@Deusovi Nope. (But someone did put CRUCIBLE on an answer whose enumeration was (3,5) while I was gone, so... yeah.)

I don't think so

yeah, ignore that, I'm dumb

Not a fan of (½)(12)=6 (4,5) ? (it felt cheap, but I thought it worked)

Not the one who put that comment down, but personally I'm not seeing the "cryptic" part of it

Yeah, that was me.

(technically it doesn't say they're cryptics. Exhibit A: #3 hehe)

but yeah, like I said earlier some of them didn't work out all that cleanly here, alas.

No, I don't like it, because the two parts of the clue clue the answer in essentially the same way. (Same reason I wouldn't use "Angry mad (10)" to clue INFURIATED, or "War boat, a vessel used for fighting (10)" to clue BATTLESHIP.)

Hm. Yeah I didn't actually consider that. Mea culpa.

For 4 I'm just digging through the list of minor planets (because they're all of the form <number> <blah>), but it's long...

4, multiplication is a good idea. "synthetic" isn't an indicator.

Maybe 2x8 57 = 1657, or 2x85 7 = 1707.

I tried (2x8)57 after seeing it on the spreadsheet. No luck.

Minor planet 1707 is also a letter short.

...Honestly, I'm tempted to go back to the cheaty way.

"One thing leads to another": cryptics lead to non-cryptic clues, so you're looking for answers that are, themselves, usable as solvable clues. (#3 breaks the pattern as it's not a cryptic; it is the non-cryptic clue in and of itself. There just wasn't a good way to turn that into a cryptic.)

Yeah, I was pretty sure about that. But I'm not sure what those clues' answers have in common (or what they actually are).

I hope this isn't the classic A+STEROID

...Yeah, it probably is.

why would you hope that?

I've only just glanced at this. What's up with that business about "only 13 letters"? The answers we already have to part 1 have more than 13 different letters between them. What have I misunderstood?

And the number's not indicated in any way in the def. :/

Someone's entered 1714, not sure how you would know it's that number

That was me. It's 2x857, and he said multiplication was a good idea

Multiplication

@GarethMcCaughan The answers to part 1 are regular crossword style clues. Presumably those clues' answers have only 13 different letters total

Well you had 11x857, which also seemed solid...

that'd be 5 digits

No, it's 4.

9427.

oh. heh

sleepy

regular meaning not-cryptic? so e.g. "using" is a definition and the "final answer" for 1 is some word meaning "using"? ow.

Yeah. :/

@Sp3000 "Sy" seemed better than "Righini".

Is that actually indicated anywhere in the puzzle, or is it a conjecture from the talk of "final answers", or did Rubio tell us in chat?

It was conjecture, which Rubio recently confirmed.

fair enough

the talk of "final answers" was supposed to point that way, but yes - confirmed

(Also, "A SENSORY ORGAN" and "CALENDAR WORD" seemed clue-y to me.)

^ that

904 is the area code to JACKSONVILLE.

yeah

(sorry, that was in reference to D's comment about cluey solutions)

@Silenus That's not it. I've "backsolved" part 3 and there's no J.

anyway, I was just passing by; I need to go to bed now. Have fun!

Ok

Night-night

CMIV works, though.

I like the new avatar, Silenus. Is that from something?

Ahhh, good progress now.

I hope the dodginess of the first round of clues isn't too offputting. I think the rest of the puzzle should make up for it.

I mean... it definitely has been off-putting for me so far.

@Rubio It's MC Escher.

@Silenus Ahh

11's second word seems like ANTITHESIS to me

nice :)

Oh, by the way, Rubio, is there supposed to be an apostrophe over the A in the MathJaXed code-looking thing?

Why yes, yes there is.

Interesting.

I thought you might think so.

@Rubio How do you pronounce Sy?

I have no idea.

I assumed like "Sigh", but I didn't really think about it.

