Here is a hard puzzle from my game. The aim is to change the color of all blue blocks (squares) to green using the following rules:
You can move any block or the red ball to an adjacent empty location (horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally).
Once the red ball touches any blue blocks it...
This is a themed cryptic crossword, with five answers sticking to the theme.
ACROSS
2/29d. Guitarist for 20-down (or Radiohead), content in retiring, achieved $1000 (4, 4)
4. Reactions of surprise following sound of explosion in ceremonies (7)
8/27d. Golf game beginning with an event ...
oh boy, deus's comments.. sweats I'll have a lot to explain after the crossword is solved, but I feel I stepped on many cryptic clue construction taboos.. eh, I will hold fast on my word and take this as an opportunity to learn more about cryptic clue correctness.
There are $28$ students in a class, and each of them are either boy or girl. They sit in a circle, and claim that “The two people next to me are of different sex.” Its known that all boys lied and exactly $3$ girls lied. How many girls are there in the class?
Source: A $2020$ competition which...
Loop around, bottom to top until they all align.
Rotate to reveal the magic words in each line.
Once you knock everything out of the park,
With these seven lines you can make your mark.
@oAlt 10d, 11a "unused" seem fine to me; "to" means "joined on to" and "after" means "placed after", they improve the surface, and there's no law that says you can't include prepositions making the wordplay more explicit and improving the surface. 13a xref: it's just an &lit, what's the problem? 23d "single note" seems fine to me; again, it's not the shortest possible way to indicate what it indicates but that's OK.
I know that self-answering is generally encouraged on SE. However, I thought Puzzling.SE might be a bit of an exception; by and large (although not always) askers already know the answer. So can we self-answer, if we want to show the solution to our puzzle? If so, under what conditions should we?
below are more rebuses with "scientific" expressions that represent something in popular media. Part 1 here. One of the questions in Part 1 has a link to a question here.
When i'm dead it is the end
But those who reach the end, they will become me
Some people know me for my hairstyle
Some know me for my friend lucille
You might know me because of my mighty roar
Or you know me because of my silly waddle
Hint:
"Look at these flags and tell me-" Said Grandpa flashing a paper with many Flags on it.
"Which one does not belong to the group? All, except one, have one interesting
commonality. One property they all show except one," He continued.
"And before you tell me the obvious square one, let ...
@GarethMcCaughan I agree with all of those. You are the first person to notice that 13a was an &lit (indeed, a pit stop, according to Merriam Webster, can mean "a stop (as during a trip) for fuel, food, or rest or for use of a restroom"; put differently, it's for pausing within a trip). I also see nothing wrong with "single note" cluing "re", for re is indeed a single note.
For 25a, "award" and "reward" (both as verbs) are synonyms (Merriam Webster once again). Do tell how I erred in 3d's "the key of G".
Ofc I shall wait for Deus's elaboration on all this
(also, for 20d I intended "[definition] becoming prominent from [wordplay]" to mean "when the wordplay is correctly parsed, the definition will stand out from it.)
(also also meaning to say that "rhythm section" is the only definition part there.)
@oAlt Not all of my comments were about things being illegal. Some were style issues or inelegancies I wanted to bring up.
I disagree with Gareth on "to". I don't know how "to" means "joined on to". And "after" would need the word "with" before "way" in 10D. "...with X after" is fine; "X after" by itself is not, IMO.
"single note" is valid, but I stay away from using "note" in my cryptics because it can clue any of C, D, E, F, G, A, B, DO, RE, MI, FA, SO, SOL, LA, TI. It's frustrating to see it appear, and feels a bit lazy when I see it from experienced setters.
"the key of G" → G is something I wouldn't allow. Not because they aren't synonyms, but because that wouldn't be allowed in a standard crossword clue. It's generally called "The Error That Cannot Be Named" among puzzlers: you shouldn't repeat a word from the answer in your definition. "Skiers' tool" shouldn't clue SKI, for instance. This comes off to me as similar to that, so at the very least I would strongly advise not using it.
("cross-reference" was just referring to the fact that the "1d" continuation in the clue number was initially missing. 13A is a fine clue.)
Again, a lot of these aren't validity issues -- just comments on style that you might want to think about for future clues.
Recently someone emailed me this text. It seems to make no sense.
mina ireti ir thandiwe hyn đánh_đố elektron_pochta vyklyk
---------------------------------------------------------
skip uig & urd
use gtr
What does this email say?
@oAlt For the avoidance of doubt, Deusovi's explanation of why he doesn't like "in the key of G" -> IN G is exactly why I don't like it too. I'd misunderstood what he meant about 13a.
