NG 631

New game 631 is now available.


Round 1: C I M O R A L D S

I kept getting distracted by MICROLADS with those letters.  Anyway, I had MICRO, CAROMS, MORALS, knew from past experience that neither of CARDIOS / SARCOID are listed, flirted with DIMOLAR (not valid) / MIDORAL (also not valid), and settled on CLAMORS.  A little later, when glancing back at this mix, I saw CORDIALS right off.

CORDIALS is the only eight.  The other sevens are CORDIAL, MILORDS, DOMICAL, and AMIDOLS.

My selection: CLAMORS
Best: CORDIALS


Round 2: K F E D E N D T O

I had FEED, ENDED, FENDED / DEFEND, and DENOTED.  After time I checked up on TOKENED, but it is not valid.

DENOTED is the only seven.  The other sixes are DENOTE, DENTED / TENDED, KETONE, and TONKED.

My selection: DENOTED


Round 3: Target 284 from 75 5 2 2 9 1

The target is 4*71, which is to say 4*(75 - 4).  There are lots of ways of making the requisite pair of 4's; I happened to go with 284 = (9 - 5)*(75 - 2 - 2).

After time I considered working down from 5*75.  The offset is 91, and a little tweaking produced 284 = 5*(75 - 2*9) - 1.

My selection: 284 = (9 - 5)*(75 - 2 - 2)


Round 4: N E H G E R Q U R

I had GENE, HENGE, GENRE / GREEN, HUNGER, and wondered about HUNGERER (not valid).  I erred by chancing it despite my misgivings.

Six is the best to be done, with the other being REHUNG.

My selection: [invalid -- HUNGERER]
Best: HUNGER


Round 5: A T I B C M S T I

I had BAIT, MASTIC, STATIC, wanted a final O for COMBATIST (not valid, so just as well I did not get it), TIBIAS, AMBITS, and ATTICS.

The eight in this mix is ATTICISM ("concise and elegant expression"); its anagram MASTITIC, the adjective derived from MASTITIS, is not listed.  The sevens are IAMBICS (IAMBIC being a variant form of IAMB, a metrical unit in prosody) and CAMBIST ("a dealer in the foreign exchange market").

My selection: STATIC
Best: ATTICISM


Round 6: Target 562 from 25 6 2 9 3 10

The standard method suggests making this as 22*25 + 12, and there's a few ways; I went with 562 = (9 + 3 + 10)*25 + 2*6.

My selection: (9 + 3 + 10)*25 + 2*6


Round 7: E P O N T A R P A

I had PEON, PANTO, PRONATE, wanted a final E for NOTEPAPER, APPARENT, OPERANT, and PARAPET.

APPARENT is the only eight; the other sevens are PROPANE and PROTEAN ("readily assuming different forms or characters").

My selection: APPARENT


Round 8: Target 877 from 25 50 5 8 5 4

Gah, I struggled with this one.  There's lots of ways to 875, of course, but I had difficulties keeping useful numbers left over.  I first wrote down a fallback of 875 = (5 + 5 + 8)*50 - 25, then a bit later improved that to one off with 878 = (4*50 - 25)*5 + 8 - 5.  But it was only after time that I found a solution: 877 = (5*25 + 50)*5 + 8/4.

It turns out that there is just one other solution, the rather harder to spot 877 = (50 - 8)*(25 - 4) - 5.

My selection: 878 = (4*50 - 25)*5 + 8 - 5  [1 off]
Best: 877 = (5*25 + 50)*5 + 8/4


Round 9: FAILS MICE

I chose this conundrum, although I forget what inspired it.  It felt on the hard side, though.

My selection: [N/A -- chosen]
Best: FACSIMILE