Okay, nvm then :P (I have no idea either)

I believe it's some astronomer's name, so Sy (like Sylvester) would make sense, and be pronounced "Sigh"

Basically I was just curious whether you pronounced it "shi" or something, but no worries :)

So, any ideas for what they have in common?

I don't have a clue.

My question was because I was assuming numbers in different langs, in which case "one degree" might be B.A.

I don't think it fully works though, so... yeah :P

Ah, that'd be interesting.

Don't we now need to solve the regular crossword clues and assemble them according to the rules (e.g. "1 & 4 & 11")?

Scroll down.

#6 still stands, but Deus is already doing that a bit

Ah.

USING could be DO.

How?

NVM

No D.

:/

?

I don't mean any offense, but so far this puzzle has felt like a slog.

Whoops, I meant to say USING could be ON, as in ON DRUGS / USING DRUGS.

That'd give us ON/SY/YON. Maybe each group has all repeated letters but one?

That looks good for the second group too.

Yeah, just filled it out. Breaks for the third, though.

But that's on the right track.

Also, I'd never have gotten this without having backsolved the letter bank. The clues are mostly just too broad.

Unless there's some other trick to the connections.

As a graph, set 2 seems like a complete graph with 4 nodes minus a side edge

(There would have been a hint, but you've already gotten far enough that it no longer matters)

And yes, the connections are intended to feedback to the solutions

Gotta run for a bit, but I think you are well on the way to figuring out the connections.

Side note: I'd like to point out that for HALF DOZEN, if VI is the answer for that one, you've gone from using 6 in your original clue to cluing 6 again :P

well. technically, i've clued VI, but point taken.

Yeah, same with EAR. I got on his case about that earlier.

If I was perfect at this, it'd be my job. :)

Well... this is more feedback for next time while we're solving and it's fresh in our minds :P

this puzzle was fairly ambitious. I vacillated on asking Deus to look it over, but -

truth is, there's a lot in here I think he'll really enjoy, and I didn't want to spoil it.

Maybe I did anyway, alas.

Hey, we'll see c:

parting hint for #6 : (hot and heavy metal) all parses together.

back in a while

...Yeah, I've got no idea.

For part 1 or 2.

#6 might be something like TIN _____, which then clues CAN. From the fact that tin is a heavy metal and the expression like a cat on a hot tin roof.

There's a number of heavy metals that could be "hot" depending on how you look at it, e.g. IRON, LEAD

In the meantime, shall we start a bit on part 4?

Sure. I've already back-decoded it.

Yeah that's what I meant :P

Sounds good to me.

> You'll probably want to sort these alphabetically for your own sanity. :)

Rubio why did you not sort this for us? D:

:P

I suspect that doesn't literally mean the letters at the start.

Well since they're neither sorted by letter nor clue, so I'm hoping there's a good reason for the initial order...

Likewise.

To defeat backsolving. For all the good that did.

:/

So there was no other reason for it?

Nope.

You could've, say, sorted alphabetically by answer (or clue).

Ms Derek has a [donkey’s voice] (5) may be BRAYS.

The wordplay might be BR(a)YS, but I'm not sure.

I was thinking the clue would give BRAY rather than BRAYS, but no idea about "Ms Derek" anyway

I've wanted part one #6 to be ME (since the def seemed like "perhaps a", and they're both firsts) and I'm starting to think it might be due to C[L]EAR, ME[S]SY, and VI[S]ON

I understand the latter two, but can you explain C[L]EAR?

C = one degree? :/

It's certainly possible.

Don't quite fit with the others (ER+YON, MAY+BE, CMIV) but I can't think of any other way for CLEAR and MESSY to make sense atm

Oh is it MCMIV?

Ah, yep

The part 4 clue order is irrelevant but not random btw. It's a gratuitous Easter egg

Still haven't figured out the "links" from part 2. We should probably do that at some point.

Yeah - I mean you doing Part 4 is actually going to ruin part 3 - the ciphers are supposed to prevent later information spoilering earlier parts.

Rule of thumb: don't use ciphers for this purpose if the ciphertext is going to be long :P

Or the key/ciphertext are going to have a lot of structure.

