Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

Very cool. I was very curious to see how AI would do. I tried Gemini 2.5 Pro:

> whats the answer to this where you replace the bracketed sections with words?

> the [second rock from the [dial ([two-dimensional [your ["the of nowhere"] one can get you grounded] puppet projected on a wall]-based clock)]] de Milo is discovered by a Greek [guy with a [kind of stop for a [vehicle that's a palindrome ]]chfork that's not the [[[a mechanic might look under it] color for a little girl with a wolf problem] spandex halloween costume, maybe]]

Response:

    Okay, let's break this down piece by piece:
    
    ["the of nowhere"] one can get you grounded] -> "middle" (middle of nowhere), but being sent to "your room" gets you grounded. Let's stick with room.
    
    [your [room] one can get you grounded] -> room (as discussed).
    
    [two-dimensional [room] puppet projected on a wall] -> A 2D projection on a wall is a shadow. (The 'room' clue seems less direct here, 'shadow puppet' is the key).
    
    [dial ([shadow]-based clock)] -> A clock using shadows and a dial is a sundial.
    
    [second rock from the [sundial]] -> The "sundial" represents the Sun. The second rock (planet) from the Sun is Venus.
    
    [vehicle that's a palindrome ] -> racecar.
    
    [kind of stop for a [racecar]] -> pit (pit stop).
    
    [a mechanic might look under it] -> hood.
    
    [[hood] color for a little girl with a wolf problem] -> Little Red Riding Hood's color is red.
    
    [[red] spandex halloween costume, maybe] -> This describes something that is not the pitchfork. A pitchfork is not a red spandex costume. This part confirms the item described earlier.
    
    [guy with a [pit]chfork that's not the [red spandex halloween costume, maybe]] -> Combining "pit" and "chfork" gives pitchfork. A guy with a pitchfork, especially in a Greek context finding an artifact, is likely a farmer (or peasant).
    
    Putting it all together:
    
    The Venus de Milo is discovered by a Greek farmer.

I'd like to provide you with some constructive feedback on your comment:

1. You should include what you think is interesting about the large language model's ability to solve the word puzzle. It's not obvious to me as a reader.

2. You shouldn't post the step-by-step solution to a puzzle, regardless of how it was derived. It's unlikely that anyone will read through it, and if they do, they're less likely to try the puzzle themselves.

It's not actually solving the puzzle, for one. Like half the steps are obviously nonsense.

Are you sure about that? It correctly solves the puzzle.

Each step (though a little confusing to parse) does make sense in context.