Games Online Contest #20

5 First Prizes: A one-year subscription to GAMES

This contest closed on December 15, 2008. Here was the challenge:

Number, Please

We’ve taken a list of 11 whole numbers ranging from 1 through 20, each spelled out in one of five different languages: English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. Then we changed the list by modifying each item on it according to a consistent rule. The object of this contest is to determine that rule, restore the original list, and add up the numbers to find their sum. That sum is the answer to the contest.

101NQ
500EU10
500O100E
500RE1
509
5ENT1
A100HT
E50F
F4E
ON100E
S9

The rule by which number names were modified was that any strings of one or more consecutive letters that were also Roman numerals were replaced by their equivalent Arabic numerals. Thus, CINQ (5) became 101NQ, since CI=101. The number names and their values were as follows:

CINQ = 5
DEUX = 2
DOCE = 12
DREI = 3
DIX = 10
VENTI = 20
ACHT = 8
ELF = 11
FIVE = 5
ONCE = 11
SIX = 6

The total is 93, which was the answer to the contest.