Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 058: Sorting Blocks Hints and Answer

Puzzle 058 is Sorting Blocks, a 30-picarat Write Answer puzzle on Market Street in Stansbury, during the Chapter 4 flashback to Hershel Layton's school days. Lionel catches young Randall and Hershel out late and asks them a puzzle: a carpenter has a stack of 10 large blocks, some heavy and some light, and he mixed them up at the checkout. The question asks for the minimum number of times he'd have to lift blocks one at a time to separate the light ones from the heavy ones. You write that number in the answer boxes on the touch screen. The story doesn't need it, but it opens a course in the Toy Robot minigame.

Video: Sorting Blocks solved. It shows the answer, so skip it if you only want the hints.

This page covers story Puzzle 058 in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS (US and UK English), using the North American text. If you're after Daily Puzzle 058 or Puzzle 58 from another Layton game, see Wrong Puzzle 058? below.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 058 Sorting Blocks: on the top, a stack of large wooden blocks in four columns of four, three, two and one, with a carpenter with a big brown quiff, a white shirt and brown trousers standing on the right with a hand raised to his chin, in front of a railing under a green sky with clouds and a street lamp; below, two empty answer boxes on a squared pad with a small box above them and a grey clear button under each — Illustration of the carpenter's blocks on the top screen and the answer boxes on the touch screen.

What Puzzle 058 is

Puzzle 058 at a glance
Name	Sorting Blocks
Type	Write Answer (write a number)
Picarats	30
Location	Market Street, Stansbury
Chapter	Chapter 4
Given by	Lionel
Solved by	Randall
When it's there	From the time your objective becomes "Sneak out of the House!" through "Go to the Forest!" and "Head to Norwell!"; Lionel's puzzle is gone once it reads "Investigate Norwell!"
Reward	Opens the fourth course of the Toy Robot minigame, Inviting Oasis
Previous puzzle number	Puzzle 057, Stitching Squares (Living Room)
Next puzzle number	Puzzle 059, Flowery Footpath (Old Towne)

The question reads: "A carpenter is sorting a stack of 10 large blocks. He bought a mixture of heavy and light blocks but mixed them up at the checkout, and now he can't tell which are which. What is the minimum number of times he'd have to individually lift blocks in order to separate all the light ones from the heavy ones?" The objective bar at the top of the touch screen says "How many blocks?" You answer by writing a number in the two boxes on the touch screen, one digit per box.

The picture on the top screen doesn't hold any clues: the blocks all look alike, and how they're stacked doesn't matter. Everything you need is in the wording of the question, so read it slowly.

Puzzle names

Puzzle 058 names
Version	Puzzle name
North America	Sorting Blocks
UK	Sorting Blocks
Japanese	10個のレンガ (Jukko no Renga, "ten bricks")

The Japanese title is 10個のレンガ.

The UK version probably uses the same name, but the UK text is worded quite differently. There, the carpenter "is only looking for one light block", and the question asks for the most blocks he might need to lift until he finds one. The hints are reworded to match. The North American question asks for the minimum number of lifts to separate all the light blocks from the heavy ones.

Wrong Puzzle 058?

Daily Puzzle 058 in Miracle Mask is a different puzzle: Rabbit 06, from the Food Chain set. There are no blocks in it.
Puzzle 020, Nine Red Bricks, is Lionel's other lifting puzzle on Market Street, from Chapter 2. If your puzzle has nine numbered bricks and two heavy ones side by side, you've got that one.
Puzzle 58 in another Layton game is a different puzzle. If yours isn't about a carpenter's heavy and light blocks, you're in the wrong game.

Where you get it

Puzzle 058 comes in Chapter 4, in the flashback. Once your objective becomes "Sneak out of the House!", Lionel is on Market Street, standing on the pavement in front of the shop with the bay window, between the wooden crates and a big brass coffee grinder on a stand. The route is probably: leave the house, walk up, follow the road to the right, walk up to the right and talk to Lionel. He's surprised to see Randall: "Young Randall? What would your father say if he saw you out here so late?" Randall answers, "Oh, we're going home soon, Lionel! We just thought we'd...come by to say hello!" and Lionel says, "Oooh, that's awful nice of you! How about a little puzzle then, eh?" Then the puzzle starts.

