NG 26

The 26th new game is up, as is the longer breakdown for number 25.


Round 1: R N R I A E S F E

I had RAIN, RAINS, and REFRAINS.

There are two other eights: REFINERS and RAREFIES.  I recall seeing RAREFY on a list of frequently misspelled words a long time ago, which helps get the right spelling.

The sevens are REFRAIN, REFINER, REFINES, FERRIES, EARNERS, FEARERS, and FAERIES / FREESIA (a type of plant, and not, as I keep thinking, a type of cattle).


Round 2: G D P F I E D A C

I had PIED, CADDIE (I worried that only CADDY would be allowed, but this is the preferred spelling, it turns out), CAGED, FADGE ("a loosely filled wool bale"), and CADGED.

Those seem to be the only sixes.


Round 3: Target 911 from 25 75 2 10 3 1

I got myself lost in this one, and failed to spot the option of 936 - 25 that would have been helpful.  Instead I ended up one away with 910 = 3*(2 + 1)*(75 + 25) + 10.

After time I found a solution of 911 = 25*(75 - 3)/2 + 10 + 1; I'd looked for this kind of approach during time but become a bit confused and missed it.


Round 4: R T D I L E L E N

I had DIRT, RILED, TILLER, TRILLED, and TENDRIL.

The other seven is RETILED, but there is an eight: TILLERED (TILLER as a verb: "(of a plant) to put forth new shoots from the root, or round the bottom of the original stalk").  That's my new word learned for the day, assuming that I retain the information.


Round 5: B T M U S U N P A

I had MUST, AUTUMNS, SPUTUM, AUTUMN, and NUMBATS for an Australian touch.

Those are the only sevens; the other sixes are NUMBAT and BUSMAN.


Round 6: Target 679 from 25 5 1 3 10 7

I got a bit lost for a bit trying to make this as 675 + 4, but when I considered trying for 700 - 21 I realised the factor of seven and so found 679 = ((5 - 1)*25 - 3)*7.


Round 7: B N M O O R O N A

I had BOOM, BROOM, MORON, MANOR, and (rather late) MAROON.

The other six is ROMANO (a type of cheese).


Round 8: Target 229 from 25 50 75 6 8 10

My first step was to put the 10 and 6 aside to make the offset of 4.  The rest unravelled easily to give 229 = 8*25 + (75 - 50) + (10 - 6).

Looking at the computer-generated solutions, I rather like the look of 229 = (6*75 + 8) / (50/25).


Round 9: CEDAR TREE

The -ED and RE- fragments are provocative, and the rest can be adjusted to form RECREATED.  I had a small pause because I suspected that the sense of "created again" would be hyphenated, but then decided that the sense of "took recreation" would probably be all right.  This all turned out to be correct, but that thinking made me end up just a bit slower than Victor -- my time was 5.5s.