Sep 24, 2007 Hypercross Puzzle

Hello All,

Welcome to "Hypermaze! #3" here at the "Daily Fun" zone. What's different with this one? Well, I have made finding the end of the puzzle part of the game. Also, I have tried to make it just a little bit harder than the first two (but hopefully not too hard), and I have used some longer words again.

As always, try and start the "Hypermaze!" from the upper-left and work your way to the end. However, it is especially important that you follow the words in "connecting" order to find the end of the maze along the correct route.

For any newcomers, the "X"s are "walls" and you need to fill them in. You will also need to fill in the dead-end routes because of the way that hypercrosses work.

When you reach the end, fill in the last word in the blank provided at the bottom of the puzzle! And be sure and let me know what you think.

Note to Self: Oh, I guess we don't really need to remind people of that on Tanga, huh? :^)

Cheers!

freelancelot

[2] ... not really appropriate here.

Could that "famous gardens" be any more obscure? And is a painting the best example?

The ugly part of these puzzles - I have everything entered, now have to find out why the answer is not taking...where is the "mistake"

the indian food is spelled with four letters

the kid with flag is the only blank i have left, salt?

[4] Worked for me. But then again, I've been there, so perhaps a bit more obvious for me.

[5] Same here, and I've verified the spelling of the garden. All the clues 'fit' and all of the dead ends are filled in, and I assume the end is where it should be, although I've tried both words. Sometimes these aren't worth the points.

[6] I just looked at an online food dictionary and it had both spellings.

[3] truly. This guy is a young patriot with his own flag.

Now, why is this not correct? That shiny stuff only has one of teh sometimes vowel, I've BEEN to that garden, as well as restaurants named after it... There are many spellings for the lentil dish, but the one I used fits the spaces....

Followed the directions given for the last word... Ummm, isn't that brown sausage the polish kind? And that hot artisan is generic, not that individual, correct?

I used 24 x's, including the final answer.... still not correct...

I've entered everything, I'm sure it's all correct, but I have no idea what the secret word thing is. What in the world am I supposed to do?? I find the whole thing extremely tedious.

A note about plural/singular in crosswords--generally the word "and" along with plural items in a list means the answer will be plural (which I'm thinking is not the case with the potatoes clue). But then apparently plurals aren't out of the question, since the "specific breed" answer seems to be plural (although the clue seems to be leading toward the breed name, rather than "two of that breed").

As others have already mentioned, that lentil dish is not the first spelling that comes to my mind.

I'm not saying anything against the puzzle or the maker, but I'm just not having fun yet. :(

The birds, which I wasn't sure of, they don't belong to pa, correct?

need help with gardens

Any clue on the garden? I think I know where it is, but that doesn't fit.

[13] Correct. And I took a guess at the gardens based on a sesame dish. This is maddening and soooo not worth the 2 points, I fear.

[13]only if you ask the hotfields...

I actually got the gardens by using oneacross.com, giving it the clue "gardens" and the first and last letter.

I have no way of finding out what the "Famous Garden" is. I have exhausted every google search imaginable and now I'm down to poring through French Impressionist paintings to determine who painted it.

[18] Thanks

[12] the lentil dish was the first spelling that came to my mind.
[11] yes, it is Polish sausage.
[14] the gardens are actually an amusement park. (if i have the right ones)

[19] They are in Denmark if that helps, don't want to give too much more. Also, IBM software. Still missing something (or a problem with the answer).

[22]Same here....

Think I have the proper ending - so down to a misspelling now.

And I believe I'm correct in assuming that since we started in French, we end in French?

Also does the french verb need to be conjugated?

[24] You are correct

the gardens is also a software company that makes Lotus notes.

Finally! I still stand by my assertion that this was worth more than 2 points. That garden clue was waaaay too obscure.

it's good to see the points can be had in any case. not sure what I'm missing, not sure that I care at this point.

babelfish is not my friend for that last word.
And damn me for having taken Russian and German instead of french.

any help with the last word?

[31] You've already used it once.

Has anyone else noticed that determining where the puzzle ends is COMPLETELY arbitrary. After all it is a path that has many branches, but there is no way to determine which the puzzle creator determines is the right 'end' word.

[33]Yes and no. The end of the puzzle makes sense (given the salt sprinkled here) and where I think the puzzle ends as I try to find my spelling mistake.

