Listener 4775 Citation Needed By Cagey

[scooterbug]

I rarely post, and have never started a thread, but I wanted to congratulate and thank Cagey for an all-time classic Listener. Surely in the very top tier (top 5, at least) in my 20+ years of solving. The endgame is stunning, and (meant in the best possible way) it must take a seriously deranged mind to construct such a thing. Thanks again, Cagey, for reminding me why I love the Listener so much.

[Keepatit]

I quite agree, scooterbug. One of the very best of the last decade, and remarkable that four-letter words can produce such a marvellous puzzle. Certainly makes my top five since I began around the turn of the century.

[NickorWan]

Absolutely astonishing. I have to admit that I had to restart twice, but I'm really glad that I persevered as I would have hated to miss it.

Thanks very much, Cagey, for a puzzle to remember.

[ClareTG0ld]

Too tired after working at this most of the afternoon/evening to fully appreciate what I just worked through, but that was certainly something.

I think at the moment my favourite touch is that the grid-fill seemed impossible without an additional piece of information from the extra letters (ie, the message has to make sense, resolving one last ambiguity).

I mean, that's tight setting. Squeezing everything out of the puzzle.

[s_pugh]

Like Nickorwan, I too had to restart after an inadvertent slip led me to a dead end. One of those where you have to check, check and check again before committing to the codings. Fantastic puzzle, and an endgame with no "guess what I'm thinking", just astonishment at how it was put together. Brilliant work Cagey.

[emcee]

Quite exceptional. How on Earth was the endgame constructed?

Many thanks, Cagey.

[HawkCrossword]

I fully expected to look up Cagey in the setters list and find it was Twin! No so, it seems.

A very clever puzzle indeed, but one with so much slog involved, I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I should have. Reducing everything to a 4-symbol code meant I was making errors all over the place. I eventually switched to full numerical-solving mode (and I'll argue with anyone that this is more of a numerical than a letter puzzle) and used a spreadsheet to do all the decoding and checking - and it made the endgame stages very quick, too.

I'll appreciate it more, I'm sure, when my brain's had a rest. Many thanks, Cagey.

[HawkCrossword]

I slept on it, and I feel a lot warmer about Cagey's achievement here.

I can see how to construct it, or how to start constructing it at least (starting with the endgame), but I just wouldn't have attempted to. I don't think there's any guarantee that there's a solvable unique-solution puzzle at the end of it, so the setter would need a lot of vision/visualisation, not to mention hope at each stage. I'm particularly looking forward to the LWO setter's blog for this one.

[Dim16]

That is hands-down the most remarkable Listener puzzle I have come across, especially the mind-boggling endgame.

Huge fun, and a privilege to be on the receiving end of such cleverness, deranged or otherwise.

Thanks, Cagey

[Cruncher]

Pretty epic. Thought of throwing in the towel several times and made snail-crawling progress for the first few days but very glad I persevered. Awesome

[olichant]

Magic. Thanks, Cagey. Really hope there is a setter’s blog on this.