Friday 30 November 2012

NG12

New game after the cut.


Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3:

375

Round 4:

Round 5:

Round 6:

340

Round 7:

Round 8:

313

Round 9:

Spoiler space

7 comments:

Jan said...

Your letter generator loves multiple vowels!

I was pretty happy with my game, but frustrated I couldn't get the exact number in the last numbers game.

BACONS
After time - CABANAS
ESTEEMED
(100+25)*3=375
CAPTURER
LATENT
25*(7+6) + 10 + 5 = 340
NIACIN
50*6 + 9 + 5 = 314 1 off
CATCHWORD - 2 mins

Victor said...

Nice game Jan, and yes, a few very strange vowel selections today, or am I just too used to the friendly L&N shuffles?

1. BACONS
2. ESTEEMED (4 E's?!)
3. 375 = 3*(100 + 25)
4. OUTPACE
5. TANGELO
6. 340 = 5*(100 - 25 - 7)
7. X (DAICONS) - was thinking of DAIKON, which probably can't be pluralised anyway.
8. 314 = 6*50 + 9 + 5
9. CATCHWORD (6s)

Mike Backhouse said...

A fairly ordinary game for me. Especially when I see words like ESTEEMED with 4 E's! Also picked 2 non words.

SAMBA
METED
(1+3)*100-25=375 (a slightly different way)
x - COURTER (an unsuccessful punt according to my second edition)
TOTAL
(10+7)*100/5=340 (another slightly different way)
x INDICAS (thought it might be a plural word but not in my second edition)
(9-6)*100+10+5=315 (2 off) should have seen Victor's way
x

Geoff Bailey said...

Yes... honestly, with a random shuffle clumps are more likely than not. That is why I'm pretty sure that the show's shuffling process was not purely random (as it never would have been, what with people involved). I've been a bit undecided as to whether or not to try and duplicate that, as we are getting to try words that we don't normally get to.

Some good results throughout; bad luck on COURTER and INDICAS, Mike -- I thought that COURTER had come up before (as an invalid attempt from a contestant) but it's not in the blog so presumably not. INDICAS was pretty close to a valid INDICAN (and possibly INDICANS... iffy ground there, admittedly).

My answers (longer breakdown in next comment):

1. CABANAS
2. ESTEEMED
3. 375 = 3*(100 + 25)
4. CAPTURE [wimped out of trying CAPTURER, alas]
5. TANGELO
6. 340 = (100 - 25 - 7)*5
7. DISCO [wrongly gave up on DONNAS]
8. 314 = 6*50 + 9 + 5 [1 off]
9. CATCHWORD (5-7 seconds)

Two boring numbers rounds, but the last one made up for it. There is a single solution to it, if people want to keep trying.

Geoff Bailey said...

Round 1: N A O C M A S B A

I had COMA, MASON, and CABANAS. At the time I had been hoping that the final vowel would have been an I instead for MANIACS or MANIOCS / ANOSMIC.

CABANAS is the only seven.


Round 2: S M E T E T D E E

Ah, so many E's. On the other hand, we rarely get to use words like these. I had MEETS, DETEST, and ESTEEMED.

That's the only eight, and there are no sevens. There's a decent number of sixes, though, like TESTED, ESTEEM, SETTEE... I'm too lazy right now to look up the others.


Round 3: Target 375 from 25 100 3 1 10 2

Alas, too easy a target. I started with 375 = 3*(100 + 25) and then added the alternative 375 = (10 + 3 + 2)*25.


Round 4: R R C O E U T P A

Again I had been hoping for a final I, this time for COURTIER.

I had CORER, COURT, wondered about COURTER but (rightly as it turns out) rejected it, CAPTURE, RAPTURE, wondered about CAPTURER, OUTPACE, and CURATOR. Eventually I decided against CAPTURER, but it does turn out to be the only eight. There's some other sevens.


Round 5: N T O T A G O L E

I had GOAT and NOTATE. The mix looked familiar in a way, and I was sure there was a seven; I started to write down ETALON to mark time and that helped trigger the memory: TANGELO.

The other seven is GANTLET, a variant American spelling of GAUNTLET.


Round 6: Target 340 from 100 25 10 7 5 6

I was briefly bemused by this as I focused too much on 34*10. Shifting that to 68*5 quickly led me to a solution, though: 340 = (100 - 25 - 7)*5. Then I toyed with the idea of making this as 315 + 25 since 315 has many nice factors -- it is 5*7*9; I was not able to use all of that factorisation but did emerge with 340 = (10 - 7)*(100 + 5) + 25 from that. Finally (still within time) I saw how to get 34*10 to work after all: 340 = ((100 + 5)/7 + 25 - 6)*10. I think I would have declared that on the show just because it's so roundabout. *chuckles*


Round 7: D C O I S N I A N

I had DISCO and considered DONNAS but wrongly rejected it; DONNA is listed as simply meaning "a woman". After time I finally saw NIACIN, and the validity of NIACINS is still a bit unclear to me.

There is an eight here: CONIDIAN, the adjective derived from CONIDIUM ("(in fungi) an asexual spore formed by abstriction at the top of the hyphal branch, usually thin-walled and windborne"). Another possibility is INDICANS; INDICAN can refer to either of two different chemicals, but we're always on iffy territory with chemical plurals.

The sevens are INDICAN, CONIDIA (plural of CONIDIUM), and ANIONIC. Some of the other sixes are ANIONS, ADONIS, CANONS, ANODIC, CASINO, and CANIDS.


Round 8: Target 313 from 50 100 9 6 5 10

A tough numbers round to finish! I wrote a fallback one-away 314 = 6*50 + 9 + 5, and in the end had to stick with that. I did observe that the target was 5008/16, which is tantalisingly close to working -- if only that 5 (or 9, but then there's a much easier way) were an 8 then (50*100 + 8)/(10 + 6) would do the job.

It turns out there is only one solution to this, but even knowing that I gave up after several minutes. It's a tricky one, requiring division by 5 of both a large and a small number: 340 = 6*50 + (100 + 10)/5 - 9.


Round 9: CROWD CHAT

I first looked at WATCHCORD, which almost seemed like a thing, but correctly decided that CATCHWORD was much the likelier answer.

Mike Backhouse said...

As has been said, no more Countdown from tomorrow. Grrr.

Sam Gaffney said...

Not quite as successful as NG13, rushing through doesn't help:
BACON
DETEST
375 = (100+25)*3
CAPTURER (seemed plausible)
TANGLE
340 = (100-25-7)*5
ICONS
314 = 6*50+9+5 (one off)
~20s