NG 668

New game 668 is now available.


Round 1: A E B N C I M G S

I had BEAN, CABIN, and BEAMING.  I briefly considered BEAMINGS but was right to reject it.

There is an eight here, though: MAGNESIC (adjective derived from MAGNESIA: "a magnesium oxide, MgO, a white tasteless substance used in medicine as an antacid and laxative").  The other sevens are CEASING, CINEMAS / AMNESIC, and SEAMING / ENIGMAS / GAMINES (GAMINE: "a female street urchin").

My selection: BEAMING
Best: MAGNESIC


Round 2: A W C R T U S L A

I had CRAW, CRUST, WALRUS, ACTUAL, rightly rejected ACTUALS, CARATS, ASTRAL, and spotted AUSTRAL ("southern") but talked myself out of it.  A careless error.  Just a little after time I realised that CRUSTAL was valid.

AUSTRAL and CRUSTAL are the only sevens, and the best to be done.

My selection: WALRUS
Best: AUSTRAL


Round 3: Target 267 from 100 50 25 7 9 5

The offsets are 8 and 17, and neither is particularly cooperative with those numbers.  I wrote down a fallback 268 = 9*25 + 50 - 7 and pondered further.  At some point I observed that 9*7 = 63, which could add to the target to at least give me a multiple of 10.  In fact, it gives 330, which I then realised was 5 away from a multiple of 25.  That was promising, and with tweaking options available with either 9 or 7 I soon had a solution: 267 = 9*(25 - 7) + 5 + 100.  Phew!

My selection: 267 = 9*(25 - 7) + 5 + 100


Round 4: N R D H T O A M E

I had NORTH / THORN, HADRON, MOTHER, THORNED / THRONED, and ROADMEN.

THANEDOM is not listed, so seven is the limit with this mix.  The others are ANOTHER, MENORAH, DORMANT / MORDANT ("caustic or sarcastic, as wit, a speaker, etc."), and MORDENT ("a melodic embellishment consisting of a rapid alternation of a principle note with a supplementary note a semitone below it [...]").

My selection: THORNED

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

I had IRON, IRONED, CONSIDER, DISCERN / CINDERS, SCORNED, and NEREIDS (NEREID: "a marine free-living annelid worm of the genus Nereis").

The other eights are CENSORED / SECONDER / NECROSED, INDORSEE, and CODEINES.

My selection: CONSIDER


Round 6: Target 127 from 1 10 5 7 1 4

My first thought was that the target was 128 - 1, as 128 is the seventh power of two.  I could not get that to produce anything useful, however, and reverted to the option of 120 + 7, getting 127 = (5 - 1 - 1)*4*10 + 7.

My selection: 127 = (5 - 1 - 1)*4*10 + 7


Round 7: G N U I O E B S R

I had GONE, BINGE, BINGES, wondered about BINGERS (valid), BUNGERS, BOUSING (variant spelling of BOWSING), SUBERIN ("a substance contained in and characteristic of cork tissue"), and BURGEONS.  I was pleased with that, until a bit after time I found REGIONS and then SUBREGION.  Oh, well.

The other eight is SOBERING.  There's a goodly number of sevens, of which I'll just mention SURGEON, SOURING, IGNEOUS, BROGUES, and IGNORES.

My selection: BURGEONS
Best: SUBREGION


Round 8: Target 260 from 100 7 8 3 10 10

When the target is divisible by 10 and the 100 is available, it's worth remembering that one can profitably look for making the target +- 100 also.  In this case we could aim for 10*26, 10*16 + 100, or 10*36 - 100.  In fact, since we have a second 10 we can further offset by that.  There are many possibilities, and I first settled on 10*15 + 10 + 100, with 260 = 10*(8 + 7) + 10 + 100.  Then I went down from 360 with 260 = (8 - 3)*7*10 + 10 - 100.

After time I noticed that 7*8 = 56 was a multiple of 10 away from the 26 that was the notional subtarget, and so found another solution that I like: 260 = 7*8*10 - 3*100.

My selection: 260 = 10*(8 + 7) + 10 + 100


Round 9: HAT CRADLE

I thought that this conundrum would have turned up before, but presumably it did so during the episodes that I have not covered.

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