Solution for Net-Force.nl : Level 601 - Keep walking...

Solution for Net-Force.nl : Level 601 - Keep walking...

This is the link to the original challenge: http://www.net-force.nl/challenge/level601/

Quest:

This is a challenge to test your basic programming skills.

Pseudo code:
Set X = 1
Set Y = 1
Set previous answer = 1

answer = X * Y + previous answer + 3

After that => X + 1 and Y + 1 ('answer' becomes 'previous answer') and repeat this till you have X = 525.

The final answer is the value of 'answer' when X = 525. Fill it in below to check if it's the correct answer. If it is, you will get the password for the challenge page.

Example:
5 = 1 * 1 + 1 + 3
12 = 2 * 2 + 5 + 3
24 = 3 * 3 + 12 + 3
........................
........................

Since this is a programming challenge, let's look at the clues given to us.

Set X = 1
Set Y = 1
Set previous answer = 1

answer = X * Y + previous answer + 3

So we need 3 variables, x, y and answer as we can reuse "answer" as "previous answer". This will translate to something like the following.

x=1
y=1
answer = 1
answer = x * y + answer + 3

Based on the hints given, i've finally code an python script that gave me the answer.

import os, sys

def main():
    x=1
    y=1
    answer = 1

    for z in range(0,525):
        answer = x * y + answer + 3
        x+=1
        y+=1
        if x==524:
            print("\nprevious answer = %d") % (answer)
    print("\nx=%d, y=%d\nanswer = %d") % (x,y,answer)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Running my own script, i got back this:

previous answer = 47823644

x=526, y=526
answer = 48373851

Entering the answer in the challenge page and we smelled success again.

So the answer for this challenge is "pr0ggen"

Cheers

0x4A61636F62