Puzzlebrains

So, last weekend was the MIT puzzlehunt. Lots of the usual ridiculous complicated puzzles (ID costumes from Jane Austen movies that were recycled in other Jane Austen movies, solve a logic puzzle hidden inside a cryptic crossword, operas described as though they were tv dramas etc.)

Anyway, here's one of the shorter ones. You want to find a single-word answer.

F---! Our cost: a tern. Er, sport I on.
Countersign a gel Abe? Ls!
Jud, geo rap me a sure praise!
I stim; I’d to give Herbal Kings up port!
Expo interception: a lad vice.
Thebes tel.: I teach? I ever!
Comet ore—as in Fe. ’Ron?
Verb at I’m as split era leech.
A, the art of bravo: Welsh orchard!
Hew, hos! Elan dismal’s wed emo.
Int. hear lye we, eh? Ours!

I have just found this! As you might guess, this sort of puzzle is up my street and I enjoyed finding the hidden messages. However, it is one thing finding a single word answer for each one, but rather more demanding to find a single overall answer, if that is what you mean? (...and more what I would expect from MIT!)

I'm not really sure what we are trying to do here. I can see some hidden words, but don't really see what to do with it all. Too hard for me!

I can also see some hidden words but can't really think what to do with them and am probably overlooking lots in any case.

What happens when you take out the hidden words?

when I do that I have nothing left but I still can't get an answer.

What do all the hidden (answer) words have in common? It's a feature of the words, rather than their definitions or anything.

Scurra wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2025 10:41 am

What do all the hidden (answer) words have in common? It's a feature of the words, rather than their definitions or anything.

Nothing whatsoever, if you ask me! Well, there is one thing, they are all words.

Well I am prepared to admit that I might have parsed some of these incorrectly as some make more sense than others. I think most if not all have the letter E in them!

Aha,.... maybe they do have something hidden in them after all Not sure if that is all I need to know or whether I still have to take another step?

I am now confused as I thought from your previous post you had solved this but now you are sounding as though you still have the final answer to find.

OK, I'll admit I was very confused about the format of the statements at first. I thought the whole thing had to be parsed, while some statements make more sense that way than others. I'm going to word this very badly It took me a lot to see that to parse each statement it should have a hidden word removed, which is the answer to that statement now parsed.
So now you have a list of answer words. Something about those words might help you see what you have to do to extract the final answer.
Pop the list into a word processor. Don't edit the words. Play with some format settings a specific formatting option.

In my previous post I was just suggesting that you looked closely at what was left, as I thought it helped to understand the context of the actual answer words.
But I had not reached a final conclusion. I now spotted something that they seem to have in common, but am not at all convinced it is right!

I think for this one it is pretty certain you'll know when you have it. The thing the answer words have in common is fairly generic. I think I am pretty justified in saying it is merely that that general property is something that enables the simple answer extraction.

Puzzles are often mostly about hiding things in obvious ways but pretending that they are non-obvious in the (perhaps reasonable?!) expectation that people won't think of the obvious things.
I think this is a good example of that.

I think I might have an answer now thanks to comments from SparkOut and help from our favourite rabbit. Some of the clues were just weird though.

Agreed!There were several instances where an alternative word would be just as good as an answer, and one which doesn't really make sense to either of us! I liked the idea of the puzzle though.

Can you explain what you mean by "where an alternative word would be just as good as an answer"? I genuinely don't understand because that doesn't make sense in the context of this puzzle.

Well, I could, but it would be a massive spoiler!

Well that took longer than it should have done - but as you say, there is not much doubt when you spot the answer!!