "Recipes" and their names beside them.

In case you're curious about the doodled drinks, they are as follow (locations are relative to the puzzle image, not the one here):

Manhattan (Upper left-left): Built in a Mixing glass, served up in a chilled Martini or Nick & Nora glass; you make this one with 2 oz of Rye or Bourbon whiskey (you can use Canadian too), 1 oz of sweet Vermouth, and 2 dashes of Angostura bitters. Garnished with a Maraschino cherry.

One of my favorite cocktails! I personally really like sweeter drinks, so I tend to make the "Sweet Manhattan" variation ('w´).

White Russian (Upper left-right): Built and served on the rocks on an Old Fashioned glass; made with 2 oz of vodka, 1 oz of Kahlúa, and topped with 1 oz of heavy cream. Stir well and use quality ice, its a sip drink!

Haven't had the opportunity to make this one yet, but it seems pretty nice based on this recipe. I don't tend to drink "milky" cocktails, so it's always an interesting experience when I do.

French 75 (Upper right): Built in the shaker and rolled into a chilled champagne coupe or flute; made with 1 oz of Cognac or gin, 1/2 oz of fresh lemon juice, 1/2 of simple syrup, topped with champagne. Garnished with a lemon twist. You strain into the smaller half of the shaker, top, and then roll into the serving glass.

This one is just nice :> I discovered it on the book "Regarding Cocktails" by Sasha Petraske, I usually tend to make it around the holidays (december + january) since that's when I tend to have champagne around. A big recommend for sure.

Milk (Lower left): Mr. Anatole is a cattington, so they get no alcohol, only milk in a chilled square coupe glass and a cool hat.
Oh, also their name is based on François Édouard Anatole Lucas. If you recognize the name, the final puzzle must be obvious, no?

Oh oh, also also, I did this image in like 5 mins, apologies for the quality!

Image has early drafts of puzzles, dating back to 31/mar/26.

Notes from the authoress, spoilers follow!

This puzzles were so fun to make! Got "mind-locked" from puzzle-making for a few months, but not having the "pressure" to make them congruent with any project/idea/aesthetic/diff. allowed me to take it easy and just create a fun little thing. Hence the reason they reference irl-world knowledge with no introduction and are so easy to solve.

Still ended up linking 3 of 'em to S-E in the writing style of Epsilon and aesthetics, despite putting this one in the cutting-room as they fit awkwardly as introductory puzzles /°(-b-).
They would have been the 3rd & 4th ones you encounter, necessary to unlock the W & O wings of the manor, essentially barring 90% of stuff.

Anyways, for this one I wanted to use a recognizable number sequence with a little twist. I ended up using Fibonacci´s (cliché) and Luca's, with the little twist being that it's wholly irrelevant, and not recognizing it is actually advantageous for 3/4 of it (a friend that got stuck for several minutes can attest to that).
I learned a couple new ways I can mess with numbers, got some number theory knows here and there, so expect more of that in future number shenanigans.
Also more messing with how you interpret words and symbols! Mirroring, phonetics and homonyms (e.g. "bar" refers to alcohol-bar and number-bar, hence "from another bar in Amiens"), syntax, descriptions, etc.
I love designing puzzles and UX things, even if I am not great at it <3.

Also, I've been getting better at "cutting the fat for meat" when designing things, especially noticeable if compared to my earlier work and texts. And in general, the ability to tell stories concisely.
And one more comment, the line between logical-jump and nonsense-connection is one I'm learning how to manage a little better, bit-by-bit, so that one day I can make actually fun puzzles, 'till next time (hopefully in less than 3-4 months this time)! ;3.

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 7d ago

Here is some fanart of the ever-pretty galactic princess @villalactea.bsky.social and some of her OC's! Hope I did 'em some justice, first time I do something like this, and been a while since I do "finalized" renders to drawings of mine (=´w´=) (Kinda wanna do a 4-koma with em, vry fun2draw (-w-)

A picture of a woman with a magenta pantone-ish dress sitting on top of a building, the background sky has part of the Los Angeles nightsky viewable on the background, specifically, the Cassiopeia constellation on the higher northern altitudes (do note, I believe the exact view depicted here is actually impossible, since normally you would see Cassiopeia inverted on the X-axis and untilted.
Past Alice prioritized aesthetics over accuracy, and missed the fact that replicating an astral plane without regard for perspective wasn't wise, I'm afraid.)

Additionally, a conveniently-out-of-frame single-gloved person is showing the woman a disturbing image, causing her to look both skeptical and worried. The image in question shows how mice eyes are used to create the alleged "tapioca" pearls used in bubble tea, pondering the moral weight of such an exchange.
One must wonder, is blinding mice really worth some scrumptious tea?