(There's a thing some people, including Deusovi, strongly dislike, where the definition part of a clue refers back somehow to something in the wordplay. E.g., if you somehow got "Galileo" into wordplay leading to the answer MOONS OF JUPITER and the def was "one of his discoveries". I thought his "cross-reference" comment was accusing you of that sort of thing.)
user435118
9:55 PM
@Sid A massive stab at your CCCC, but is it BRAILLE? following disco -> BALL (disco ball) cut of the H from (HIRE (another word for recruit)) and anagrams that to BRAILLE
There wouldn't be a definition part then. Every cryptic clue (well, almost) divides into wordplay and definition. So the definition will be one of: cut, cut following, cut following Disco's; recruit, Disco's recruit, following Disco's recruit. (And the wordplay will be the rest of the clue.)
I guess the editor means: (1) "gender" and "sex" are different things (true), (2) "boy" and "girl" should mean "person of male gender" and "person of female gender" rather than "person of male sex" and "person of female sex" (I agree, though in some circles it's controversial), so (3) since the question talks about boys and girls it's "different gender" rather than "different sex".
Not obvious that it's worth editing for, but arguably the small increase in accuracy is worth the small decrease in elegance.
user435118
10:15 PM
@GarethMcCaughan Sorry, I’m new to this
user435118
I have a better answer (I think)
user435118
BOUNCER -> cut the s from disco’s meaning disco, ball follows disco a lot -> disco ball recruit, a bouncer is often used to define a person who a person employed at a club, pub, disco, etc, to throw out drunks or troublemakers and stop those considered undesirable from entering and you can also BOUNCER a ball
I'm afraid I don't think that works either. So if I'm understanding right, you want "recruit" to be the definition. I don't think "recruit" can define "bouncer". I mean, if I asked you "what's a bouncer?" you wouldn't say anything like "it's a recruit". The question of exactly what is acceptable as a definition in a cryptic clue is pretty subtle, though -- it takes a while to get the principles into one's head.
As for the wordplay part, you want "cut following disco's" to produce BOUNCER and what you're suggesting is too indirect. First you want to apply "cut" not to what comes immediately after it but to a later word in the clue ("disco's"), which you can't really do. Then you want to take the result of some letter-based manipulation (cut Disco's -> disco) and then do a meaning-based thing ("following X" -> a word that often follows X). That's never allowed in a cryptic clue.
Also, I've never seen "following X" to mean "a word that often follows X".
I know this stuff is super-confusing at first. You'll get the hang of it!
@GarethMcCaughan Aha, I see your point. I disagree with (2), personally (in that both words, though with nuanced differences, are appropriate), but it's probably not worth continuing that thread here and sticking to the puzzles.
Here is a hard puzzle from my game. The aim is to change the color of all blue blocks (squares) to green using the following rules:
You can move any block or the red ball to an adjacent empty location (horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally).
Once the red ball touches any blue blocks it...
This is a themed cryptic crossword, with five answers sticking to the theme.
ACROSS
2/29d. Guitarist for 20-down (or Radiohead), content in retiring, achieved $1000 (4, 4)
4. Reactions of surprise following sound of explosion in ceremonies (7)
8/27d. Golf game beginning with an event ...
Here are some Rebux Puzzles I got :-
How many could you solve ? :-)
There are $28$ students in a class, and each of them are either boy or girl. They sit in a circle, and claim that “The two people next to me are of different sex.” Its known that all boys lied and exactly $3$ girls lied. How many girls are there in the class?
Source: A $2020$ competition which...
Loop around, bottom to top until they all align.
Rotate to reveal the magic words in each line.
Once you knock everything out of the park,
With these seven lines you can make your mark.
I know that self-answering is generally encouraged on SE. However, I thought Puzzling.SE might be a bit of an exception; by and large (although not always) askers already know the answer. So can we self-answer, if we want to show the solution to our puzzle? If so, under what conditions should we?
When i'm dead it is the end
But those who reach the end, they will become me
Some people know me for my hairstyle
Some know me for my friend lucille
You might know me because of my mighty roar
Or you know me because of my silly waddle
Hint:
"Look at these flags and tell me-" Said Grandpa flashing a paper with many Flags on it.
"Which one does not belong to the group? All, except one, have one interesting
commonality. One property they all show except one," He continued.
"And before you tell me the obvious square one, let ...
Recently someone emailed me this text. It seems to make no sense.
mina ireti ir thandiwe hyn đánh_đố elektron_pochta vyklyk
---------------------------------------------------------
skip uig & urd
use gtr
What does this email say?
