Inquisitor 1425: Process of Elimination by Serpent

21 comments on “Inquisitor 1425: Process of Elimination by Serpent”

1. A great puzzle (and a great blog).

   I also wasn’t sure about SKITTLED OUT, but in the end decided it was a sort of double bluff of a clue – it looks like it should have some clever wordplay, but is actually just a straight definition. Skittling out a side means getting them out for a low score as well as quickly, so the ‘conceded little’ is also part of the definition.

2. This one provided a very happy PDM, after being stuck for a long time with HALL as the only detected clash and the useless assumption that other clashes would also involve two letters from each word. But then STUDY emerged, and soon afterwards the significance of the space in the middle. An excellent teaser. Despite not having played the game since the 1970s I remembered all the Cluedo characters and weapons … but had to look up the missing room.

3. Wow…I found this an absolute treat, many thanks Serpent. I made a slow start and needed a nudge to see how the clashes worked (my default setting for clashes is that they must be a choice between two single letters) but by the middle of the week I was away. Something about the instructions plus identifying the extra words ‘Johannson [sic]’ and ‘gun’ made me think of Cluedo and then working out HALL and STUDY confirmed it. It was a brilliant realisation that this would work like an actual game too, with the requirement of having to identify the three missing items. Fabulous.

   Thanks for the blog too. I am continually impressed at how the bloggers manage to produce all of these complex graphics!

   PS
   I wonder if many entries were from ‘Dr Black’?

4. The EV featured a Cluedo-themed puzzle recently, although with a markedly different treatment focusing on thematic cluing more than the grid. Nice to see both series provide their different spins on the theme, then.

5. I thought this was superb. I like the use of the clashes and the way the rooms are placed in the order they appear on the board. Serpent has written clues with a smooth surface, even for the ones with an extra word: 3d being a great example.

   Great blog, too.

6. This was not a puzzle for mortals. Felt like I was in the back 4 for Ipswich up against Barca or Bayern. Its no excuse that I am unfamiliar with cluedo but it would seem that there is a market for such quantum physics puzzles and as far as my tiny brain can make out, Serpent is catering very well to that demograph.So congrats ( as far as I can see)

   Enigmatist’s (or “Jack'”s) Genius is my limit and I’m an old dog.

7. This year’s most entertaining IQ so far! I also found HA-LL first, then linked the misspelt Johannson with SCARLET and the penny dropped. So the rest of the game really was like a detective story as I searched the previously unfathomable clues for possible suspects/weapons/locations. Great fun!

   Thanks to Serpent (who I had the pleasure of meeting at York last October)and to Duncan.

8. I agree totally with everything said above.
   I also had problems with 13A, and decided that ‘quickly’ was an extra word. I paired this with ‘mistress’, and wasted a lot of time in shakespeareland before dicovering the old mansion.

9. Agree this was a great puzzle.

   I’d be interested to se whether we were actually supposed to write the names of the rooms in the clashing squares? I don’t know about anyone else but my script is not exactly tiny so I would have struggled and therefore left them blank.

10. As far as we are concerned, this crossword epitomises why the Inquisitor is such a great puzzle. We have signed the petition and contacted Will Gore and Oliver Duff to ensure that we don’t miss out on our regular Inquisitor ‘fix’.

    When we had STUDY and HALL, Bert suddenly thought of Cluedo. We had solved some of the other crossing clues but until we knew the theme we couldn’t work out what was happening.

    This was probably the most amusing puzzle this year and we continue to marvel at the grid construction employed by the setters.

    Duncan – another great blog and Serpent – we are keeping our fingers crossed that we have the opportunity to solve many more of your puzzles in the future.

11. Surely POTY so far! Brilliantly constructed and there were no short cuts as everything had to be solved in order to be sure of the three omissions. I’m surprised that nobody other than bingybing@9 has mentioned the problem of fitting the often lengthy room names into single cells. We made a much enlarged copy of the grid and submitted that. There was a Listener puzzle with similar multi-letter clashes a few weeks ago. These gave the names of planets, but the letters were to be replaced with symbols. Thanks to Serpent for a masterpiece and to Duncan for a very impressive blog.

