The Sphinx's Lair

2:37 AM

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You wake up in an old horse wagon and get a piece of paper with strange symbols. What does it say? //Anyone can help me. Please!

Sphinx

2:56 AM

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Q: The Hidden Treasures

My friend made this riddle and I think it’s pretty well made with lots of components, so here it is: Look there Is treasure Here in Its purest Form The large Key is Here in Front of Your face Found There, in Moments, But ‘Tis Only after… The start of its passage Begins...

enigmatic-puzzle

jafe

4:29 AM

i wanted it to be RELAPSING but it doesn't really work

RELAP< would be the "turning pastier" part, and SIMING is the controller of fate in chinese mythology so SI(-mi)NG could be the "heart attack stricken leader"

but the parts are in the wrong order, and the definition isn't the best fit either...

Sphinx

6:38 AM

1

Q: Piece de Resistance - Five Flowers with One Missing

Five - Flowers with One Missing This puzzle is part of the "Piece de Resistance" series. Go back to Part 1 (Ace) for the story.Ace Two Three Four Five ... Removing the silver matter, you see this handwritten text: To the West is of conquer, of victory, To the North is for leather laundry....

word knowledge wordplay geography

AncientSwordRage

9:39 AM

ambiguous close pls: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/87061/…

@Randal'Thor sent me

also how does CCCC work?

jafe

@AncientSwordRage done

@AncientSwordRage welcome :)

@AncientSwordRage whoever figures out the answer to the current clue gets to make the next one

hm, maybe one ping would have been enough

Rand al'Thor

@jafe Really? I'm not sure about that :-P

jafe

lol

AncientSwordRage

@jafe so I can just post it here and then post a new clue?

Rand al'Thor

@AncientSwordRage If you can solve it correctly, yeah.

AncientSwordRage

9:47 AM

@Randal'Thor I don't know that until I post it

jafe

yeah, after the previous poster confirms it's correct

Rand al'Thor

The solution to a cryptic clue should be fairly self-confirming, if it's a good clue.

AncientSwordRage

@Randal'Thor if it's a good clue exactly

Rand al'Thor

(Warning: a Gareth clue will be well constructed but may include very obscure words!)

AncientSwordRage

@GarethMcCaughan is the answer ASTHMATIC ?

M Oehm

9:54 AM

What's the construction?

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm I've not finished figuring it out

H eart A ttack S tricken leader, gives me the has

Rand al'Thor

If you don't explain the solution construction (both definition and wordplay), the puzzle setter may refuse to confirm or deny.

M Oehm

But that would have to be leaders, plural, no?

AncientSwordRage

turning would either imply to anagram, or reverse

@Randal'Thor eminently fair

@MOehm I've seen people play it this loose before

M Oehm

You don't know us well enough. We're a bunch of sticklers. :)

7

AncientSwordRage

9:58 AM

@MOehm hahah

I'm convinced Struggling To Breath is the straight

AncientSwordRage

10:32 AM

I feel like I'm so close

jafe

10:50 AM

the leader could be MISTRESS, with MI stricken -> STRESS+something

AncientSwordRage

@jafe isn't there a restriction of making the solver do multiple leaps?

Sphinx

0

Q: Any help with this code (source text based game)

Source: Torn.com (text based rpg game) 31 30 35 20 31 32 31 20 31 30 31 20 36 38 20 37 30 20 37 31 20 35 34 20 31 31 39 20 31 31 34 20 37 34 20 37 35 20 36 35 20 31 32 32 20 31 30 36 20 35 33 20 31 30 38 20 31 30 31 20 37 33 20 31 31 36 20 31 31 32 20 39 30 20 31 31 34 20 31 31 31 20 38 32 20 38...

cipher

jafe

in some cases yeah

for example it's not okay to require the solver to first pick a synonym and then anagram that

but when it's a removal i think it's fine to first have to figure out what to remove?

AncientSwordRage

@jafe could be

leader = master ?

jafe

11:05 AM

e.g. choirmaster is the leader of a choir

AncientSwordRage

@jafe yup

Omega Krypton

11:29 AM

MY REP IS EERIE...

jafe

"i left alone, my mind was blank..."

