The instructions seemed reasonably straightforward:
A turtle starts on a perimeter cell and moves forward cell by cell. If it lands on an L, it turns 90 degrees anticlockwise; if an R, 90 degrees clockwise; otherwise it continues in the same direction.
One word in each clue must be removed before solving; in clue order, these words’ first letters provide an extra instruction.
When the turtle exits the grid after making at least one turn, its path has traced what letter?
Why a turtle, specially? It refers to a technique in computing called turtle graphics.
I didn’t have too much trouble solving the clues, or in finding the superfluous words, whose initial letters spell out TO BEGIN WITH THE TURTLE FACES NORTH. This means that we only have to look at the bottom row for the turtle’s starting point, and after a little experimentation it emerged that the letter traced out is an upper-case E. (Since it has to be made only from horizontal and vertical lines, the choice of letter is rather limited.)
Thanks to Qaos for an enjoyable, not-too-challenging puzzle.
The superfluous words in the clues are shown in bold italics below.
| Across | ||||||||
| 7 | BREATHES | British doctor hates saving toy soldiers’ lives (8) BR + HATES* |
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| 9 | EXARCH | Old church employs a rector and old bishop (6) A R[ector] in EX (old) CH[urch] |
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| 10 | OVAL | Ground beef, eggs and slice of lamb (4) OVA (eggs) + L[amb] |
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| 11 | DISCOVERED | Found smashing Easter service taken by theologian – it’s all about love (10) SERVICE* in DD (Doctor of Divinity), all around O (love) |
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| 12 | FOLLOW | Perhaps Don Juan’s retiring over other genteel ladies initially giving chase (6) O[ther] L[adies] in reverse of WOLF |
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| 14 | ERATHEMS | Time after time he’s describing iceberg’s mass in geological units (8) M in ERA T (two kinds of time) + M[ass] |
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| 16 | SELECT | Small boy leaving tiny particle to pick nose (6) S[mall] + ELECTRON less RON |
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| 18 | RECIPE | Writing piece about winning formula? (6) R (writing, one of the Three Rs) + PIECE* |
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| 21 | SPECIMEN | Example of square enclosure holding back infected rodents (8) Reverse of MICE in S[quare] PEN |
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| 23 | LAUREL | Thomas Hardy’s partner gets award (6) Double definition |
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| 24 | PARLIAMENT | Even literature’s inspiring Australian workers’ honest collective (10) PAR (even) + A[ustralian] MEN in LIT |
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| 26 | PRAY | I ask you, trace victim of attack by ear (4) Sounds like “prey” |
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| 27 | BOUNCE | Black cat hunting as Tigger might do? (6) B[lack] + OUNCE (cat) |
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| 28 | DISAGREE | In England, is a greenhouse essential? No way! (8) Hidden in EnglanD IS A GREEnhouse |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | PREVIOUS | Former Tory minister breaks parking promises (8) REV in P IOUS |
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| 2 | GAOL | Convict stealing ugly duck returns to prison (4) O in LAG, reversed |
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| 3 | SHADOW | Stock market index supports risky cryptographic algorithm for cloud (6) SHA + DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) |
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| 4 | LEMONADE | In general, during two days, adult tastes drink (8) A[dult] in MON D (two days), all in LEE (Robert E Lee, US Civil War general) |
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| 5 | GAZE | Look, Arizona backs government’s drug laws (4) G + AZ + E |
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| 6 | SCREAM | Comedian‘s best ever (6) We need to lift and separate the ‘s from Comedian’s to get S + CREAM (best) |
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| 8 | SISTER | Relative tries dancing foxtrot with son (6) Anagram of TRIES + S |
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| 13 | LILAC | Ring back to buy single ash tree (5) I (single) in reverse of CALL (ring, as on a phone) |
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| 15 | HAIKU | Poem about unseating King Charles has international leaders shocked (5) Anagram (“shocked”) of the first letters (leaders) of About Unseating King Has International. Qaos used a similar clue using an anagram of first letters in a daily puzzle that I blogged recently, where it caused some raised eyebrows, though I have no objections myself |
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| 17 | COMPARED | Equated new moped with electric car (8) (MOPED CAR)* |
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| 19 | ELEVATED | Clutching bible, sinner’s happy to be raised up (8) EV (English Version) in ELATED |
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| 20 | ENNEAD | Essentially sent one’s newest grades to set of nine (6) Central letters of sENt oNE’s grADes |
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| 22 | PIANOS | Instruments playing in soap opera (6) (IN SOAP)* |
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| 23 | LATEST | Most recent news of Los Angeles robber on trial (6) LA + TEST |
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| 25 | LINO | Floor covering part of mansion I like returning to (4) Hidden in reverse of mansiON I Like |
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| 26 | PAGE | Father finally reading the hymn sheet (4) PA + last letters of readinG thE |
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Thanks Andrew and Qaos.
