Welcome to the Colossal Crypto Cryptic Conundrum Caper #2.
That’s right, I’ve altered the title and extended the alliteration even further, but it is still the same dusty old 100 Ada up for grabs for any of you freaks who have the inclination to try and work out the answers. Sorry it has taken me a while to repost. I had the clues done a while ago but had to wait till pay day to buy some Ada – no kidding!
Matt’s in the car making out. (6)
It’s good on the French Riviera (4)
“Don’t hit young lady!” (4)
A succession of charred echoes. (6)
Lisping movie star Johnny has such profoundness. (5)
A bromine donkey becomes a military official. (5)
To decrease is wryly amusing, don’t say why. (4)
Mix some germanium and the French sea. (5)
An ear contains a Roman circus. (5)
This hollow stemmed plant hits and scares. (6)
Scream “Oh! I ate that snow!” (6)
Parts of a vanadium dish were around here somewhere. (6)
500 ought to get my offspring. (8)
Surrounded by orgasm means… (6)
A little understanding Dorian, then back to work. (7)
A few clues have a slight chemistry flavour this time for reasons I am unable to explain. Some clues may be pretty obscure but the beauty of this wordplay, with two sets of meaning in one clue, is that once you have them, you know they can’t really be anything else. There are a few easy ones too methinks.
Anyway, good luck and enjoy.
Go Cardano!
Dave
PS – Can I have more than one wallet in Yoroi so that I can get some new clue words for next time? Do I have to uninstall / reinstall the extension in Chrome to get a fresh set of words?
The ADA is back in the wallet and the challenge is back on. This time I have created a crossword to perhaps make it a bit easier. Find it at this link:
I know it is only a lazy 100 ADA prize but hopefully you’ll have fun completing the challenge. I acknowledge that the Australian vernacular might make it confusing for some.
Ultimately I would like to have a competition set up using a smart contract of sorts id est: I post the challenge, competitors pay a small fee to play, after a set time entries close and the clues are posted, I take a percentage of the pool as the creator, and the winner takes the rest.
I have been thrashing around in Meadow trying to get something like this together to no avail yet. Hopefully by the time Goguen arrives…
I have the Cryptic Crypto Conundrum Caper #3 on the way.
Don’t know whether this is a current question or not but the answer I believe is to use a different user profile, or a different browser (Brave, Firefox).
Thanks for the reply Rob.
I could use create a paper wallet thought number of words needing to be solved is quite considerable.
I will just create more wallets in Daedalus.
Cheers,
D
I have just realised I’ve made a bit of a mistake, or rather, my free online crossword maker has. When creating the crossword it has jumbled the order of the clues.
Nevermind. Perhaps the crossword format will help it be solved. Please see below for the clues ***in the correct order!***:
Matt’s in the car making out (6)
It’s good on the French Riviera (4)
“Don’t hit young lady!” (4)
A succession of charred echoes (6)
Lisping movie star Johnny has such profoundness (5)
A bromine donkey becomes a military official (5)
To decrease is wryly amusing, don’t say why (4)
Mix some germanium and the French sea (5)
An ear contains a Roman circus (5)
This hollow stemmed plant hits and scares (6)
Scream “Oh! I ate that snow!” (6)
Parts of a vanadium dish were around here somewhere (6)
500 ought to get my offspring (8)
Surrounded by orgasm means (6)
A little understanding Dorian, then back to work (7)
Also, I remembered there is a spending password on that Yoroi wallet that you’ll need in order to obtain the ADA. It is charleshoskinson
This would actually make a fun little puzzle as a coding challenge. I’m curious the number of possible combinations there could be that could fit. I’m sure you couldn’t complete the puzzle completely without some brute forcing as you have instances like 1 down and 5 down that would probably be a little more challenging to resolve, but interesting regardless.
After thinking about it a bit, was gonna give it a shot, but I immediately realized 3 down is a 9 letter word - which is not in the Cardano BIP list. Either Yoroi has its own word list or…? Anyone know what word list the Yoroi wallet uses?
Yeah, this is not happening. Haha, There are a few hints that are more obvious (bamboo for 8 across) and using these knowns I wrote software to caclulate the possible combination of words that could be used in the the rest of the puzzle (which is more helpful in filtering down the list for words like six down and ten across), but the words that were able to be used just didn’t make any sense to me. I gave it a shot, but this one is a tough one :).
For anyone else that tries, this is where I ended up:
I thought 10 across might be mosquito, but my software told me it’s invalid. Possibly scorpion or congress? (had 76 options), but even I filled those in, the rest of the options started making less sense to me. I assume 3 down is a reference to the hurricane, but I am lost to its meaning.
The one that probably bother’s me the most is 6 down. Even with my software spitting out a filtered list of options (77 of them), nothing made sense to me.
Hey Joel,
I’m very interested to see you using software to try and conquer this conundrum. One of the things I love about cryptic clues is their lateral nature.
You’re doing well. 8 across, 2 down and 4 across are all correct.
3 down nothing to do with a hurricane. BIG HINT: The first parts of the clue are Scottish and Dorian is a musical reference i.e. what note does the dorian mode of a major scale (in C) begin on?
6 down - think floor coverings…
I better stop now before I give them all away.
Cheers,
D
So here’s where I’ve landed - my best guesses (for anyone who wants to try). There are a few here that I am uncomfortable with, but perhaps someone else might have some ideas.
carpet (play on mats in the car)
wine (total guess, i liked view better, but it didn’t fit with the puzzle)
miss (to not hit is to miss + a young lady can also be referred to as miss)
series (possible play off of seared)
depth (lisp version of depp)
brass (play off of donkey/ass + brass is a term for military officers)
iron (play off of irony minus the y)
merge (french word for sea is mer + the symbole for germaniuim is ge).
arena (total guess, i didn’t like this answer, but i could not grasp the hidden meaning)
bamboo (straight forward)
yellow (straight forward)
vanish (using parts of vandaium and dish)
daughter (D = 500 in roman numerals + aught (ought) + offspring) (software identified this one before I understood what it meant).
income (…)
weekend (my software actually picked this one out as a potential selection, but it makes sense considering the “then back to work” part, plus the “wee” which is coming from Eluravad’s hint.
Huge props to rdlrt for swinging in and snagging the prize before I saw the response tonight. He beat me to the solve and sent me the prize. Great example of a good ambassador!
Great Stuff!
Nice, city on the southern coat of France (Pronounced Niece)
Do you know, I’d never considered brute forcing Cryptic clues. That only works because there is a list of words though right? A BIP list? I guess a whole language is just a big ist of words though right?
Anyway, get cracking on # 3 if you are game…
Cheers,
D
I enjoyed the puzzle very much thank you :). Brute forcing only works when you have a small set of guess work needed. In this case it was a very small list of words from the BIP list that had the second letter i and the last letter e. But prior to the last word, the crossword puzzle did help me filter out words that simply were impossible based on the size of the words and how they intersected with each other. To be honest, I would have never solved this without the crossword puzzle. In hindsight your hints do make sense, but I do not think I would have been able to solve on my own without some assistance in narrowing in on options.