I honestly have no clue about the links in part 2, though.

We'd be stuck there for the past half hour if I hadn't cheated.

I'm still trying to reconcile the fact we're missing an L in part 1&2 (CL+EAR would make more sense, but CL?)

finally back off mobile. Ugh!

Oh ok yeah I forgot where I split 5 and 6. They used to be combined, and would have leaked a lot more information backwards than 5 alone does now

Who solved Part 2 cipher?

Also me.

Oh, part 2? Dunno.

At the moment, nobody.

er. part 3, sorry. I'm confusing myself :)

Ah. Yes, that was me.

I'm surprised that cipher's solution didn't jump out, club you over the head, and announce something loudly in your ear. Which I would have been perfectly fine with, actually. :)

Ah!

It just did!

Part 2's cipher should confirm.

And Part 1, I think, should fall swiftly now. (I hope.)

Yes, it just did.

....ES also works, intentionally.

Well, part 2 did.

I have no idea how what just happened

I found LPTUX a while ago.

By back-decoding 3.

And it just hit me that those were pentomino letters.

There we go.

... I have no idea how you made that leap because there's 12 pentomino letters and I'd never have guessed from a subset

parts 1,2,3 were supposed to work together, so solving any part in any order would eventually bring it all in line

there's an important "stray" mark that sort of gives the thing away, or is supposed to

...no idea what it's supposed to mean, but ok

6's double-answer is ALE

"The F, L, N, P, Y, and Z pentominoes are chiral; adding their reflections (F', J, N', Q, Y', S') ..."

I guess it's "Perhaps a stout" then

ah, I've never seen that notation

so says Wikipedia, so I went with that. I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that it was a commonly used notation

I've always referred to F and F' as both F - chirality not mattering

Is a LEA DRINK a thing? I have no idea, but I'm guessing #6 was something along those lines

(nvm rink <-> edge doesn't make sense anyway)

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hot 7(b)

"ORANGE" isn't correct

I think you're jumping ahead

Do part 5 before you start using the hex stuff

we have, I think

all but DEEP SAFFRON ??????

which we think is P

oh

textbook = ???? = first-coat

Yeah I believe Deus & co did part 5 directly, skipping putting the explanation in Sheet 5

this is a very badly contrived clue, but that's only because of what the answer had to be to make part 5 work

DEEP SAFFRON PRIMER

(it yields P PRIME)

?

ohhhh

the prime mark for the reflection

yah

O24 is wrong, not sure where that came from

O24?

someone fixed it

can't find a hex color for GREEN TEA that's remotely close to 00806b

oh. just use the simple color, which is GREEN

#008000 should be it

ohh

00ff00 is like, LIGHT GREEN i think

You've basically done parts 7 and 8 already, you can just mentally superimpose the letters on the new image for the nth of a second it matters later on

cool, all of the words have been used now

and I have no idea what to do with the original words

That's part 9

yeah

parts 7 and 8 are filling words into the grid

which... we kinda already did

the original (part 2) words?

oh nvm I see where you are. you're movin' along. hehe

yeah, I'm on 9

crossing out all used words gives just the original ones

ON ER CMIV SY EAR ALE BA VI MAY BE YON

so those words (themselves) are what populated the pentominoes

right

and we also have the clues

And EGIKOPRSUWY as leftover index letters

The clues gave the words, the words gave the pentominoes, the pentominoes/words gave the 5x5, and now they're in an A-Z list, for their own purposes, just to identify a set of letters

anagram is there and hasn't been used yet.

Somehow I don't think I'm doing it right.

"remember where they came from and what I've told you about these entries previously" - they're related.

they're still related.

that should help. :)

We could probably backsolve part 9 as well and make Rubio very sad :P

I don't think you'll need to

they probably tell us something about how to move the +

@Deusovi (and yes, you actually were doing it right)

UP KEY IS GROW

... clearly

well ... actually .....

KEY IS GROW UP?

there it is :)

"(Not "grow up", it's a clue!)"