12. Concur with everyone’s comments above. Not my personal overall POTY – but definitely fun POTY.

    I got into this through S(KIT)TLED OUT and LI(CHEN. Spent many a happy hour playing Cluedo when I was a young (and not so young) lad but still couldn’t recall all the rooms, weapons and characters, on top of which here seem to have been one or two additions in layer versions(MR BLACK ?- Who he ?)

    All in all, this was as good as playing the game itself, so many thanks Serpent…and Duncan of course.

13. re: RobH@12

    ‘Dr Black’ is the murder victim. This isn’t a new addition though – this is taken from the Cluedo Wikipedia page:

    “Dr. Black (UK)/Mr. Boddy (US) is the owner of Tudor Close (later Tudor Manor and Tudor Hall), who takes the stock character of a generic victim. In Cluedo, he is the unseen host who is murdered, which inspires the premise to discover who murdered him, with what implement, and where the crime scene took place in his mansion. Dr. Black was listed in the original patent filing as one of the 10 characters created for the game, in which one character was randomly drawn from the suspect cards to serve as the new victim prior to the start of each game. Therefore, the victim was never intended to be the same character each game, nor were the player assignments. However, prior to the publication of the first edition, Dr. Black was relegated to the role of permanent victim in the UK, and Mr. Boddy in North America.”

14. Kippax@13

    Many thanks. I think when we played Cluedo we obviously gave litte regard to the victim…

15. Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment, and thanks particularly to Duncan for the excellent blog. I’m delighted that everyone enjoyed the puzzle.

    Let’s hope the Inquisitor continues to be published once the Indy moves on-line (and the daily cryptics and Beelzebub). Do, please, sign the petition if you haven’t already done so.

16. Got in via HA/LL & DINING/ROOM, with the help of SCARLETT (Johansson). The only time I ever played a game of Cluedo we didn’t to get to the finish owing to some interruption or other, but I do remember a Listener puzzle about a decade ago – Mrs WHITE having to be entered in white, so apparently absent, was again the murderer; she was replaced by the victim Dr BLACK.

    But this was good fun too. Not my personal POTY either – that’s currently the previous week’s – but a close second. Thanks to Serpent for the entertainment and to Duncan for the blog.

    (I guess that the clue for SKITTLED OUT must be a cryptic definition.)

17. I didn’t manage to get to the bottom of this one, despite having solved about half the clues. I just couldn’t work out how the clashes were supposed to be resolved! I can see now that the puzzle is a work of genius, but it was beyond me, I’m afraid. I enjoyed having a go, as always, regardless of the end result.

18. I have no sympathy for Dr Black. He had it coming to him!

19. My POTY.

    Johannson early on made me think immediately of Scarlett, which coupled with a fortunate discussion about the rules of the game in the pub a few nights before, gave me this theme. Was a while before I got to grips with the rooms – an aspect I enjoyed very much.
    I don’t submit them but wrote my accusation in the middle square as a proxy for the location of the correct answer in the game.

    Have signed the petition. Would very much like to be kept in the loop about the puzzles future – a paid digital subscription service would be fine by me.

20. 6 down seems faulty to me as ‘could be’ isn’t really an adequate anagram indicator – the solver needs to know how the definition/wordplay could be the wordplay/definition (eg hidden/homophone/anagram): X could be hiding Y, Troubled X could be Y, X could be Y we hear, rather than X could be Y which is really stating the obvious in a cryptic clue.

21. I thought this was a fabulous puzzle. It took me all week to get to the end but I’m so glad I stuck it out. My favourite puzzle of the year so far. One thing I found particularly impressive is that Serpent manages to construct this puzzle using very few arcane or obscure words, quite an achievement!

    Thanks Serpent and Duncan.

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