Additionally, once again (I have to much fun writing these descriptions), the scenario depicted here doesn't make an awful lot of sense, does it? Why she sitting there?? Why the mice??? Why her consternation and contemplation at the mice????
Past Alice just wanted to draw (cartoon) Villa in that pose as a way to homage the "girls who say bruh be like" and "alt fashion Villa" drawings.
It was mentioned that (cartoon) Villa crossing her arms would be neat, plus The Puppygirls™ also *barked* at the appearance of her thigh-highs and heavily debated what bottom wear would look better. Hence the denim-60 thigh-highs and (conveniently-out-of-view) jean-shorts.

I must admit my continuos amusement at your ability to bring together the most subby ahh people on your chat lmao.

A picture of that same woman, scaled-up to planetary size, poking a burning planet Earth with her finger. She is drawn in a far more cartoony style, more closely resembling my currently-preferred artstyle.

This one was quite fun to do! I think the way her hair is designed lends itself very well to exaggeration, it turned out looking a bit like the sheep-villagers you see in Animal Crossing; I don't necessarily like how I drew her body (kinda looks like a Papa Louie character lol), but a beginning is a beginning, no? I need to refine my skills a bit before I'm able to draw more cutesy stuff well ;<

A picture of the planetary-woman poking the Earth with a space stick and being questioned by one of her siblings(?).

Text reads:
Narrator - "Later that day..."
Andromeda - "What are you doing???"
Villa - "Oh?"
Narrator - "She found a space stick (she has killed hundreds, no, thousa- millio-! BILLIONS!!! ...but she don't need to know nothin', okayyyy?)"

See what I'm saying about the 4-koma? It would be funnn!

I'm not actually sure how "empty-headed" Villa is supposed to be, if at all, but I think she looks cute like that. Not too far from the source material kek (THIS IS A JOKE!).

Anyways, Villa, I like this little galactic goobers! I'm curious as to how their little universe and personalities work and stuff!!

A sketch depicting a dapper masc-presenting person in butler-like pose and clothes. Currently only the mostly-complete preliminary lineart is done.

Did I make him too much of a twink? Is there even such a thing?

On a more "serious" note, I took some creative liberties with this one, but I did try to keep the 3-things/triangle motif present (their hair divided in clumps of 3 strands, belt, neck-thingy, shoes, rings, etc.). Hopefully I succeded in making some fanart that isn't wildy separated from the canon :D.

I still have a few ideas left, so I'm probably gonna do a couple more drawings here and there whenever I have time (I still haven't drawn Andromeda!).
It's oddly inspiring? It motivates me to do more drawings outside of it (one of the reasons they're incomplete is because I got distracted doing actual concept art, a puzzle, and studies). So thank you for that, really.

Another thing, I saw your burnout stuff, I hope you can get through it soon enough, it sucks when you can't find enjoyment in something you love, been in that kinda rut more times that I can remember frankly. Most I can offer is sympathy, apologies for that, I'm not good with people-stuff.

And lastly, you're a cool kat Villa, or ouppy? Either way, keep doing awesome musics 'n drawings 'n stuff, I genuinely look forward to the streams and whatnot, and I love being around this little corner of the internetz with you and chat, ciao bella (='w')/ !

Much luv,
Alice M.

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Another day, another late Bad Art Monday... Here's the puzzle that was supppsed to be featured this time, the 4th one I made: 1st: Floor image and number dial 2nd: Letter near the dial 3rd: (Extra) Map of the manor 4th: (Extra) Small version of S-E's logo with the subtitle for this puzzle.

A birds eye view of the floor design in a room.

It's divided with vertically dominant rectangles in a 10×5 grid, and the image seems to be scrambled with horizontal displacement on each column.

The image in questions seems a cartoon forest with a lake and a child playing with toys on top of a blanket. There's an arrow pointing sideways to the right on the second column.

The number dial on the right is conformed of five 7-segment LCD displays divided in 2-1-2 pattern vertically.

A typewritten letter that was sitting next to the display, it contains 5 highlighted words in red and reads:

"Dear child,

The key (RED) you look for is on top of your rabbits buttoned (RED) eye, make sure to seek it before the footsteps (RED) of your father arrive.

Once you are done playing and everything is said and done, hide it all within the lilypad (RED), protect it from the adults that are too prideful to dirty their hands on the mud of the lake, and go take a nap on your blanket (RED).

You will be tired after all that crying."

The letter is not signed by anyone.