MATURE

ding ding ding

(There's one more word my tiny test panel came up with, that also gives you a note)

god dammit

There's. Always. One. More. Tag.

he's at the NORTH POLE!

Of course he is.

Oh boy, we have #fffffe's. Have fun Deus, I cbf this part :P

no, the north pole was the answer

to one of the questions.

the other is, "what's this a picture of"

yeah

a polar bear blinking in a snowstorm, of course

btw there's more than just #fffffffe.

Those three hexcodes my friend offered up yield a relatively decent image.

they certainly do!

is so PRETTY

oh great, now I have to do the writeup

lol

one thing I don't get - why the d-pad?

That's the ONE LAST THING question

I'm assuming the middle letter is an I

since it'd spell SIS both ways

I think Rubio just wants to say all directions is south

...oh! no, it's an O

...or an X, which "marks the spot"

@Sp3000 That's it

and CLEAR is what's gonna be used in the metapuzzle

actually the intended letter is "N" for north pole

...oh

and "N" would be the last letter you solved for

so the metapuzzle answer is YES

how many puzzles are gonna be in this meta?

wait, how is the metapuzzle answer YES?

the word represented by the last letter?

...or it could just be NORTH, I guess :P

yeah, that.

I went back to the clue list

oh, and who helped with this puzzle? I'm curious

There's two more puzzles coming, plus the meta itself

there's been 3 posted so far, including this one

so 5→1 for 6 in all

POINTS, AT, NORTH...

If you mean who helped me? That's just story text.

If you mean who was solving with you, I'm curious too

Alright! I wasn't sure whether it was story dressing or actually someone testing it for you

I know Sp and Silenus helped

Yeah at one point I thought I saw 5 people in there, not sure who the others were

not sure either - could be unregistered people just jumping in to help out

Ovbiously the first bit was rocky, but I think the rest of the puzzle went fairly smoothly and wasn't too painful.

Yeah!

To be honest, the puzzle might have been improved without those first cryptic clues. They were a bit clunky (out of necessity, of course).

I unfortunately don't have any good test solvers and I sorta hate asking people to preview and then not be able to solve for real

Speaking of which, what's the answer to number 6?

hot=radioactive

radioactive heavy metal PU, and edge=BORDER, for pub order

ahh

I thought that one was actually pretty good

My favorite of the whole puzzle was "Drunken teenager's beverage"

I feared it was going to be a radioactive metal abbreviation but there were too many so I gave up

yeah, that one was pretty clever

and "radioactive metal" doesn't narrow much down

"Ms. Derek has a donkey's voice" was another fun shower inspiration

I think the only way we were going to get PUB ORDER would be from the BORDER side and backsolve the metal, maybe

I actually expected that one to be solved from ALE

"PUB ORDER" is a popular clue for it

Well ALE gave the def, but the thing is the answers are clues rather than standard phrases

I kept thinking ??? GLASS, but couldn't see a way to get it from the wordplay

so the part one cryptics started, of course, when I had just finished the 5x5 grid and had "ER" on my mind. I clued it MD locale, and then on a lark decided to see if that anagrammed to anything as it seemed likely. I was amused at OLD CAMEL

One shower later I had worked out a cryptic for CALENDAR WORD, and at that point I was like, well, can I make one for each?

The weakest clues were the hardest to make, and the last to get done.

> One shower later

Yeah. I need to stop that. :)

Showers should be a unit of measurement for inspiration.

11 was originally HITHER'S OPPOSITE. I couldn't make a readable clue for that at all.

Slowly typing up an answer...

(After you're all done solving another one, @Deusovi:)

Hm?

When you ask if I'm doing all right, is it idiomatic? I tend to take it seriously and think that you are sweeter than sucrose. whatever it is, my opinion remains.

For what the answer's worth: I've got my ups and downs, and wouldn't be here as an example were the trace monotonic. Signed - (not really a Dr.) Pangloss.

