XWord Muggles Forum

LOL at that 3rd nudge.

Finally got it with lots of nudges! LOL

Solution:


The central entry DISCOVER CLUES was the crux of the puzzle, and is meant to be parsed literally. You need to dis-cover the clues of the starred entries - i.e., remove their covering letters and keep only the inside letters.

So we have:

ETHER -> THE

SHOUT -> HOU

ENDOW -> NDO

IF THEN -> F THE

ABASE -> BAS

SKEW -> KE

ORVILLE -> RVILL

NEST -> ES


The resulting letters spell out the answer, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Wow... did not see that... don't see why I didn't see that came close. Spent most of the time looking at the grid and kept thinking "end" meant last letters. Still should have seen it. But didn't. Good puzzle.

Outstanding! I was looking for a DISC OVER (the) CLUES; like adding an "O." Excellent puzzle.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:16 pm Outstanding! I was looking for a DISC OVER (the) CLUES; like adding an "O." Excellent puzzle.

Before the nudges I was looking for alternate clues that matched the started entries but could only find 2.

I look for all sorts of stuff Disc Over Clues (so the CD in aneCData) or D is C over Clues which is ... which is weird or Disc Over C Lues (homophone of loose) and other garbage. I think I even thought of Dis Cover Clues thinking somehow I had to put dis into the grid ans..... oh my god.... when you said "clues" you actually meant the puzzle's clues and not the entries that were clues to meta. Somehow that Clues could refer to .... clues.... utterly never occurred to me until I was in the middle of typing the sentence: "I think I even thought of Dis Cover Clues thinking somehow I had to put dis into the grid answers".

Maybe if the title was Lose Ends and the central clue was uncover clues. Nudge three wasn’t a bit useful, but is pretty funny.

Beth Tyrpin wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 8:17 pm Maybe if the title was Lose Ends and the central clue was uncover clues. Nudge three wasn’t a bit useful, but is pretty funny.

Hm. Nudge 3 gave me the whole mechanism...

Someone please explain the third nudge.

CPJohnson wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 8:31 am Someone please explain the third nudge.

Same as the solution. Drop first and last letters to form new words.

^^
Just about to answer also --- Spells out "Maybe this is useful" -- Kinda ???? since you have to know the mechanism already to be able to decipher!
Just another jokester-ism! (I had test solved and it took me a minute or two to figure out what was going on! )

I just have to chime in again, since i don't think I praised the cleverness of this meta strongly enough in my first post... this was a great meta/mechanism! I'm fairly familiar with cryptic puzzles, but nowhere near as familiar as Josh is; "Cover," as cryptic wordplay meaning "the outside letters," is one I hadn't seen in solving past cryptics. But it was fair, made sense, and made for a very clever puzzle.