Clue Cryptic with Herzwesten

Well, herzwesten and I are back on our bs (bud stuff), this time with a murder mystery, so don your deerstalkers and pack your pipes, gumshoes! Here's herzy: 

"I'm very excited for people to crack this case! It takes me back to a time when I used to edit logic puzzles professionally and in every issue we'd have a linked series of them all around a central mystery. The name of our fictional detective was Ivan Inkling, though sometimes his niece Anita Clew would take center stage. But don't worry, this puzzle doesn't contain nearly as many groan-inducing puns!"

Thanks as ever to the stalwart skaldskaparmal for his very helpful test.

(As with our text adventure cryptic, this puzzle makes use of the magic of spreadsheets.)

[solve online]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aperture Science Cryptic Configuration

It's collaboration time! Herzwesten and I have whipped up a quick cryptic for you! Here's what he has to say about the whole ordeal: We've all seen crosswords with phrases spread across two (or more) entries, and I've sometimes thought about how those entries are connected to one another. And I know it's a puzzle and they aren't physically connected, but wouldn't it be fun if they were? I brought this idea to Joe as a Portal-themed puzzle and he helped take it to the next level! Joe is always fantastic to work with and, who knows, it might continue to happen! Thanks to skaldskaparmal (please check out his puzzles ) for the helpful test solve, and also to Norah Sharpe (please check out her puzzles ) for an excellent definition (we leave it to you to guess which). You can solve online at  squares.io or in a Google sheet (just make a copy and you'll be good to go). Thank you for solving!
Read more

Cryptics 101: Hidden

This is the first of a series of small puzzles meant to introduce the conventions of cryptic crosswords to the uninitiated. It introduces and uses only a single clue type: the hidden clue. (You can see the instructions again by clicking the "Info" button at the top right.) [ fullscreen ]
Read more

Loot Boxes

Herzwesten and I got together to make another puzzle! I'll let him do the talking, but first we'd both like to thank juff for the very helpful test solve! "Hi folks! I was basically raised by text adventures, so I jumped at the chance to work with Joe on this puzzle. We went through a lot of iterations on how we could pull off such a theme, landing on something that was fun to write (and hopefully fun to solve). If you have played a lot of text adventures, feel free to give me a shout (at herzwesten on social media sites) to tell me some of your favorites! If you haven't, and want to dip your toe in the waters with games that also use wordplay (sometimes in a very cryptic crossword way), I can recommend two games. The first is an Infocom game called Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It, and though I'm not certain about whether you can play it online for free, a quick internet search will turn up something, I'm sure (wink).  The second is the more
Read more