Puzzle #2 — 2026-07-21
The answer was South Korea. The scene was built from Sangju. Difficulty: medium. This day ran before launch and had no players.
The clues, in the order they were revealed
- Rice paddies are worked right up to the buildings, with long rows of plastic greenhouses between them.
- Fifteen-storey apartment slabs stand straight out of the fields, each with a huge number painted on the end wall.
- Older houses sit under blue-painted metal roofs, and a red neon cross glows above a small church.
- The script is phonetic, built from circles and straight strokes, and looks like neither neighbour.
- The country occupies the southern half of a divided peninsula.
What the scene was built from
The location is chosen first, from a hand-curated whitelist, and the image is generated to match the description below. That order is what makes the answer checkable: the scene is built for the place, not guessed from the picture.
| vegetation | rice paddies worked right up to the buildings, long rows of plastic-sheeted greenhouses, persimmon trees beside the houses |
|---|---|
| terrain | a flat valley floor closed on every side by low forested hills |
| architecture | fifteen-storey apartment slabs standing straight out of the paddies with a huge number painted on each end wall, older single-storey houses under blue-painted metal roofs |
| roadside | right-hand traffic, a road far wider than the town needs, a red neon cross above a small church |
| signage | a phonetic script built from circles and straight strokes, unlike either neighbour (never rendered legibly) |
| light | humid continental summer haze |
Where this actually is
Sangju, South Korea sits at 36.42, 128.16 — see Sangju, South Korea on OpenStreetMap. The clue ladder and the table above were both written from that place before any picture existed.
This day was not in the image-quality sample — its answer key was checked, its picture was not second-guessed. How the pictures are made, and why none of them is a photograph.