[24] no, I tried the conjugation, which makes sense, but it still doesn't take it, so I would think it wants the clue answer we used here (as well as on a OWWarmup before....

Every time I think if the garden (Which is the same name as a GREAT brewery in Denver, BTW!) I want to eat ravioli....

You could have conjugated or not conjugated the starting word, having it end in a R or a Z. Also I stand by my assertion as the bird clue is just as valid as an ending point as the two letter word which I assume is the 'correct' ending point.

I still don't have the puzzle correct even though it is completely filled out with what I consider correct answers. I'm throwing in the towel on this one for now.

[29] Tommy, just what do you mean? You can ONLY get points if you correctly solve this puzzle. If you have a workaround, please email me on BGG!! LOL!

[32] I'm afraid that wasn't helpful
bear in mind I'm a very literal guy
I tried all the words in the puzzle.

[36] I think you'll find the end of the maze is appropriately named, you just may not get it at first glance.

[36] See 24, 31, and 33 for some help.

Am I the only one having trouble with the pictures showing up? Even the places that are supposed to be an "x" (based on random clicking, only one cell getting highlighted- kind of have to be an x, I assume) aren't giving me pictures. Some pics showed up, others didn't.

I guess I'll come back in the morning.

Something is wrong... there's an X in the middle of my sausage. Sixth letter.

[36]I'm not ending in either of those two places....and the ending word can be paired with the starting word in a logical way.

But cracking this puzzle is a big (Down word in the puzzle)

(OK - cheap joke - it is a bit tedious to go through all the clues to find the misspelling that was between me and the proper solution, but certainly not a Sisphyean task. Just took a bit of time, but solved in the end.)

grrr
okay got the final word, that will teach me not to read directions.

Glory day!! I got the points!!!!!!!!!!! (the exclamation points don't necessarily signify happiness, per se...relief, maybe?)

My best guess is that the last word is supposed to be sort of a clever pun, based on one of the puzzle words (is it too salty to say that it actually IS one of the puzzle words?). Also, and I hope this isn't too salty, but I'm trying to relieve some of the frustration like I was feeling a minute ago, but regarding a previous post, if in doubt between Z and R, go with R.

If anyone finds this too salty, I'll edit.

[43] HAHAHAHAHA! ISWYDT!

(I see what you did there!)

[42] It's not a comment that one hears every day, but I too noticed an X in the middle of MY sausage. I wonder if it's solvable either way? Too late for me to tell.

...

[45] thanks... that R threw me.

Yes and if the word for start is french, it would be apparently toooooo logical to use the clue that also happens to be a french word for end, or even FINish. And then add the x's as required by the instructions....

I did not misspell the lizard, the lineup, the gardens, the outdoor coliseum, or any of the x's!!! Sigh....

I truly think Web 2.0 is failing. Many Web 2.0 sites are 'catastrophic failure', or having strange problems with posting or use of features....

[45] Thank you for the save. I had been going with what Babelfish told me.

[EDIT] Removing accidental salt spill.

The outdoor gathering place has two perfectly acceptable spellings, one ending in ER the other ending in RE. Can someone tell me which is the 'correct' one?

[53] The more American version, rather than the British version.

OK then!!!! That false X in the sausage should NOT be used.

And I REALLY should NOT trust babel fish anymore.... Although I get some funny things, especially translating french pages to english, so I should expect that typing in 'start' and asking it to translate from english to french should be full of fail!!!

So we conjugate the first word, and not the last...

"Well begun is half done" indeed!!

Maybe the X in the sausage represents how much "unknown" there is in the ingredients of sausage?

I only point this out because this is a site for word games and wordy people...but in the first clue, third bullet point, you're missing an "at".

Je non parle pas le grenouille....

[58] maybe that extra R is a clew....

[57] "Those who love both sausage and politics should not watch either being made" LOL!

Can this please be the last of these?

I liked it. I think you could have made it easier but still I enjoyed it

[56] Actually, the first word is not conjugated. At least, not from my recollection of French.

(Finally got the pics to work- just went to another site, then came back).

Oh, and I love these puzzles, so please DON'T quit making them! (Sorry, apparatus...)

Wasn't that hard. The only one I had to look up was the bird and the garden. A lot of x's though.

This has got to be THE most frustrating hypercross ever! I'm pretty sure I've filled in all the clues correctly, but I have no idea what word goes at the bottom and I have no idea how to follow the maze from start to finish. What am I missing???