Omega Krypton

??

jafe

:P

Omega Krypton

writing an answer for a long forgotten question

@jafe a question with score of 11, left untouched for more than 1 1/2 years...

11

Q: A Puzzling Cipher: Redux

A couple months ago, I posted this, to test a new cipher encryption idea, but it was poorly constructed and did not work. After that puzzle fail, I redesigned it to work better, making it much cleaner, and the result is found here. Yet, I wasn't satisfied, and so have created my latest masterpiec...

cipher enigmatic-puzzle knowledge steganography

jafe

cool

Omega Krypton

11:41 AM

last seen three days ago... perhaps i can still get the check :) (if it is the end)

jafe

12:01 PM

seems like a weird phrase to have as the final answer

but then again no idea how it could proceed after that either

Gareth McCaughan

My guess is that there's at least one more stage, though I don't know quite what.

msh210

Asthmatic = MI + S_ folding into ATTACH (to pastier something is to attach it, right? right?). Another Bad Solution brought to you by...

Gareth McCaughan

I confess I hadn't expected this clue to be as hard as it seems to be turning out.

(It wasn't written with difficulty particularly in mind; I just wanted a nice surface and a reference back to Rubio's earlier clue.)

I could give a hint if it's wanted. If so, what sort of hint?

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 how do you get MI?

@GarethMcCaughan I would prefer to suffer

jafe

MI = myocardial infarction (=heart attack)

AncientSwordRage

12:15 PM

@jafe ahh

@msh210 that seems correct

Alternate is RESPIRATE = PASTIER+MISTER -(MI + ST)

straight is then To Breath, and struggling is the anagram indictor

devilish

jafe

hmm, where does the ST come from?

AncientSwordRage

STricken leader ?

someone can probably finish it off, seems close

jafe

DYSPNOEIC is a 9-letter word which could mean "struggling to breathe"

i see no way to make any of the wordplay work, which means it must be correct

4

AncientSwordRage

12:30 PM

heart attack stricken = ta + ic
mash + t = ashmt
asthmatic ....?

@GarethMcCaughan which of the three candidates is closest, if any?

jafe

had to rewrite part of my next cryptic because i couldn't come up with the wordplay part for BERSERKERS :/

amateur hour at a puzzlesmith's office

msh210

@AncientSwordRage Not sure how one would measure that in general.

Omega Krypton

@jafe well I have one

msh210

@jafe something with Kreb

jafe

@OmegaKrypton let's hear it :)

Omega Krypton

12:50 PM

Heartless bears' mistakes bear fakest hearts

@jafe BE_RS+ER KE RS

jafe

ah, the second "bear" is an insertion indicator?

(you can escape the underscores with \, btw)

well that works

Sphinx

3

Q: Locked room poison mystery!

Aaron and his sister Bethany call the police when their live in Grandmother, Candice, failed to get up for breakfast. She was old and ill, and they feared the worst-- especially then they were unable to get into her room! The police break down the door, shattering it in two. Candice is dead, pois...

story mystery

Omega Krypton

@jafe yes

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 well if one of the answers is correct but the construction is wrong, we could be pointed that way

Rubio

1:12 PM

Setters here generally decline to offer commentary on correctness of C4 solution attempts except to reject complete constructions that are wrong, confirm ones that are correct, or in rare instances to accept a construction that is only barely wrong but generally has the solution.

AncientSwordRage

@Rubio that makes sense, except that @GarethMcCaughan offered a clue earlier

jafe

setters, as in dogs :P

msh210

1:56 PM

@jafe What @Rubio is saying is that setters don't offer pointers.

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 what if we hound them?

Rubio

2:14 PM

Clues are offered to help offset the lack of crossed clues - since we get no checked letters in a stand-alone clue, it’s often done that clues are offered on C4s that have gone unsolved for more than a day or two. A hint on the clue is different from a response to an incomplete guess though :)

Gareth McCaughan

2:30 PM

I'm willing to give a clue, as I said, but I'm not keen on trying to answer "which of these attempts is closest?". In general -- I am making no comment on the particular attempts above -- that's not a question that has a well defined answer.

I will say that so far no one has offered a candidate answer that gets everything, or even nearly everything, right.

