@Volatility For meta 2, I've tried converting the number sequence to a DTMF sound sequence, but that didn't sound like anything familiar to me. Maybe you have a better idea for what to press?
@WesleySitu Nice, Wesley, maybe you can help us figure one of these out!
@Volatility Sounds like you're likely right and that the "consorts" goes with Meta 2. That means that based on Deusovi's earlier comment, it's also either 13 letters long or based on single digits...of those two my money's on 13 letters.
(Note: the backstory here may or may not be entirely fictitious.)
The fortnightly chess theme is finally over! I couldn't stand it. It was chaos! Pieces moving around in all the wrong ways... I was so angry that I made metapuzzles purely to tell everyone how much I hated it. Unfortunately, the...
I think all the cryptic clues are solved (if scattered a bit), and f'' solved Metas 1, 3, and 4, but Metas 2, 5, and 6 are unsolved, as well as Meta Meta.
It's some sort of code, but not a typical one. You've definitely seen it before, though (although you might not have known it). "Pressing" refers to what to do with the numbers once they're in the groups, not a reference to the code itself: for that you're gonna need the bit about the consorts.
For meta 6, look to the comments - someone's already noticed something strange about one of its answers.
And for meta 5, the flavortext tells you exactly what to do, in a cryptic way of course.
I imagine for meta 5 the words are anagrams with an altered letter
and when I looked at meta 6 before I noticed some of the words could be changed into another by replacing a letter with a 'u' (from "usurp"), although it didn't work for all of them
@DanRussell Was thinking about Meta 5. What if you use compression? Group by the digits. 12 81 20 2001 12 7 8 25 becomes 000 1111 22222 5 7 8. Compression = 30 41 52 15 17 18 (first digit is the number of copies of the following digit)
Not sure if that's exactly right, but you get the idea. I was just seeing "unique" and "pressed"
@LeppyR64 @WesleySitu @Volatility So "unique old" = unicode, presumably? I can't get the next step, however. And space probably means space, rather than 0 or 2001. So probably a two-word solution to Meta 2?
@DanRussell It's definitely important or else @Deusovi wouldn't have added it later, but basing the whole solution on just the two words he added would imply that either he had posted the puzzle unsolvable or that we're not 100% on the right path.
He changed it from "My consorts will tell you how to talk to me." to "My unique old consorts, when pressed, will tell you how to talk to me."
Granted the second one is more in the right style.
I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying that in true cryptic fashion, if there's question about whether it's right or not, it's probably not. Usually when you get it, it's like "oh of course, it's so obvious"
Yeah. Earlier comment from Deusovi: ""Pressing" refers to what to do with the numbers once they're in the groups, not a reference to the code itself: for that you're gonna need the bit about the consorts."
The Arthurian legend featured many characters, including the Knights of the Round Table and members of his family. Their names often differed from version to version and from language to language. The following is a list of them with descriptions. (Note: The ' †' symbol indicates a Knight of the Round Table.)
== References... ==
So the next step is to fill the grid (chessboard) with the paths of the pieces. @f'' did this, but the hint from yesterday says "The grid still doesn't seem right to me. How could we fix it?"
Just looking at that almost-perfectly-monospaced thing you've posted, Wesley, I notice that the last letters of each of the last four lines are SPAN, which was written next to a right arrow in the original puzzle.
When my friend Alice called me very early one morning, it meant one thing: Bill was at it again.
Bill is Alice's husband and a devoted conspiracy theorist. He regularly spent hours looking for hidden patterns and concealed truths, and though Alice had learned to live with it, she sounded more wo...
@LeppyR64 Had to do a little actual work. "Stuff of interest" not that specific, but you do get an isolated "OF" in the bottom left corner and nearly ANIMAL in the top right.
Okay, guys, I think "idiot" and "studious" must refer to Fool's mate and Scholar's mate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar%27s_mate
In chess, Fool's Mate, also known as the "Two-Move Checkmate", is the checkmate in the fewest possible number of moves from the start of the game. A prime example consists of the moves:
1. f3 e5
2. g4?? Qh4#
resulting in the position shown. (The pattern can have slight variations: White might play 1.f4 instead of 1.f3 or move the g-pawn first, and Black might play 1...e6 instead of 1...e5.)
== Details ==
Fool's Mate received its name because it can only occur if White plays extraordinarily weakly (i.e. foolishly). Even among rank beginners, the mate almost never occurs in practice.
The same basic...
Alliances was the last expansion I played. It's cost prohibitive for me now. I love the mechanics of the game though. It's part of the reason why I enjoy Hearthstone so much, without all the cost.
FULL ANSWER LIST WITH EXPLANATIONS
I'm using standard cryptic annotations here:
+: concatenation.
hom: homophone.
2def: double definition.
(): insertion.
Lowercase letter: deletion.
*: anagram.
<: reversal.
Meta 1 Clues:
Meta 2 Clues:
Meta 3 Clues:
Meta 4 Clues:
Meta 5 Clues:
...
Here's the explanation.
Hope you all enjoyed it! :D
"Chess Fortnight is finally over" is finally over!