Enigmatic Variations No. 1484: Herculean task by Check

14 comments on “Enigmatic Variations No. 1484: Herculean task by Check”

1. Wow – thanks for the explanation, Kitty – I was a DNF with the endgame…I guessed it was stars and spent ages looking at the Hercules constellation trying to fit it in, before putting it down with a sore head…completely missed the CONSTELLATION letters, which might have helped me towards the alternative letters…ho hum…. Thanks to Check…and to the blogging schedule, for not making this my turn!

2. Excellent puzzle. I usually struggle with clashes, but, as Kitty says, the clues were friendly so it wasn’t the struggle I feared it would be. I agree that knowing the number of clashes helped, as did knowing how many entries had two clashes.

   Lovely animation.
   (An extra I has infiltrated AFICIONADO.)

   Thanks to setter and blogger.

3. It’s good to see a new setter. I enjoyed the variety of clues, several of them cold-solvable and others much meatier but solvable with the aid of crossing letters. Three clues, however, remained unsolvable (29a, 8d and 22d: I looked twice for LEN in the recommended dictionary but failed to see it – it’s at the end of the entry for ‘lend’). I too appreciated being told there were three entries with two clashes.
   Not knowing the theme or how to find it, I had no endgame. (I wish I had what it takes to guess a star as the symbol!) I hope to have better luck with the next Check puzzle that comes this way.

   Thanks to Check and Kitty.

4. Perhaps Check could be a pair of setters or if not he/she might make a comment. Nice puzzle.

5. A clever bit of construction with the clashing letters providing valuable hints. I was unsure about the lines – there seem to be various options online – but that didn’t spoil any enjoyment. Congratulations to Check for a fine debut puzzle, and thanks to Kitty for the blog.

6. John Nick @2 – thanks. Infiltrator removed.

7. I hadn’t realised it was a debut puzzle. Though I wasn’t familiar with the name, I didn’t think to, well, check. That has to be a good sign. Congratulations, Check!

8. As others have said, very enjoyable. I confess to not noticing the hint provided by the clashes until I’d already decided on the Nemean lion.

   One observation that Check might like to comment on regarding the R D R row. Does it contain one or two straight lines? I think there’s a potential ambiguity there that a different preamble wording might obviate, especially as there’s quite a menagerie of lions online using a variety of stars and connections, as has been remarked.

9. Awesome debut puzzle!
   Thank goodness Wikipedia gives a picture of the “correct” set of 16 lines (always my first stop for verifying thematic material). I also appreciated the clarification that the symbol represents a four-letter word. I was about to draw 13 Leo symbols (??) all over the grid — that’d be tricky.

10. Thank you all for the very kind words, you’re right that I’m a newbie and this is my debut offering. It’s encouraging to hear that it’s gone down well, both here and on BD’s blog/site!

    In terms of the reference image, I thought Wikipedia would be the easiest/most accessible but it seems to have been a bit of a slog for people to find the ‘correct’ interpretation, but it’s good that seemingly most found the template and got there in the end.

    @Ifor, that did come up in testing/prior to publishing, I’d originally thought 15 lines (as the one you’re describing is a run-through indeed) but I think with the potential for multiple templates/reference images and how to draw the image, it was decided to be better as 16.

    Between this and the potential confusion between using stars or the Leo symbol itself, there’s some things for me to tighten up for the next puzzle but it’s all a learning experience!

11. Thank you for replying, and good luck with subsequent puzzles. Incidentally, the perfect preamble has yet to be produced by any setter, anywhere.

12. @Check, nice to hear from you! Just to clarify my previous comment, there wasn’t actually any ambiguity as to which symbol to draw. If I had gone forward with the Leo symbols, that would have been my own fault for not carefully reading the preamble.
    Looking forward to more puzzles from you!

13. I enjoyed this, a great debut, bravo Check

    @Yarom, I am (again) guilty of failing to read the preamble correctly. I drew Leo symbols throughout. I think I was influenced by a recent Listener where similar was required.

    Thanks to Kitty once again

14. Thanks to Kitty and congratulations to Check on a fine debut puzzle. I failed on the end-game again, but nothing unusual there!

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