Guardian Genius

Guardian Genius 279 / Turnstone

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The Genius is the Guardian’s monthly puzzle targeted at solvers who like to have an endgame of some sort over and above the core task of solving clues.  The puzzles are often a means of learning more about subjects where solvers may just have scratched the surface in the past.

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Guardian Genius 278: Glyph

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The instructions started out clear, and conventional enough, but became rather more cryptic:

In six of the across and seven of the down clues, a word connected to an unclued entry must be removed. All other clues contain an extra letter; these indicate a framework. Only seven other cells obey the rules of the framework and provide the keys needed for the 15ac 30ac 7d. Thanks for playing.

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Guardian Genius 272 – Qaos

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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?

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Guardian Genius No 271 by Claw

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Claw last appeared in the Genius series in August of last year, with a very amusing puzzle based on a Castlemaine XXXX TV advertisement. Other than that, there are no other appearances by Claw that I can find in 2025, but such an accomplished setter must surely have other puzzles published, perhaps using different aliases.

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