Sid

@GarethMcCaughan Has anyone offered a candidate answer that gets anything right?

Gareth McCaughan

Yes.

Sphinx

0

Q: What is a NaturaW Word™?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a NaturaW Word™. Use the following examples below to find the rule. $$ % set Title text. (spaces around the text ARE im...

pattern word-property

Sphinx

2:54 PM

1

Q: Rebuses around the home

What words are being clued here? Can you find a household object not shown in any of the pictures?

word visual rebus

AncientSwordRage

@GarethMcCaughan :o

Gareth McCaughan

3:08 PM

In fact, a large fraction of the right things have appeared in the discussion above.

AncientSwordRage

@GarethMcCaughan but not in any single comment

Sphinx

1

Q: Heyawake: An Introductory Puzzle

This is a Heyawake ("divided rooms") puzzle. Rules of Heyawake: Shade some cells of the grid. Shaded cells cannot be orthogonally adjacent; unshaded cells must be orthogonally connected. There cannot be a horizontal or vertical line of unshaded cells that passes through two borders. ...

logical-deduction grid-deduction

Gareth McCaughan

4:06 PM

^ Deusovi: _titles puzzle "Introductory", presumably to discourage experienced solvers from solving it before newcomers get a chance_
so of course hexomino and Sconibulus solve it :-)

ah, forgot that in multi-line comments Markdown formatting doesn't work

M Oehm

I thought "inroductory" meant that Deusovi wanted to introduce Heyawake puzzles to PSE. (But of course hexomino and Sconibuulus solved it before I could even understand the rules.)

Gareth McCaughan

could be, I guess

(has there really not been one here before?)

hmm, there have been questions about Heyawake puzzles but not actual puzzles as such

Deusovi

sorry for not clarifying - no, I'm not restricting the puzzle to any particular solver (though it is meant as an introduction to the genre). I hadn't even considered that interpretation!

jafe

4:33 PM

that puzzle is proving harder than it looks (still refusing to peek though)...

msh210

8:50 PM

@GarethMcCaughan RESPIRATE = {MEIR (prime minister of Israel, hence a leader) with MI stricken, turning = RE} + {PASTIER struggling}

SKOG

9:24 PM

Hey, I'm awake.

msh210

@SKOG Make way! Hie!

Gareth McCaughan

@msh210 There's no MI in MEIR, even though it has an M and an I. But you're awfully close.

Sphinx

1

Q: Dodgy Dices: The Puzzling Premiere

Inspired by the "Treasure Hunter Monolith" minigame from Danganronpa V3 Dodgy Dices Guide Terminology Block - a singular dice on the grid. Cycle - a list of blocks Value - the position of a block in the cycle. Group - a collection of (at least two) same valued...

no-computers grid-deduction optimization

msh210

@GarethMcCaughan well, there's the Egyptian god Remi... but then 'turning' would have to apply to PASTIER to make it SPIRATE and we're left with an extra 'struggling'...

Gareth McCaughan

yeah, that won't do it

msh210

9:37 PM

Anyone trying to tweak the above: Also consider INSPIRATE.

If MINI = leader, we're set. But it doesn't as far as I can tell.

Gareth McCaughan

(Nor as far as I can tell :-).)

AFK for a little while. I expect someone will have figured the rest out by the time I'm back :-).

jafe

could be emir -mi = er

R(-im)E< + SPIRATE*

msh210

9:53 PM

Ah, yes, that must be it.

Gareth McCaughan

10:24 PM

Bingo! I'll leave it up to the two of you to figure out who gets to post the next clue. (But if you want a tie-breaker, I'd say msh210 who got almost all of it.)

jafe

awww yeaaah

msh210 can go next :)

msh210

10:48 PM

Aw, thanks. I'll accept your generous offer.

CCCC: Some homemade presents: cocktail, and 7-Up with a hint of absinthe (3,5)

Sphinx

0

Q: That Ain't Right... #4

Here's a small headscratheer for you all today. In the above position, it is White to play and mate Black in four moves, assuming that Black plays their best novess. However, there is a catch-there are two solutions here. One is legal, and the other isn't. The task is to find both possible so...

no-computers chess

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