Market Street in Stansbury in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: a cobbled street curving to the left past shops with lit windows and lamps, green awnings and chalkboard signs. A short, round man with grey hair, a moustache, a grey-green jacket and red trousers stands in the middle on the pavement under a name plate reading Lionel, Puzzle 058. Four hint coin spots are numbered 1 on the white boxes on the crates just left of him, 2 on the manhole cover at the bottom left, 3 on the street lamp beside the café's hanging signboard at the upper right and 4 on the hanging basket at the far left edge — Illustration of Market Street with Lionel. The numbers mark the four hint coins in the list below.

Lionel stays there with his puzzle while your objective reads "Sneak out of the House!", "Go to the Forest!" and "Head to Norwell!", and the puzzle is gone once you're told to "Investigate Norwell!". The story doesn't need it, and it's probably not mandatory. If you miss it, it probably goes to Nanna Grams (known as Elizabeth in the UK version) at the start of Chapter 5. It's still easiest to solve it while you're there, because it opens a Toy Robot course.

Market Street has four hint coins, all in the normal view, with no zoomed-in view to search.

The white boxes stacked on the wooden crates just left of Lionel.
The manhole cover in the street at the bottom left.
The street lamp hanging beside the café's signboard at the upper right.
The hanging basket at the far left edge.

Each coin can be collected only once. These are the same four coins as on your Chapter 2 visit for Puzzle 020, so if you tapped them then, there's nothing left to pick up here.

Hints, one at a time

These are the game's own hints, word for word from the North American version and in the same order. Open only the next one you need. In the game, Hints 1 to 3 cost one hint coin each and the Super Hint costs two.

Hint 1: Concrete or vague?

This puzzle doesn't require any tricky calculations, but that's not to say there isn't a trick to it. Consider which of the conditions in the puzzle are concrete and which are vague.

Hint 2: The most and the fewest

From the puzzle description, you know for sure there are 10 blocks, some of which are heavy, some light. If that's the case, what's the maximum number of light blocks there could be, and what's the minimum number? Thinking about the maximum and minimum should lead you to the solution.

Hint 3: Just one light block?

There is at least one light block here. If we assume there's only one, then in the worst-case scenario, you would have to lift nine blocks before you could work out which was the light one. But what if there were nine light blocks?

Super Hint: After nine lifts

If you were to lift nine blocks and find them all the same weight, you wouldn't know if they were the lighter or heavier blocks. So how many blocks would you have to lift to find out if those first nine were light or heavy?

Answer and full solution

The answer below covers every step, with pictures of the finished puzzle. Open it when you're ready.

Show the answer

The answer is 10. The carpenter has to lift every one of the 10 blocks. The game's answer text says, "Whether there are nine light blocks or just one, he still needs to lift all 10 blocks."

Diagram of the Puzzle 058 reasoning: nine wooden blocks numbered 1 to 9 marked as all the same weight and a tenth block marked with a question mark, not lifted yet. Below, two rows of ten blocks: if those nine are light, block 10 is the one heavy block; if those nine are heavy, block 10 is the one light block. A teal label reads: Both fit, so block 10 must be lifted too: 10 lifts — Illustration: nine blocks of the same weight fit both cases, so the tenth has to be lifted too.

Step by step:

Sort out what you really know. There are 10 blocks, and there are both heavy and light ones. That's all. There could be one light block, nine light blocks or anything in between.
Lift the blocks one at a time. You can only tell a block's weight by lifting it, and "light" and "heavy" only mean something compared with another block.
If you've felt both weights among the first nine, the last block could still be either kind, so you have to lift it to find out.
If the first nine all weigh the same, you know the tenth is the odd one out, but you've only felt one weight. As the Super Hint says, you wouldn't know whether those nine were the light blocks or the heavy ones. Lifting the tenth block gives you the comparison.
Either way, that's 10 lifts. Write 1 in the left box and 0 in the right box, then touch Submit.

Sorting Blocks solved: the carpenter slumps against the wooden blocks with his mouth open and a puff of breath, a speech bubble above him reads 10, and 1 and 0 are written in the two answer boxes — Illustration of the solved puzzle with 10 written in.

If your answer keeps failing:

You wrote 9. Players on the GameFAQs forum have argued for 9, because after nine identical lifts the tenth block must be the different one. But you'd only have felt one weight, so you couldn't say which pile is the light one. The game wants the light blocks and the heavy blocks told apart, and that takes the tenth lift.
You worked out a smaller number. Splitting the blocks into groups or counting the stacks on the top screen won't help. Each block has to be lifted on its own, and the picture isn't a clue.
You wrote the digits the wrong way round. The 1 goes in the left box and the 0 in the right one.

