The Sphinx's Lair

TakingNotes

00:16

oh i think i have it now

it was staring me in the face all along

if you take the 1st, 11th and 21st answers it's E SCRABBLE VALUE, then 2nd, 12th and 22nd is FIRST ODD PRIME and so on until 10th, 20th and 30th make A SCORE'S AMOUNT (the 20 answer we were missing)

@PolygonPotpourri

of course big credit to @Stiv as well for finding a good amount of those

AncientSwordRage

00:50

@TakingNotes what have I walked in on?

TakingNotes

polygon did a sequence and that's the solution

pretty good one as well i think

PolygonPotpourri

01:03

@TakingNotes Flawless; majestic, and magnificent! You have solved the metapuzzle. Now, you can host the next CCCC.

TakingNotes

01:24

CCCC: Right-wing stereotype demolishes wing: "Hearty meal!" (5, 5, 4)

oAlt

01:51

Well done Stiv, TakingNotes, and PolygonPotpourri :)

I'll assume the third one is kind of like a ddef: although "pounds key" and "mate" don't describe the same thing, the pound sign is # and the (check)mate sign is also #

@TakingNotes angry white male, anagram of "wing hearty meal"

TakingNotes

@oAlt yep you got it!

POUNDS KEY MATE is meant to be interpreted as 'the mate of the pounds symbol on a keyboard' i think

since the pounds symbol and 3 share a key

oAlt

Ahh that can work I guess

CCCC: Piece of sandwich coated in sour cream perhaps put in show (7)

PolygonPotpourri

03:08

@TakingNotes Also, the punctuation should be:

E SCRABBLE VALUE = 1

FIRST ODD PRIME = 3

POUND’S KEYMATE = 3

POINT AFTER LOVE = FIFTEEN

BLACKJACK ALTERNATIVE NAME = TWENTY-ONE

STRIPED GREEN BALL = 14

WHEN DOUBLED, CLEAR-SIGHTED = TWENTY

WASHINGTON: $_ = 1

DAYS IN (a) FORTNIGHT = 14

A SCORE’S AMOUNT = 20

msh210

03:56

@oAlt Yeah!

@oAlt is this starred (put in a show) = s_ + tarred (coated in sour cream perhaps)?

Collins has "to cover or smear with or as with tar" (emphasis supplied)

oAlt

04:12

@msh210 no, because aside from the viscosity, tar and sour cream are nothing alike

I would have used a substance much closer to tar if I had to use "tarred"

@PolygonPotpourri Also, now I see. Pound's rather than pounds, and keymate rather than key mate

oAlt

04:42

Re: today's (Oct 22) Independent cryptic crossword, rot13(V pbhyq unir fjbea rlr cyhf vat vf rlrvat, ohg nccneragyl vg pna nyfb or rlvat)

Sphinx

05:15

0

Q: Can anyone break this cipher?

I was walking and saw this cipher does any one know how to crack it?

cipher

Sphinx

05:37

0

Q: Given that the sum on one of the squares is 3 cents, and on another one 17 cents, find the total amount of money on both diagonals of the checkerboard

A number of coins are placed on each square of a standard 8x8 checkerboard such that the sums of every two squares having a common side differ by one cent. Given that the sum on one of the squares is 3 cents, and on another one 17 cents, find the total amount of money on both diagonals of the che...

mathematics calculation-puzzle checkerboard

Stiv

05:54

@TakingNotes Nicely done! Great wrap-up and final solve. We made it so much harder than we needed to too - it was even spelled out in order!

@PolygonPotpourri Nice meta :) Well done!

PolygonPotpourri

@Stiv Thanks! I felt like CCCC metas needed a new twist, so I made one akin to a classic meta; one of words.

Thank you too, @oAlt and @TakingNotes!

PolygonPotpourri

06:49

@TakingNotes Yeah, I thought that the 3x10 would be a bit obvious when you found the triplet clues. It’d probably be the second thing one should try; I guess nobody decided to think of it. Strange.

PolygonPotpourri

09:44

Is 'sour' an anagram indicator?

PolygonPotpourri

10:12

'Mad' is an anagram indicator, but is 'sour'? I'm not banking on it...

Stiv

10:52

It could be. Any word giving off an air of movement, deterioration, destruction, intoxication or chaos can probably be argued to indicate an anagram somehow... 'Sour' would fall into the 'deterioration' category for me.

My only problem with that interpretation here is that I can see S_ + CREAM* but no way of adding a 7th letter to that fodder...

PolygonPotpourri

Hm.

Stiv

'Sour cream' might also not be a unit. So you could have S_ in a short word for 'sour' followed by a short 'cream' synonym to mean 'put in show', potentially. But I'm not spotting short enough words that work together for that...

Cream = rub/gel or top/gem looked promising

PolygonPotpourri

Irrelevant, but did you think that my meta was different from the rest?

Stiv

With bad/off/old for sour

I'd say every meta is different from the rest - noone's done a repeat yet!

PolygonPotpourri

Yeah, BSAD, BASD, OSFF, OFSF, OSLD, OLSD... none of them even remotely work.

Stiv

11:04

It was perhaps the first I recall in a little while where there was a hidden puzzle rather than merely a sequence, set or pattern.

PolygonPotpourri

Hm. Were there any others, other than mine and the first meta ever? (Great one, by the way!)

Stiv

(I say 'merely' not to diminish other metas - I'm always impressed at what people can smuggle past us...)

