Listener 4115: Invisible Ink II by Sabre

[midazolam]

Invisible Ink was back in 1995, before I started solving the listener, however I have solved a few of Sabre's puzzles, who often uses ciphers and this is no exception.

The grid filling started off well, but there needs to be a lot of cold solving before the decoding can continue. Often I thought "a word can't fit in there", but sure enough there was. 31 down is a tricky clue, one that I had to work backwards to get.

All in all, a nice challenge. Thanks Sabre

[contendo]

Thanks Ruthrobin. You're a star. But now I have StSylvia's problem with 8dn. I suppose it means a plod through the BRB.

[Mysterons]

Try onelook contendo, it is there:

www.onelook.com

[contendo]

Thanks, Mysterons. That gives lots of options, but I can't find any of them in Chambers.

[starwalker]

One of my favourite setters, and yet I feel a slight disappointment with this puzzle, despite its wonderful construction. Perhaps being held up by one of the crucial clued entries took the edge off it. But thanks, as always, Sabre.

[Patch49]

Is there an on-line decoding site somewhere or do I have to draw out something in excel with all the options that A might code to?

[contendo]

Tried onelook again & got a different selection this time. Curious. Got it now.

[bobbycollins]

Oh dear.

Over my head so far. Is the code consistent?, that is if D=E does E=F?

If that is deemed to be asking too much publicly could one of my nice friends please reply privately?

[contendo]

No Bobby, it's not consistent. If only....

[Mysterons]

Patch 49 - suggest you try WordWizard (http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/puz
zles/word_wizards/wwizards.py/main)

or OneLook (see above)
eg for BANANA check ?B?B?B, ?C?C?C ......... ?Z?Z?Z - it doesn't take long to solve the jigsaw.

[AHearer]

When I realised that at one point I had been encoding rather than decoding, I saw that my original start had been right. It was a bit of a slog, though, and I found WordWizard (bought because I had difficulty installing my old Chambers 2003 on 64-bit Windows 7) very useful, as it allows regular expression searches.

[Scorpius]

What a dreadfully dull puzzle. I expected more from Sabre. There's not even the usual delight to be had from the clues, which in this puzzle are simple (as they needed to be). I do expect the published solution to include the invisible clues, so we know the clues are invisible, not just never written.

[Clamzy]

I think you're a bit of an optimist Scorpius:-)
I agree there have been (much) better offerings from Sabre in the past, but I enjoyed it all the same. Somewhat of a change from misprints and word searches is no bad thing for me.

[BlackHugh]

Unexpectedly finished it this afternoon. Reading the preamble I couldn't believe there was enough information to actually fill in all the grid! So it is back to 4114 - where I still haven't got the shaded squares.

[Count-A-Strong]

?

[x_word_fan]

Black Hugh - re. 4114 there is a one word hint in the sentence about the finish.

[trux]

Surely this would have been more satisfying if the answers to the normal clues had had to be entered in invisible ink ? Then at least the final grid wouldn't look such a dog's dinner ....

[Rogue-Elfe]

Yeah, I considered that too, Trux. Back again after Merlin and a nights sleep, and have managed to solve this, but 32d I am still not happy with. The only available word which fits the (decoded letter) pattern does not fit the clue (which apparantly should be easy). I only hope it is right, for I am going to post it anyway. I liked the idea, unlike some, but I agree it was somewhat tedious.

[AHearer]

Yes, I had to get 32d that way too, Rogue-Elf, but once I'd got it I could see that it did fit the clue, though I thought the clue stretched the bounds of what was fair.

[BlackHugh]

x_word_fan
Thanks - got the idea - now for the calculations!

[contendo]

I think this is an incredibly ingenious crossword and I cannot imagine the complexities of setting it so that there is only one solution. However I am stuck in the south west corner in the final stages, not helped by failing to solve 31dn & 32dn. Either I've made an error further back along the maze or one or more of the remaining words is not in Word Wizard.