Good puzzle. Enjoyed it.
After solving about half, I had the first letters of the superfluous words spell out:
?O B???? ?ITH THE TU??L? F?C?S ?ORTH, and guessed the rest; that helped with solving some more difficult clues.
However, tracing turtle’s path was not straightforward. I wondered if the turtle traveled only on lights, or on blocks as well…. also extra Ls and Rs in the grid, not in the path of turtle, as they turned out, added to my reticence. After a few random tries I was not seeing any clear pattern of a letter. I put it away, and resumed the next morning.
Logic says that the turtle started from one of the 15 cells in row 15. I eliminated one by one from the right most possible starting point.
From column 15, it exited at row 4. From column 14, it exited row 9 and so, on. From column 2 bottom letter S, I was able to trace correctly, and saw the letter E, a fat one. The middle arm of E was not exactly at the center, but the turtle is not to blame for that!
Elsewhere, I learnt about turtle graphics – fascinating stuff!
I found this very enjoyable. It took me a while to figure out where to start tracing the letter and to get the hang of making the turns correctly, but I eventually tried every column “going north,” just to make sure that no other letters emerged. I was wondering whether the E had any further significance, or whether that just happened to be a convenient letter for Qaos to work with. My final grid looks almost exactly like the one in the blog, only with a different color scheme.
I actually tried square 1 (P) first thus going off the grid without turning and re-entering at the S that you started from. Net result is, of course, the same.
One of the gentler Genii but very enjoyable. Thanks Q and M.
A lovely theme for a puzzle, even if it did not add hugely to the challenge. For those of us of a certain age who learned computer programming early in the 1980s this definitely brings back memories of ways young children were encouraged to learn to program. Turtles could be given lists of instructions to generate images but then you learned to create “loops” to repeat instructions, “subroutines” to do the same thing many times in different places etc. I am sure that Qaos was familiar with this given his mathematical leanings in puzzles.
Many thanks – looking forward to tomorrow’s puzzle.
After finding it quite tricky to identify the extra words in some of the clues in the previous Genius puzzle, I was happy that ‘extra word’ clues didn’t seem so hard in this puzzle. Once I found the instruction I tried starting in cells in the bottom row working from the left, and when I started from the second cell I was pretty sure it was the right one without checking any further. I was a little disappointed there was no ‘red herring’ where the turtle stayed in the grid for such a long time without making the shape of a letter possibly by being trapped in a loop.
ilippu@1: I assumed the middle arm of the E not being central was deliberate because the Es in some typefaces are like that. In fact, the grid in the blog is filled with such a typeface, and I like to think it wasn’t chosen because it has this property.
Thanks, Andrew and Qaos.
Nice touch : the path starts with the letter S for south (it faces north)
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a capital E with the lines crossing bottom left. If you start with the bottom right black square you get a small and not very elegant G, and, perhaps, the reason why I didn’t win. Nice puzzle though.