By name or something? No; I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking.
Still a lot of clues in this thread that remain unsolved. Anyone wishing to give hints is encouraged to do so. (Although I do like the idea of unsolved clues waiting around for years until someone comes along and has an aha! moment.)
SDMB opponent stealthily canoeing around river (9)
I’m working on “Middle of the Road”, but it’s slow going. I think most of my cryptics over the years have been by only a few different constructors, and this guy’s clues are just different enough to throw me off. And I’m having a tough time getting the acrosses and downs to work together (it doesn’t help that you have to insert blank squares). I’m having much better luck on the right side of the grid. I’ve got a guess for the right-most across answer (but not certain of it), but I can’t make it work with the down answers that I’m pretty sure of. I suspect I may have a mistake in there somewhere; either a wrong answer to a clue, or entered wrong in the grid.
Not giving up on it, though.
I did finally look up the answer to “A Deadly Game”. I’ll spoiler this just in case.[spoiler]I had everything up to the point where the six guests are the characters from the board game Clue. I had the evidence words, ELEPHANTS, PUDDING, LETTER, etc. The next step is to figure out that those are hints to the Clue characters, WHITE elephants, PLUM pudding, SCARLET letter, etc. And then five of those names are in the grid word-search style. The missing sixth is the killer.
Was pretty damn close to cracking that one.[/spoiler]
I took another crack at it tonight and made decent progress. At least, I think I did. Some answers make perfect sense and the words fit right in the grid, but it seems like they also make it impossible for other words to fit in the grid. I’ve got one word that has to end in a V and another with a double-A in it. Unless I’ve made a mistake somewhere and have to shuffle everything around, in which case who knows.
Just know that the end result is worth the effort.
×××××
If I get a chance, I will put together a list of the unsolved cryptic clues from this thread.
I’m not entirely sure I’ll get to the end result.
Any clues you want a hint on? I may not remember the answer, but I can try to recall.
XXXXX
Puzzle confused rubes (5)
Nothing yet. I pretty much only work on it when I’m out to dinner by myself, so it may be a couple days before I take another look at it. And I haven’t ground to a halt yet. Seems like every time I take another shot at it I’ll come up with one or two new answers.
REBUS
Not asking for help just yet, but here’s a bit of a status update.
I had some more time with the puzzle tonight; caught a couple errors, but I think there might still be at least one more in there somewhere.
1D: Elevated ceilings above empty room. Going by the acrosses, seems like this has to be SPACE, but I’m not sure I totally understand why.
9D: Group that broods at deserting Greek city. I had this as ATHENS, now I’m pretty sure it’s HENS.
16D: Day after day, going through line with monkey. I had FOREVER, but then I solved some acrosses and that doesn’t fit anymore. Don’t know the correct answer yet.
My real problem is now with the right side of the grid. One of the CA clues is “Bad breath freshener working for court activity” I’m pretty sure it’s BADMINTON, but I can’t make that work with a couple of the down answers I already have filled in.
22D: New idea to get dogsbody on Capitol Hill. I have TOADIE, with the A in a space that has to be one of the last few letters of BADMINTON.
23D: Sleek swimmer more handsome heading away. I have OTTER, but that doesn’t work with BADMINTON either.
I think it would help to get the last part of AA, “Grandma Moses describes prophet from the Bible”. I have A_TOS_ (and the blanks may turn out to be empty square. Grandma Moses could mean ARTIST, but then OTTER is definitely wrong.
When I do finally solve this, it better be good.
Robot Arm, I am now inspired to print off another copy and rework the puzzle. It’s only been two months and I hopefully can remember most of the answers and their placement.
I will also reprint and rework “Bluebeard’s Castle.” Maybe I can finally figure out what was going on in that last room.
For those interested, here is a direct link to the puzzle we are talking about: Middle of the Road.
Here is a link to the difficult (and not completely solved) Bluebeard’s Castle
And finally, here is a link to another puzzle I discovered recently that has a very nice solution: Indeed!
Has it been two months already? Shows how much progress I’ve been making. Even if you forgot everything and started from scratch you’d still probably finish before me.
As for the placement in the grid, it seems like if you know all the answers it should be largely possible to deduce where they go in the grid. 25D (the rightmost column) is, I think, a four-letter word, meaning three squares will be left blank. The rightmost answer to row E ends in I, and none of the letters in 25D is an I, so that has to be one of the blank squares. Continue like that, working inward, and it should work.
That’s one of the things that’s been giving me problems with this puzzle, I think. I do a lot of puzzles where you can absolutely deduce certain parts of the answer, and from that you can absolutely deduce the next bit. I like puzzles like that. On this one, I’ve had to put in guesses in order to get letters to solve other clues, guess where they go, backtrack when I’m wrong, etc. I think I’ve solved a lot of clues that way, but I know I’ve got mistakes in there, too. I’m tempted to print it out again just so I can start the grid from scratch, putting in answers where I’m sure they belong, not just guessing.
If you remember the puzzle, there’s a shaded square in the middle that (when solved) gives additional directions. Reading across those squares, it does look like it’s going to spell out some words. But for the last two squares I’ve got BL, so those probably aren’t correct.
Arrrrrgh!
Ok. I reconstructed it. Knowing the end result and working backwards helped immensely (That and having answered all the clues once already.)
I like the deduction of where letters must go… you cannot always tell, because a few times the letter you need for a down answer could potentially come from two different across answers.
If I remember correctly, this came from a National Puzzle Convention. I wonder, do they allow googling for synonyms?
The added complication of Row G is just mean!
Grr! Cryptic row G has added length (5)
GROWL
xxxx
Crazy fellow found in stamp store (10)
Took another crack at it tonight. In fact, I printed out a fresh copy and started filling it only with letters that I knew were in the correct spot. Got a few more answers, found one that I had wrong (and it was mentioned upthread). I now have both ends of the grid and the top rows with a very high degree of confidence. All that’s left is the bottom center, and whatever the surprise in the central square turns out to be.
I wonder if they have a time limit. How long have I been at this, six weeks?
Just curious… which clues are still giving you problems?
I was only missing four (keep in mind that I had some mistakes so the crossing letters were incorrect):
11D: Repel endless group of fighters standing opposite
16D: Day after day, going through line with monkey
EA: Walked aimlessly with me in middle of street
GA: People in audience with flat bottoms?
[spoiler]I got two of them tonight. 16D is FIDDLE, EA is ROAMED. Of course I have most of the letters for the other two clues, but that thing of putting letters on lines in the bottom row means I could be farther off than I think.
With those in the grid, I now have the center square filled. It says FOLD BACK SO A MEETS B. I don’t know quite what that’s telling me to do. I notice that the top row has ALPHA, and if I fold the puzzle like a Mad fold-in I can get BETA, or even ALPHABET. Beyond that, nothing really jumps out at me.[/spoiler]
You are so very close, you just need to see it.