In the UK version the question asks how many blocks the carpenter might need to lift to find one light block, and the answer is the same: 10. The UK answer text explains, "If he's unlucky, he'll need to lift all ten blocks."

Picarats, hints and hint coins

Sorting Blocks shows 30 picarats when it starts. The puzzle can award 30, 25 or 20 picarats. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value. A wrong answer gets "Too bad. Think carefully, and make sure you haven't overlooked anything." If you try again, Lionel says, "Got a great puzzle here! Care to try it?" If you back out of the puzzle, he says, "That puzzle was no match for you, eh, Randall?"

Hints cost hint coins, not picarats. The costs are one coin each for the first three hints and two for the Super Hint, five in total. Market Street's four coins cover Hints 1 to 3 but not the Super Hint, and only if you didn't already collect them in Chapter 2. Or use the free hints on this page and save your coins.

What it unlocks

Solving Sorting Blocks opens the fourth course of the Toy Robot minigame in the Professor's trunk. The game calls it Inviting Oasis: "A cool spring that grants relief to those trekking over the arid sands."

The earlier courses come from Puzzle 005, Robot Factory (the toy robot and the first course, Abandoned Lab), Puzzle 015, Fix the Fossil (course 2, Unearthed Ruin) and Puzzle 029, Tenth-Round Ace (course 3, Colossal Coliseum). If course 4 is still locked, check that you've solved this puzzle.

Versions

Nintendo 3DS family: this page covers the 3DS game. You write the number in the answer boxes on the touch screen with the stylus.
US and UK English versions: same name, same blocks and the same answer. The UK question, hints and answer text are worded quite differently, as described under Puzzle names.

The scene around the puzzle

Once the puzzle is solved, Lionel asks, "Ooh, wasn't that a good one?" Randall answers, "Ha ha. A tad on the easy side, perhaps. Well, we should be going, Lionel." Lionel tells young Hershel, "You be sure to keep him and the young lady out of trouble, Hershel!"

Then Randall comes clean: "Actually, Lionel, my father doesn't know we're out. Could you please not mention you saw us?" Lionel is delighted: "Ooh, a secret! Of course, young Randall! You can count on me!" Young Hershel adds, "Thank you, Lionel."

Talk to Lionel again and he's out of puzzles: "Ooh, I hope you're not after another puzzle, because I've got nothin' left!" Randall tries, "Not even a quick anagram, Lionel?" and Lionel sends them off: "Honestly, Randall. You kids should go home and stop badgerin' the old folks!" His character profile sums him up: "Day or night, he'll walk about, dying to share a story about his youth but too shy to muster up the courage!"

FAQ

Where is the answer to Puzzle 058?

It's in the Answer and full solution section above, hidden until you open it. If you only want a push, open the hints one at a time first.

What is Puzzle 058 called?

Sorting Blocks, in both the North American and UK English versions. In Japanese it's 10個のレンガ.

Where is Puzzle 058?

On Market Street in Stansbury, during the Chapter 4 flashback. Talk to Lionel on the pavement between the wooden crates and the big brass coffee grinder.

Why can't I find Lionel's puzzle?

It's there from "Sneak out of the House!" until your objective becomes "Investigate Norwell!". If you've gone past that, the puzzle probably goes to Nanna Grams at the start of Chapter 5.

Do I have to solve Puzzle 058?

No. The story doesn't need it, and it's probably not mandatory. Solving it opens the Toy Robot course Inviting Oasis, though.

Are there hint coins on Market Street?

Four, all in the normal view: the white boxes on the crates left of Lionel, the manhole cover at the bottom left, the street lamp beside the café's signboard and the hanging basket at the far left. They're the same coins as in Chapter 2, so they're gone if you collected them then.

How many picarats is Puzzle 058 worth?

It shows 30 picarats when it starts. The puzzle can award 30, 25 or 20 picarats. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value.

Is Daily Puzzle 058 the same as Puzzle 058?

No. Daily Puzzle 058 is Rabbit 06, from the Food Chain set. Story Puzzle 058 is Lionel's carpenter and his blocks.

More Miracle Mask puzzles

For the rest of the game's puzzles, see the Miracle Mask puzzle index.