The end is not necessarily at the bottom it is at the end of the connected words

Double post

How is the answer not finxxx? I followed the path as best as could since it branched several times, and I still come to fin as the answer. what gives?

No, the X shows you where to CUT the sausage.... OUCH! :)

I have everything filled in but the answer. Woo! I understand the maze part but I don't get how I should arrive at an answer. I didn't do either of the previous mazes.

Ooh, and I'm a lemon now... how appropriate! ;)

[65] read the comments, especially about the FIRST word! That one threw a bunch of people off, as it was not what you'd get in babelfish...

I do like these, this one WAS tougher, longer, and had more french than I prefer. In fact, it had more french than I used in one day in Paris....

Horrors: "Ou ee la twalette" I sez at le tower eyefull on new years eve... "C'est fermi" sez the guard. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

But we had the only polite waiter in all of Paris, and the least knowledgable cabbie in 3 continents. "Eiffel Tower, sil vous plait". And he sez, "Qua?"... I wanted to get to of that cab!!! Fine... "Champs Elysee" "Oh, OUI!!!" Derrrrr...

Since no one has commented on my earlier post, I'm assuming it actually IS the answer and I've misspelled something else (or the "hidden x" I discovered has thrown off my answers)

YEP: had parrots wrong (had spelled them like a Scotsman)

[68] I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but you really should check your other answers. ;)

[66] I don't know if you noticed, but ALL the words are connected.

[71] - Holy %$@&!!!!

I thought your earlier post was just a joke. I was just about to give up and go to sleep when I tried your answer. I can't believe that was it!!! I still have no idea how you came up with that or what the puzzle maker intended.

Zoot Alors! Totally bizarre hypercross!

That was LAME. The puzzle has NOTHING to do with the answer, except for the very first word.

Maybe if you had to use letters from the words you had entered, or the direction the path followed meant anything, I'd feel more fulfilled. Please, never make another crossword.

[71] I went back and checked all of the answers and I'm still not getting the final answer. Or I have the right answer, but something else in the puzzle is wrong. So frustrated right now.

Well,
I had fun for quite a while, but then it went down the tubes fast after filling everything out and still not getting it... only to find out that the on-line translator to a language I didn't know gave me the wrong word at the start...

Not fun :-(

I have no idea about the gardens, the stairs sign or the guy with the flag...it looks like an Iraq flag???

While I appreciate all the hard work freelancelot has put into these maze-style puzzles, may I point out that
A) It's the same basic idea ovor and over
B) There are a lot of comments that are ambivalent or negative.
C) None of these has been very successful or rated very high on the fun scale.
I respectfully suggest that no more of these are published for a few months at least.

Thanks for the effort, freelancelot.

For the gardens see [18] & [22]. What does the arrow tell you about the stairs? You've got the right country.

The LAST time I waste my time on one of these types of hyper puzzles.......

I agree - NOT FUN!

Despite some minor frustration above (my typo had to do with the proper non-conjugation of the first word)..I enjoy these puzzles and hope they continue to make an appearance.

OK, I don't get it... why do the hypermazes have those annoying Xes instead of just leaving those spaces blank? What challenge does it add? (As far as I can tell it just adds to the tedium and frustration for anyone with a slower computer...)

Well I would normally agree with this, cause I felt this one had an abnormally large amount of X's, but they ended up serving a purpose, so I can't argue it.

I thought the ending was cleaver, added some fun for the end. And my spelling error was also in the conjugation of the first.

Oh and thanks freelancelot, I enjoyed this one.

If it was truly a maze I would expect the answer to one clue to be part of the next one.

Well I got the points, but.... I don't think the start and end words were fair. One is a verb, one a noun. I see absolutely no connection to the words in the maze's "correct" path. Took a lot longer than it needed to, looking for some kind of message in the arbitrary path. How is that path any more correct than the others?

Tedious.

Not fun.

Finally!
It was a misspelling that got me...

I have to say, though - that I started not having fun once I had completed it and had to go back over each and every answer to figure out what the heck I did wrong!

Finally!
It was a misspelling that got me...

I have to say, though - that I started not having fun once I had completed it and had to go back over each and every answer to figure out what the heck I did wrong!

Clever. Nice "well duh" moment when my brain saw the correct path.

Man, there's some whiners here.

