July 2010 Puzzle
contributor: Brent Holman
difficulty: MEDIUM

Welcome to Shinteki's Puzzle of the Month. Every month, on the 15th, we will put up a new puzzle here for people to test their solving skills. Try it at your leisure just to test yourself, or, if you're the competitive type, see how fast you can solve it and compare yourself against the community at large. When you have solved it, click here to check your answer. We will add all solvers' names (not just the first ten anymore!) to that month's leader board, in the order that they solved it. Click here to see who has already solved the puzzle, or check out our Previous Puzzles.

Note: The puzzle will be posted between 6 and 8 PM Pacific time on the 15th of each month. If you want to be notified immediately, follow PlayShinteki on Twitter. Every month, we will send a tweet the minute the puzzle goes live.

Want to submit a puzzle for possible publication on Shinteki's PotM page? We are accepting submissions from you, Shinteki's puzzle community, for an original puzzle published each month. We hope to showcase different puzzle authors and a variety of puzzle styles throughout the year. For all the submission details, see submission details.


Unfortunately, there were no submissions for the Puzzle of the Month this month. As such, we do not have a puzzle for you to solve. We'd really hate to see the PotM die out, so we encourage you to please send something in! We've got a Shinteki T-shirt with your name on it...

We don't want to leave you completely empty-handed this month, however. As some of you may know, there is a hidden puzzle embedded in the Shinteki website. We'll treat that puzzle as the July 2010 Puzzle of the Month. Just go to the home page to get started. You'll have to explore the site a bit to solve the puzzle, though, so don't be afraid to click around! (As usual, we'll post hints every week or so.)

You may discover that the website puzzle has its own leader board. A handful of you are already on it, but that won't get you on the leader board for the PotM. You'll need to enter the solution that you discovered into the submission form here in order to be added to the PotM leader board as well. For those of you who haven't solved the website puzzle yet: you'll have the chance to get on both leader boards! Rejoice!

Meanwhile, little birdies have told us that some of you are indeed working on puzzles to submit for the Puzzle of the Month. Again, we encourage you to please keep at it! We'd all love to see what you've been working on!

Thanks, and good luck!

- the Shinteki crew

Hint 1
Hint 2
Hint 3 will become available between 6 and 8 PM on August 5