That dinner distribution puzzle - good but not-accepted solution

[Harald B]

I've seen a few people bring this up, and some other people disbelieving, so I thought I'd demonstrate just what the issue is. The puzzle I'm talking about is helping Glori get the right dish to each patron.The title is Diners and Dishes.
Here's what I figured is a (and in fact the only) correct solution:

Let's go through the rules on this one:

1. Nobody ordered a dish resembling their spouse. Check. (but see below)
2. One lady ordered a dish resembling the fish-eating man next to her. Check.
3. The icecream is next to the ham. Check?
4. Exactly one patron has a dish resembling him/her. Check.

The only way this solution can be incorrect is if onion-man and fish-lady are spouses, but then the setup is misleadingly incomplete.

[prizna]

Acctually one of the rules was the ham plate is next to the banana split

[Harald B]

Drat, did I make that mistake again? Ok, then swap the chicken and the banana split in the above picture and the issue remains. I'll edit the first post soonish to reflect that.

edit:I've edited the original post now

[prizna]

I dont think the banana split and ham plate being across from each other counts as being next to each other.

[Harald B]

They're both on the short side of the table. That's as next to each other as the beefburger and onions.

[prizna]

The beef burger and onions are side by side if the pic above had the banana split and chicken swapped the ham would be across from the banana split not side by side with it.

[Harald B]

Hm, I've figured out the flaw in my original reasoning now. Because I kept mixing up ham and beef, I kept eliminating the actual solution before correcting that mixup. Now I see how the actual solution does make more sense.

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by Harald B

I was actually thinking about this solution too when I played the game. I still thing this should be one of the possible solutions.

[prizna]

Is the guy next to fish lady meant to look like a hamburger?

[Laserschwert]

Originally Posted by prizna

Is the guy next to fish lady meant to look like a hamburger?

He's meant to look like a buffalo.

[prizna]

oh ok, I knew he was the hamburger but I didnt know how.

[JedExodus]

Originally Posted by prizna

Is the guy next to fish lady meant to look like a hamburger?

Him and chicken lady threw me off a wee bit, got there in the end though

[Urd]

I thought about that solution too, but as said, I assumed that the Fishy lady and Miss Piggy doen't qualify as sitting next to each other, since there could be sitting someoe at the from where the picture is taken.

Also you woldn't say you sit next so the person, opposing you on a two-person table, wouldn't you?

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Harald B

[*]Exactly one patron has a dish resembling him/her. Check.

Which one, exactly?

Yeah, I might have gotten some additional difficulty with this one not knowing what the hell the resemblance was aside from fishwoman, bananasplit man and onion man.

Also, shouldn't porkwoman be the hamburger? *so very confused*

[Neelo]

It is a buffalo hamburger, and the man resembles a buffalo, so the hamburger resembles him. Ham comes from pigs, so the porkwoman resembles the ham.

[nodoctors]

Originally Posted by Urd

I thought about that solution too, but as said, I assumed that the Fishy lady and Miss Piggy doen't qualify as sitting next to each other, since there could be sitting someoe at the from where the picture is taken.

Also you woldn't say you sit next so the person, opposing you on a two-person table, wouldn't you?

Exactly. The whole issue with the OPs solution is that it assumes "next to" means "across from each other." But I suppose he could make a semantics argument...

[Linque]

Even though you can reason why the correct answer is the only one accepted, I agree that these kinds of issues should be dealt with - it's reasonable to presume that the picture above is a valid solution. There shouldn't be solutions like this (and the one in the sound wave puzzle) that seem like they're ok but aren't, because the game interprets the rules differently than a player might.

Hot hawks had another similar issue. Also in the chair puzzle you were able to assemble the picture upside down, which wasn't a valid answer. The puzzles should be designed so that you don't have answers that might reasonably be mistaken for the correct one.

[doodinthemood]

I'm going to look stupid but here goes: how were we meant to know who was married to who? I still don't understand.

[Neelo]

Each couple is sitting together: fish woman is married to buffalo man, bananasplit man is married to chicken woman and onion man is married to pig woman.

[doodinthemood]

So how can 1 and 2 ever be true?