Inquisitor 1775: The Haunted Crypt by Vagans

18 comments on “Inquisitor 1775: The Haunted Crypt by Vagans”

1. I enjoyed this more than you, I think. A fairly light grid fill, with less than the feared number of clashes (I always struggle with clashes). You didn’t really need to follow the path around the grid as it was obvious what the upshot would be, but love the animation, and it does pull together the thematic stuff very nicely. I suspect it wasn’t a coincidence that the letters discarded from the clashes spelt HOME.

   Working out the final PASS key took a while, and even longer then to spot the highlighting to the left and right (there’s a very tempting but arguably un-thematic DEAD AREAS to the south of the grid), which took the shine off a little, word searches not really being my thing when they’re this well, or oddly hidden, depending on your viewpoint.

2. The thing that struck me about this puzzle even before I started was the remarkably low ratio of unchecked letters (there being only 19 of them altogether). I found the clues generally to be quite tough, apart from a few that I would describe as being pitched deliberately on the easier side, and the task of solving was undoubtedly helped by the surfeit of checked letters. I enjoyed it all the way.

   I was held up by 41a ENT, which was not indicated as an abbreviation (15a DLR evidently being the ‘one answer’ so indicated), but it had to be that.

   I entered SERIAL in favour of CEREAL at 25d, on the obvious principle that if clashes are not forced they should be avoided. (You’re right, kenmac – it is ambiguous!)

   I resolved the five clashes that I found. (We were not told how many clashes there were.) From there, though, the endgame was not a very satisfying experience. There was little or no clear indication in the wordy preamble of what to find in the ‘rooms’, except the ghouls (of which I found two), and I was unable to follow the thematic instruction about the dawn. I guessed SPARE for the key!

   Incidentally, I had BOBBY instead of BOGEY at 23a. It actually works, although a ‘bobby truck’ is not in any of my dictionaries at home. But ‘the internet confirms it’!

   Thanks to both Vagans and kenmac.

3. A fun puzzle I thought, that was clearly Halloween themed. Clueing was at a relatively light level. I felt the ‘revealing a new key’ instruction to be a little bit vague (and perhaps even unnecessary). ALL SAINTS was easy to spot, so a relatively fast solve for me this week.

4. I’m sorry to say that overall I thought this wasn’t a great puzzle, the in category of “nice idea, shame about the execution”.

   I found the gridfill straightforward enough, but then the endgame was full of issues for me:
   – I expected that “following the rooms around clockwise” would produce some sort of thematic sentence based on the letters used, rather than just moving from one door to the next in a slightly random fashion. So I looked for a lettered path for some time
   – The Ghouls were fun enough
   – I did not find “All Saints” and would love to understand how they are ‘brought by the dawn’ (or ‘shed light on the situation’). This might be my lack of general knowledge, but I was looking for “Rising Sun” or something similar that literally would ‘shed light’ and also might help get rid of ghouls or other haunted beings.
   – I did eventually find ‘PASS’ but thought it relatively weak

   Thank you nonetheless but a frustrating outing for me.

5. As an aside, I think you need to change SHADE to SLADE first to resolve the conflict with LAS. In a second stage, you change SLADE to SPADE to create PASS (as indicated by ‘changing one letter again‘).

6. As is often the case, my feelings about the puzzle concur with arnold @4.
   The grid-fill was over in essentially a single sitting, and I saw AINTS early on but it took me ages (longer than the grid-fill) to spot the ALL/S on the left. Then longer still finding the PASS key.
   Not a favourite, but thanks all the same. And happy birthday Ken.

7. I concur with Arnold. Way too vague instructions to follow a path. I mean, come on, ‘we start our journey through the word ROBE which I guess represents the wardrobe…’ really says it all. I can’t be the only solver expecting the trail to start at, you know, a room.

8. Like Arnold@4 I was looking for RISING SUN and found them both (bottom left room and top left room respectively). Unfortunately they required three straight lines to highlight them as each turns a right-angled bend. I wonder if this distraction was intentional or just coincidental?

9. Bingy@4 – the preamble does say “The key marks the entrance…”

10. @JonS – I know. I’m not sure what your point is?

11. I liked this well enough — so thanks to Vagans and kenmac — and wasn’t particularly bothered by some points that made others unhappy, although PASS did take a while and didn’t (as already noted above) seem necessary. One red herring for me was that I initially took the bloodsucking KISSING BUG to be one of the ghouls. It was neat that each one-letter change to an obstructing ghoul was located at the doorway, in the cell next to the exit.

12. First-time poster… and a returner to these puzzles after a gap of well over a decade (fatherhood got in the way!). I won the competition three times “back in the day” (when they used to award olive oil or champagne to three randomly-selected completers), but nowadays I’m only fully solving about once every other month. I’ll keep practising!

    I wasn’t a fan of this one either (though thanks to Vagans anyway) but I can offer something to this conversation: some churches have odd names, and one near Blackfriars station in London is called “St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe”. I assume our church name refernces that with a suitable ghoulish twist. Hope that lays that one to rest (ha ha!).

13. I solved the clues and then had – and still have – no idea what the final outcome was supposed to be.

14. I have only just noticed, some eight hours after posting my comment, that I seem to have ended up, accidentally, with a correct solution, in spite of what I admit to having missed! The setter wrote ‘Solvers may throw some light …’ (my italics). Well, I declined that invitation (!), failing to spot ALLS / AINTS, but I resolved the clashes, including changing BOBBY to BOGGY, and changed SHADE to SPADE, making PASS as well as SPARE. In four years of doing these puzzles I have never been so lucky!

    It was nice of the setter not to use the word ‘must’, which is far more common in preambles. I will add, though, that in my personal log of these puzzles (in which I note what the theme is as well as whether it was a DNF), I have marked this one as a DNF, simply because I missed what I should have looked for: ALL SAINTS.

15. Embarrassingly, I only just realised All Saints Day is the day after Halloween hence is ‘what the dawn brings’ given the puzzle is set on Halloween. How this ‘sheds light on the situation’ is still beyond me, unless we’re saying it’s the light provided by every dawn?

16. StephenB @12 : Welcome home, that man. I too am one of the ‘Old Guard’ who remembers fondly the old days with the puzzle being located in the glossy Independent Weekend Magazine (with Umbrian extra virgin olive oil or champagne as prizes – I used to alternate my choice week by week). Like yourself I gave up on the Inquisitor for a number of years (in my case due to a relocation for work which left me with very little spare time) but subsequently returned several years later. Also like yourself I can claim to be a thrice winner (although these days we’d probably have to say ‘three time’) … which leads us both nicely to this question …

    … can anybody out there beat three wins I wonder, or are we officially the joint Gold Medalists ???

17. I think this would have been more popular if the preamble hadn’t been so imaginative. The construction, which is actually quite impressive, paled in comparison. We should discover more of the story ourselves, surely? I think I felt I’d found less than I was looking for in this one.

    @16
    I won it three times I think, over a surprisingly short period. I don’t think many can have been entering at the time. The prize changed from champagne to prosecco, then to chocolates, at which point I stopped sending them in. (In contrast I’ve done every Guardian Genius bar one and never won. I’m not sure what would happen if I did, as they only have my email address, not even my name.)

18. Herb @17 : … and then there were three! (each with three). Many thanks for your reply. 🙂

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