I'm ambivalent. In general, I've enjoyed freelancelot's crystal-clear clueing of words in the other two mazes. Unfortunately, here, things have been less clear--I, too, ended up with *something* wrong, but no idea what. (Eventually I gave up spellchecking. I suspect it was the upper right down word.)

Also, that final clue doesn't really quite work; there's no sense in which "following the maze" will tell you which dead-end is the final word. Conversely, I recognized what the final word was even without following the maze. Add that to (perhaps) its unfamiliarity, and the noun/verb lack of parallelism between the start and the finish, and I can't blame people for being frustrated.

And, as people have noted, there were some unexpected plural problems ("w, x, y, and z" gives a singular answer?!). It's still an interesting idea, freelancelot, but I fear this one fell short of the mark.

Ambiguities, brute-force image searches, *and* improper crossword clueing? Good lord!

That was just painful.

I have everything filled in, but still says it's incorrect, not even sure where to start error checking. Tried a few things that seem reasonable for the first and last, but still keep getting wrong answer

One downside with with this "style" of hypercross (hey, you invented your own style) -- it gives you fewer intersections to crosscheck answers when there's a problem.

[83] Morganza, the hypercross creation system requires an image. It also requires an answer, so making a blank is impossible at this time. I made a puzzle that left actual yellow spaces for blanks, but then I decided it sucked.

[4], [12], [14], and [15] I guess I could have said "famous pleasure gardens." That, along with the geography salt that has been scattered about, will lead to the correct answer! I will change that in the clue.

[6] The Indian food has two spellings (one with three letters and one with four). This one has three letters.

[12] and [13] Fixed clue to lead to plural on birds.

[24] You got it! The ending was meant to relate to the beginning in the way that you figured out. Sorry if this fact has frustrated anyone. It was not intended. I was simply trying to make it "harder" as many had requested on previous Hypermazes. Apparently too hard, so for that I am sorry!

[42] and [55] You just hit the nail on the head! I double-checked on your hunch, and I discovered much to my dismay that you are correct: The was a stray "X" in the sausage clue where you said it was. My extreme apologies to everyone, as I could not see that mistake hidden behind the other clues (a quirk of Hypercross creation). It is now fixed and removed.

I now suspect that part of the frustration that people have run into is that sometimes you can get the points and sometimes you can't (with that missing "X") depending on the display order of the words. When I had tested the puzzle two times after its creation, the computer alway said it was completed. But I have the feeling that it was partially random whether it drew the "X" first or not. So maybe some people who should have gotten it correct were not because of my mistake with the stray "X" (which looks statisically possible based on about half as many having solved it as usual). Again I am sorry!

[50] Thanks for the practical advice and encouragement. Sometimes that is what it takes for a hard puzzle like this!

[61] I am sorry to hear that. I had hoped that the success of the first "Hypermaze!" would mean that I could dial in just the right level of difficulty (based on requests) and then do more. But I will certainly listen to votes as people weigh on on this one — and will certainly refrain from more if people don't like them. However, I am hopeful that it is just a matter of going back to making the clues easier! BTW: Has anyone noticed that the "easiest" puzzles always seem to score the highest "fun" factor, even if people complain they are "too easy?"

Thanks [62] and [63]; that boosts my confidence that I am still onto something!

[77] and others: Sorry about the translation confusions. As you will see their are two spellings which the translation systems yield. I used http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/ for the spelling I went with.

[78] You would be correct! Just modify the word to the name of the culture rather than the flag.

[83] and [84] I wish this could be done, but the way a hypercross is built cannot work this way. It is a necessary evil to add the "X"s even though they are not needed for the puzzle solution, just because of what the computer expects for every blank space!

[90] Good observation. But even that type of feedback helps me make better ones in the future!

"Bonne Chance!," everyone. I will try harder to find that balance for other puzzles. Hopefully a "Hypermaze!" will not forever have a bad name. All things considered the next one (if people wish to have one) WILL be easier again!!

Cheers!

freelancelot

any more salt on the actual ANSWER at the bottom???

any more salt on the actual ANSWER at the bottom???

[98] see [68]

Had the same problem on the first answer across, which frustrated me for quite a while. Thanks for the pointer, [96].

For anyone else struggling with it, the first answer across ends with R, not Z.

THAT was a challenge..
Im glad that I am finally at the end of this process...