Well, one of mine for instance:

24

Q: A Puzzling Easter Egg Hunt

What follows here is a little Easter Egg hunt I've pulled together for you all this year. Ultimately, you need to discover a single word of four letters in length which will be revealed by the puzzle once all steps have been fully resolved. Happy hunting, and Happy Easter! It’s taken time to pl...

word knowledge enigmatic-puzzle rhyme seasonal

In general, most of our metas have involved smuggling a secret category or mechanism past the others. Most of our more full-on puzzles just get posted direct to the main site :) You could (should?) probably create something similar to yours for use as a puzzle in its own right.

PolygonPotpourri

Yes; the connecting wall of CCCC's was indeed a magnificently novel idea, and I applaud you for having come up with it.

Indeed. What are some great ways to smuggle a meta answer from clues?

Stiv

Same as for any meta-puzzle built off words really. Take a look at the metapuzzles tag on the main site for some hidden gems...

The best ways are the ones that when you see them you find yourself saying "Why/How has nobody done that before?!" You appreciate them as great after the fact :)

(Meta-puzzles are my favourites - I love it when a meta-puzzle comes together...)

PolygonPotpourri

Maybe there's a U in every answer, and taking the letters after it gives 'RIGHTPASTYOU'?
(example answers being QU'RAN, EQUITABLY, THOROUGHLY, UH..., TAUTOLOGY, GOING UP, HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER, GENIUS, IRREFUTABLY, GUY, QUOTATION MARKS, and VACUUM?)

Stiv

11:20

Yep, you could use a marker letter of some kind, or there's a hidden substring, or an anagram, or a letter change, or a synonym - or the full word itself appears in a song lyric. All have been done here in some way or other in time! If anything, it's hardest to come up with something nobody has used yet - and then you've got to hope nobody's doing the same thing as you simultaneously with their own clues!

That's not a bad thing though - creativity breeds more creativity...

PolygonPotpourri

...breeds more creativity, breeds more creativity, breeds more creativity...

Stiv

Or of course you can just write clues without a meta, which is what led to the game in the first place and still gives most people who play along the most joy!

PolygonPotpourri

Definitively.

Metas can be reserved for regular PSE puzzles.

TakingNotes

12:30

i did a sequence a while back where every answer had two I's in it, and if you took the one letter between each pair you got READ BETWEEN THE LINES

PolygonPotpourri

Well, there was a 'Now I mix, mix, mix (7)' with the answer MMXXIII, which had 3 I's, but that was for the extra I.

Very elegant clue, too.

TakingNotes

yeah that was a special case

of course that clue wouldn't work nowadays given that it's MMXXIV

PolygonPotpourri

Perhaps 'I mix, mix, mix to the past (7)'?

juicifer

13:23

@PolygonPotpourri nicely done

(lmk if you have a better name for your series; I couldn't think of anything so I just grabbed something takingnotes said in his writeup of the answer)

@PolygonPotpourri I think the most puzzly one I can remember (other than the ones that have already been brought up) is my e series (I'm sharing oalt's spreadsheet because it does a better job explaining it than my own does - thanks :p)

the two tricks were a) that none of my previous 25 clues or answers contained the letter E, and b) that each of those clues started with a unique letter, that that letter appeared exactly once in the answer, and that reading off the indices of where those letters appeared in the answer gave the decimal expansion of the constant e

PolygonPotpourri

13:49

@juicifer Perhaps 'number crunching' would be a better term, but @TakingNotes' idea really is great.

@juicifer Ah; I can now look at this... this glorious CCCC chain of omitting that glyph most words cling onto. Just... a hunk of shiny.

oAlt

@PolygonPotpourri Truly amazing

(It's good that your Puzzling alias lacks that glyph too, so that all of what I said lacks it)

@juicifer also no prob lol

And afaik msh210 added the two rightmost columns too, so thanks also to him

PolygonPotpourri

It omits first & fifth glyphs, too, so I'll do this, with my limits of words. Isn't this limit glorious? It is, right?

oAlt

It is, not wrong at all

PolygonPotpourri

Oh no! You got first glyph in! I'm livid!

oAlt

Oops, I didn't know I did wht's invlid

truly not wrong*

PolygonPotpourri

14:01

Uh oh! Cunning hustling by oOption! You will not run from @PolygonPotpourri... not living.

juicifer

@PolygonPotpourri works for yours truly ;)

PolygonPotpourri

Plus: GPR CCCC thing: CCCC puzz. is fini, with solution found. Link, or just 1 good construction?

@oAlt You will not go living from @PolygonPotpourri. Big goof. So, so not good, @oOption. You will go to Puzzling Prison for this.

oAlt

😭

PolygonPotpourri

(Ok, this is going to odd words of Polygon by odd rulings.)

@oAlt 🏛️

Go; into your quod.

oAlt

(Ok good, no guy in Stack with actual alias oOption, or that guy would obtain a notification.) And though I could not run away from that first glyph, I can still run away from that which is fifth...

This shall cut short my stay in that prison, though only if you will it

PolygonPotpourri

14:18

@oAlt Your prison clock will go from now to tomorrow... or just two hours. I'm not so vicious to lock you up for thirty-six months or so...

oAlt

Thank you a lot for your compassion

PolygonPotpourri

@oAlt Good. Don't worry. Puzzling, you'll unlock oOption's prison door in two hours, right?

Puzzling Prison isn't so vicious. Truly not vicious. Puzzling is kind to non-foul folk.

oAlt

16:43

C4 hint: the definition is indeed at the end (i.e. the right-hand side) of the clue

Sphinx

17:29

1

Q: Grouped in alphabetical order

The task is to break the string of letters (somehow) and place the correct letters in the list (1-5) below and ofc explain why it's correct. DWETFRHTMNNSST 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

enigmatic-puzzle

Mithical

@oAlt (Only if that person had visited the Lair in the last two weeks or so.)

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