NG 31

New game 31 is up.


Round 1: R C S N O I E S T

I had SCORN, ICONS, CRONIES, CONSIST, INSECTS, and SECTIONS.  After time I noted CORNIEST as another eight.

There are several eights, but no nine.  The other eights are CISTERNS, NECROSIS, and NOTICERS.


Round 2: I E T B F M U U R

I had BITE, BEFIT, and TERBIUM (a chemical element) / IMBRUTE ("to degrade to the level of a brute").

Those are the only two sevens.  The sixes are FUTURE, FUMIER, TIMBER / TIMBRE, and ERBIUM (another chemical element) / IMBRUE ("to wet in or with something that stains, now especially blood").


Round 3: Target 526 from 100 2 5 9 7 8

I noted that 504 = 9*8*7 as the numbers were displayed, and the target was close enough to be tempting.  It turned out to be manageable and gave me the solution 526 = 9*8*7 + 2 + 100/5.  Then I looked at more prosaic tweakage to find 526 = 5*(100 + 7) - 9, and finally a straightforward untweaked solution of 526 = 5*100 + 2*9 + 8.


Round 4: U I E D F R N H A

I had FEUD, FRIED / FIRED, FRIEND, wondered about UNFRIED / UNFIRED (UNFIRED is valid -- it is a pottery term -- but UNFRIED is not), HANDIER, and wondered about UNHAIRED.  I also noted FREUDIAN, but was correctly confident that it would only be capitalised.

I ended up settling for HANDIER, but UNHAIRED is valid (UNHAIR: "to free from hair") and the only eight.  The other sevens are UNHEARD and URANIDE ("any of the sequence of natural radioactive elements that includes uranium").  Surprisingly to me, UNAIRED is not listed; I've seen it used often to talk about "unaired episodes" of a TV show.


Round 5: O E I D S W R N I

I had SIDE, WIDES (a cricket term, but also one from lawn bowls), WIRES, WINDERS (overlooking the safer REWINDS), INSIDER, DOWNERS, DOWNIER, and IRONSIDE (a variant of IRONCLAD in the sense of "a warship of the middle and late 19th century fitted with armour plating").

The other eights are DERISION / RESINOID ("resin-like").


Round 6: Target 238 from 100 4 6 10 8 5

It took a little effort to get 10*24 - 2 to work, but I did so with 238 = (100/5 + 4)*10 - (8 - 6).  I must have been helped here by using 100/5 in the previous numbers game.  Then I managed to get 230 + 8 to work with 238 = (6 - 4)*(100 + 10 + 5) + 8.


Round 7: I A E C S C R G I

I had CASE, GRACES, and CAGIER.

It seems that six is the best to be done; some of the other common sixes are SCARCE and CIGARS.


Round 8: Target 296 from 50 25 7 6 1 9

Making this as 300 - 4 seems desirable, but also difficult.  But I was fortunate to spot an option to make it as 294 + 2, although I overcomplicated my 2, getting 296 = 6*(50 - 1) + (25 - 7)/9.  I guess I can always claim that the kitchen sink was more interesting than using 9 - 7 for the 2.

After time I found the simpler 296 = 7*50 - 6*9.


Round 9: SNUG CLIFF

With -ING there and the pair of F's likely to stay together, it was a short step to SCUFFLING.  It still took me 2.7s to do so, though.