(^prepared statements, including typos)

(Oh. For your answer - the "dpad" idea was supposed to be that the whole formation with the four arrows pointing away from center is basically a compass, pointing south in all directions. even if one didn't know polar bears don't live in Antarctica, that should make the missing word on the image's "*TH POLE" sign clearly "North", and strongly suggest "N"/orth as a compass direction that would fit in the middle. also the hint that the middle represents the final image...)

Oh, I was serious. I did want to know if everything was okay.

melting

Hey @humn. Yeah I read through scrollback this morning and was pretty concerned you were very much not seeming your usual self.

Some people know how to let their guard down with grace. Some other people, that is.

I don't know you all that well but hope you know you're among friends here.

I mean, I consider all of you to be good friends, and I'd be concerned if any of you were feeling down.

^. yeah. that.

^ and!

(And of course, happy to help in any way I can - whether that be listening to your troubles or just distracting you with enjoyable puzzles.)

Among other things, what happened was that a good tough puzzle fell apart before posing. Among other things, what happened was that my slap-happy-go-lucky alter-ego (Pangloss) got reintegrated. Among other things, I do think a less dignified chat room might do some good.

Ah, I hate when you're making a puzzle and it breaks down. (As for a "less dignified" chat room, I think we're already pretty undignified here, but I'd be fine with having a "puzzle cooperation" room and a "general chat" room. Might make things easier for people who want to read the conversation but not spoil themselves on a specific puzzle, or vice versa.)

If less dignified has your seal of approval, D, who could ask for anything more?

(meant sincerely)

I say, old chap, I am feeling mightily maligned by these scurrilous accusations of dignified chat in this room. Why, I never. (No. Really.)

we have ways of making you blush!

where it hurts

Oh. My.

breaking ice makes such nice patterns

Answer to Rubio's recent puzzle has been posted!

One of these days scientists will discover a way to bounty questions.

Yeah, I can think of so many questions that deserve a bounty.

And another of these days your answer will be bountiable.

"(non-contrived (usually))". I wish I could +1 that line alone, and then +1 the answer again :)

Let your +hair down!

(+down, that is)

(meant meaninglessly)

(oh, btw Deus, the color differences came about because I belatedly thought to check on colorblind-friendly colors, but had already built the bits that wanted the specific hex# that got used. The actual coloring in the image, according to one of those "See how these colors look under <X> colorblindness" sites, was vastly easier to distinguish.)

The color difference thing was meant to refer to the fact that the colors were the same apart from their blue values, that's all.

I saw plenty of advice on "Make sure your colors are friendly. Here's a site, check to see how they look to people." But no particularly good advice on colors that would be generally safe.

Textures are safer.

Even pixels-cum-sound tell textural tales.

(deleted)

Yah textures might have been hard. I considered some sort of symbology but that would have gotten reeeeaaaallly cluttered

Sometimes it seems that 3 distinguishing characteristics is better than average.

Awesome write-up, @Deusovi.

Thanks!

For posterity. (meant seriously)

There is a sprint cup aspect to this site that can distract from a cumulative worth

I need to find a better way to gate later steps. I struggled a lot with giving directions for the later parts that didn't just flat out give the answers to earlier parts, and throwing it all into a cipher block is a crappy answer for multiple reasons, not the least of which being what happened here :)

@humn Agreed! I try to counteract that by giving detailed writeups for bigger puzzles.

And imgur is even worse

And run-on sentences are the best of all possible worlds known to some or another

@Deusovi , did you understand when I said "you light!" (another non-linked time)?

Not entirely, no. I think I got the gist of it.

(I assume you're referring to this:)

yuh

it can happen.

(misspelled Deusovius)

(I;m trying to be funny, always worth it, rarely worthwhile)

Oh! the original sentiment was not trying to be funny.

Don't worry, I did understand that!

Whew

Rubio, still here? Did I once see you distance yourself from mathematics?

You are exquisitely organized in your thoughts.

random-thought on my part.

into thether. Is this the most forgiving SE.chat.site?