NG 154

New game 154 is now available.


Round 1: U A A M F L F G H

I had MAUL, MUFF, LAUGH, GALAH, MULGA, and FAUGH ("(an exclamation of disgust)").

Five does seem the limit, not very surprisingly on those letters.  The others are HALMA (a board game that produced the variant form Chinese checkers) / ALMAH ("(in Egypt) a woman who danced professionally"), FUGAL ("of or relating to a fugue [...]"), and HAULM ("stems or stalks collectively, as of grain or of peas, beans, hops, etc., especially as used for litter or thatching"; it can also refer to "a single stem or stalk", so is pluralisable if need be).

My selection: LAUGH


Round 2: R S T N E O D E I

I had STERN, STONER, ORIENTED, and speculated about DEORIENTS but rightly avoided it.  After time I noted the almost-there nines of RESONATED and TENDERISE, then remembered that I had intended to look at the -TION suffix (skipped because of the lack of an A) and immediately saw DESERTION.  Doh!

That looks like the only nine; the other eights are INDORSEE, RESIDENT / INSERTED / TRENDIES / SINTERED (SINTER: "Metallurgy to bring about the agglomeration of particles of a metal (or other substance as glass or carbides) by heating [...] to just below the melting point of the substance [...]"), and SEROTINE (a type of bat, in the animal sense).

NERDY does not get its own entry, so NERDIEST is not listed.

My selection: ORIENTED
Best: DESERTION


Round 3: Target 737 from 75 100 6 1 9 2

The offsets are 12 and 13, and 12 being 6*2 is the more tempting option.  I thought tweaking would be required but it ended up not being necessary, with the straightforward 737 = (9 - 1)*100 - 75 + 6*2 sufficing.

My selection: 737 = (9 - 1)*100 - 75 + 6*2


Round 4: B R C D A O P E E

I had CARD, BROAD, BROCADE (a type of fabric), and PROCEED.

Seven is the best to be done; the other is CAPERED.

My selection: BROCADE


Round 5: A I U B T T G R N

I had TUBA, BAIT, and then the final N made things a lot easier with the -ING fragment.  I started to write down BUTTING and then realised I could extend it to ABUTTING for eight.

That is the only eight; a few almost-nines here with different vowels (REBUTTING / BUTTERING or BATTERING).  The sevens are BUTTING, BATTING, RATTING (RAT as a verb: "to hunt or catch rats"), RUTTING, and TABUING.

The Macquarie does not list a verb sense for TART except as part of the phrase TART UP, so TARTING is not valid.

My selection: ABUTTING


Round 6: Target 447 from 5 9 3 8 6 7

Ah, been a while since we had a rat pack.  Or it feels that way at any rate.  The target is 3 away from 450 which is a familiar target (being 6*75), so I started with that as an approach and found a solution of 447 = (8 + 7)*5*6 - 3.  Then I pulled out the factor of 3 to find the cofactor was 149, and some fiddling produced the solution 447 = ((5 + 6)*7 + 8*9)*3.  Finally I noticed that the target was 15 away from 432, a number with many small factors.  That was enough to let me find yet another solution: 447 = 9*8*6 + 3*5.

While writing this up I realised that the target is 441 + 6, and 441 is the square of 21.  With 7 and 9 around that's a tempting option, and indeed it works although a little cleverness is needed to get the second 7: 447 = (3*5 - 8)*7*9 + 6.

My selection: 447 = 9*8*6 + 3*5


Round 7: O A E R D T W U E

I had AERO, ROAD, TOWARD, READOUT, TOWERED, OUTWARD, and WATERED.  (I'd also had OUTDRAW and OUTDREW, thinking of gunfights, but neither is valid.)

Seven is the best; the others are OUTWEAR and OUTDARE.

My selection: OUTWARD


Round 8: Target 741 from 100 50 25 75 8 7

I started with a fallback one off 742 = 7*100 + 50 - 8.  Then I considered working down from 800; the difference is 59 which isn't overly promising, but it is near 56 = 8*7 and the large numbers can finish it off after the tweak.  The resulting solution is 741 = 8*(100 - 7) - 75/25.

There's three other solutions (ignoring the trivial modification of replacing 25 by 50 - 25); the others all reach the target as 725 + 2*8, although with various tweaks.  They are 741 = (100 + 50/'25)*8 - 75, 741 = 75*7 + (100 + 8)*50/25, and 741 = 75*7 + (25 + 100/50)*8.

My selection: 741 = 8*(100 - 7) - 75/25


Round 9: TINY ALIBI

The key here awas to focus on -ITY and not get misled by -LY.  Once that was done finding ABILITY and thus INABILITY is feasible.

My selection: INABILITY (2.5s)


This would have been a maximal game if not for the oversight in round 2.  Ah, well.