Inquisitor 1750: Game Changer by Pointer

11 comments on “Inquisitor 1750: Game Changer by Pointer”

1. What an original theme! Discovering it was a high point for me when I saw SATIS HOUSE forming itself in column 9. In Great Expectations Dickens modelled his Satis House on an Elizabethan mansion named Restoration House in my home town, Rochester. (The real Satis House, incidentally, is a separate Elizabethan mansion, also situated in Rochester.)

   I had forgotten most of what I read in Great Expectations a long time ago and remembered only Pip. I had to look up Estella and the game they played: Beggar My Neighbour. Fortunately, I knew the other name for that card game (Strip Jack Naked) and knew how to play it.

   Singling out the letters J, Q, K and A as special, I did of course play out the game (for two players) in all the even-numbered columns as well as in Row 3, and they all worked out perfectly. The design of Row 3 was particularly impressive, making STRIP JACK NAKED when played out with the unchecked letters in their expected positions.

   The first clue in 2d leads to either IRAN or IRAQ – resolved in favour of IRAQ by the crossing letter Q in SQL.

   Altogether a brilliant idea, design and construction, with an excellent set of clues.

   Thanks to Pointer and bridgesong.

2. I found this compelling enough to persist despite real difficulties; finally, I searched for variations on Sa*is House before Great Expectations, Pip and Estella, Strip Jack Naked emerged. A good deal of googling. I enjoyed the logic of the columns, but couldn’t apply it to the row.

   Thanks to Pointer and bridgesong.

3. I found this really tough and was beginning to grumble that the structure was unfair. Despite solving ~90% of the clues, being unable to enter many letters in several down columns and the shaded row meant that I remained stumped as to the theme. Finally some googling of SA?IS and HOUSE got me there but by that point I’d rather lost heart in working out the rules of the game in order to complete the grid. I was excited at the prospect of a Pointer puzzle having enjoyed previous outings but this one didn’t do it for me, sorry.

4. Very enjoyable. Possibly because the version of Great Expectations I’m most familiar with is the South Park one (which features fewer card games and more robot monkeys than the book) it took me an awfully long time to pick out the theme, even though (like the blogger) I’d found Stella quite quickly. But I’d guessed the even columns were a blend of the answers so I had plenty of crossers to help. And it wasn’t until I finally entered all the letters into the grid that I appreciated that the blend complied with the rules of SJN. So hearty thanks to setter and blogger.

5. Come again?

6. Years since I read the thing, so I had to resort to google. Almost all Satis-factorily filled in, but having never played the game, and being flummoxed by the explanation of the rules I left it unfinished.

7. Seriously hard work this as I was not familiar with Pip, Estelle or Satis House (my bad, of course) so I needed to have almost all the letters done before Google eventually helped me out.

   Normally when finishing an Inquisitor I think “an impressively constructed grid, but I reckon I could do this myself if given enough time”. Not so with this one: where does one even start? Seriously mindboggling.

   One minor niggle, I thought it would have been helpful (fair!) to mention that the two entries in column 3 were not real words and that indeed the “combination” thereof also required the method from the game, which is only referred to later on in the preamble. I got there eventually but I would have been happier had this been pointed out.

   And one question, should Q for Queen not be clued as “woman on board” – ? I was stuck on IRAN forever (or possibly the variant spelling of IRAK), but that didn’t fit across.

   Nonetheless, a very enjoyable and thoroughly impressive puzzle, so many thanks.

8. arnold @7

   I had a similar thought at first about ‘man on board’ in the first clue to 2d. In fact, though, all chess pieces are correctly called ‘men’ (and as it happens all except the Pawns can also be called Pieces). So ‘man on board’ can be Queen, and it can also be Knight, as I pointed out @1, because the standard abbreviation for Knight in chess is N [in olden times it was Kt]. N would give us IRAN, but Q gives us IRAQ.

9. Answers for this puzzle went in at a steady rate. PIP & ESTELLA jumped out and hit me quite early on, so from there on in it was plain sailing. All done within a day. Endgame was neatly done – the spelling out of the card game STRIP JACK NAKED according to the rules of the game (regarding J, Q, K & A) was a very clever touch.

   Thanks to Pointer for a nicely constructed and very entertaining puzzle, to bridgesong for the blog and to fellow commenters for sharing their thoughts.

10. Not as scary as it first appeared. The normal clues were friendly enough to give enough checking letters to enter the thematic entries without fully understanding what should have been done. I was completely unfamiliar with the source material, but as ever a bit of creative googling based on a likely looking STELLA and HOUSE came to the rescue. A good puzzle that surely must be a contender for the end of year prize?

11. This was a really great puzzle, difficult but doable. I especially liked the endgame which was not a random word-finder but something that could be explicitly deduced from the grid-fill.

    Thanks to all.

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