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Here's the puzzle featured on this Bad Art Monday (FRIDAY)! This is the fifth one I made. It serves as the introduction to Signe-Epsilon, the front gate of the manor! 1st: Strange Letter + mirrored, 2nd: Three Attachments 3rd: The Front Gate 4th: S-E Act1 logo (v1)

Strange Letter

A type and handwritten letter from Epsilon dedicated to Signe.

It features paragraphs inverted on the vertical axis and an uneven typography where certain letters are raised slightly upwards.

There is both a standard and mirrored version for reading convenience.

Sorry I can't type out the contents of it here, but that is absurdly slow to do in Bluesky mobile (the UI definitely doesn't help). I'll update these (and previous) alt-texts when I get my laptop fixed!

Three Attachments

They were sent along the Strange Letter

The 1st attachment is a black and white bussiness card featuring the typewritten text "We respect the order of those who write by hand and will." in gold with the words "order", "write" and "hand" being colored dark red as exceptions. The card body is colored with width-uneven black and white vertical stripes, the left side being predominantly black and the right one white.

The 2nd attachment is an A2 sized sheet of paper. It features the modern greek alphabet typewritten in 2 horizontal 12-character downwards-slanted rows in gold with its equivalence in english latin alphabet in black above and below them. It also has the dark red handwritten text "TO BE ALIVE," and " PRESENT, IS" in uniform top and bottom rows. The body of the paper is white with downwards-slanted black stripes surrounding the alphabet and its translation.

The 3rd attachment is an A2 sized sheet of paper, the mirror image of the second. The differences that this attachment features are the following:
Ancient phoenician alphabet instead of the modern greek one, the rows are 11-character long, the handwritten texts now reads "SI TSAP EHT" and " ,EREH REVE" above and below, and the translation text and body have inverted colors.

The Front Gate

An ornate iron wrought gate with a large central 16-button keypad locking it and monochrome circles decorating its sides.

The central keypad is divided in left and right sides, 8 keys on each side arranged in a 2×4 matrix. The left side features phoenician alphabet characters and the right side modern greek alphabet ones, they're handwritten in dark red as if in haste and degraded by the outside environment.

The bilateral circles are black and white, left and right respectively, with dark red outlines.

The gate in and of itself is made from iron colored black, with thin vertical pillars as the main type of barrier, decorated in plant-like ornates with arrows pointing left and right near their corresponding circles.

The image features no background as it was used in tandem with a modified image of a real manor in a Ren'Py test of Signe - Epsilon.

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 5mo ago

And here's the puzzle featured on this weeks Bad Art Monday! The first one I ever did, remade (not finished yet, the stains are badly done, will correct later). The first two images are v3 (current), and the third and fourth are v2 and v1.

v3.1
A letter featuring the following equation:
[A²/B] + 3B - 2C = {Lock}

v3
A bloody door featuring a stained paper that hides the 3 variables, and a digital lock technically capable of displaying digits 0-999.999, though only the 3 most left panels are illuminated.

The papers variables are deduced solving a number grid using 1 2 3 (the logic is akin to a magic square).

v2
Same puzzle as before with a more rudimentary design. The variables, while logically easier to decode (as the paper isn't as stained, thus removing the graphic deciphering), are barred behind slightly more complex arithmetic (using numbers 6 7 8, instead of 1 2 3).

The font used for the numbers is the same as v1, though v2 also features a letter that unfortunately cannot be attached due to Bluesky's photo limit.

v1
The first ever puzzle in it's most basal form. Guesswork is required to get variables A and C. Colors scheme is questionable. And font is inconsistent and non-symmetric.

The aesthetics of the project these may be featured in, Signe-Epsilon, has a drastically different style than that concieved in its most early stages, even before it was even thought of as a "proyect".
Originally, these were meant to be disconnected without any sort of narrative as a way to tease my friends and family with, well, brain-teasers.

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Video is up, I know it's Tuesday (on Hawai'i, it's already midnight for me 😭) and not Monday, didn't record yesterday (not that I could :г). Anyways, it kinda was a mess, but I'll keep trying! Here are the images that I made, since it's hard to see properly on video.

Sketch of the 1st Volume cover of "The Rose of Versailles", a shōjo manga first published in 1972.

A bad attempt at drawing humans with proportions.

An unfinished OC using a black suit (mixed gender, buttons change side in undershirt), sunglasses, and an ornate dark earring.

Alice/Glass says "BOO!"@alicemabilla.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Gonna try and upload a video tomorrow, it might be (as in, will be) a mess :з

On the canvas of a drawing software a Vaporeon which has been deformed with the tool "liquify" is made to look like a spiral. Truly, a horrific thing to behold.