Friday Foxer #155

Every Friday, Tally-Ho Corner’s cleverest clogs come together to solve a ‘foxer’ handcrafted by my sadistic chum and colleague, Roman. A complete ‘defoxing’ sometimes takes several days and usually involves the little grey cells of many readers. All are welcome to participate.

Below is a list of ‘33 Things Wot Are On Tim’s Desk At The Moment’ (‘things’ is used in its broadest possible sense). Entries have been stripped of vowels and numbers and have had any inter-word spaces repositioned*. For example, if Tunnocks Caramel wrapper was present it might appear as TNN CKSCRMLWR PPR. Scissors would be SCSSRS.

* Apostrophes are ignored and hyphens are treated as spaces

1. GR GVPN NY
2. TWN SDRS TRPPLS TRS
3. BR TNSDT LSRCN
4. P H TFB RS TLL GBS
5. STLB STSDN GL
6. BN CT HRHNB YCHR LSWHT NG
7. TCKRM VR
8. R LPR THHL LGNT
9. NV RST YFK NTSC HLFH ST RYPN
10. Z XMPP LYR
11. PCPLSSP RDSC

12. F RG RNPS HPNS
13. CHR STM SCRDFR MRTH
14. N VLPCNT NNGF FT YT WSDLLRS
15. PHL LPSSCR WDR VRWTHMGN TCTP
16. JYFT HR
17. FRDFFT YCL BRBL LT
18. H STRC LTNKST PTRMPS
19. NT WSTCRDR DR
20. PSTC RDF RMTR MNNS CLY
21. B GFC NT RSF RNBN DNDBR DG MPRJ CT
22. SMNW RPTSHR D

23. STR PLSSPRMWR STWTCH
24. CNCLL DPSSPRT
25. F RTCKC RMBS
26. WDNC LT HSPG
27. FLT YG GBYTMS
28. D STYCLLGR PHYST
29. LDD TNFC LS SCMLT RYV HCLM GZN
30. FX RMG
31. STDL RT RDT NPNC LNN DFSH RPNNG
32. STRB LZ RNMB RTWH NDR DNDG HTPL N TFT HDD
33. BRT HDYCR DSHW NGBLP LLM NMRGN GF RMTW RTNTN NL

* * *

SOLUTIONS

Last week’s cluster foxer:

dovers (defoxed by Viscount)
a1. dover sun house (Aergistal)
b1. dover eight (Viscount)
c1. robert dover (Colonel_K)
a2. dover test (Aergistal)
a3. dover patrol (Nutfield, Firenz, Colonel_K)

balvano train disaster (defoxed by Colonel_K)
d1. class 480 steam loco (Colonel_K)
e1. 517 dead (Colonel_K)
b2. carbon monoxide (Colonel_K)
c2. march 3, 1944 (ylla)
d2. tunnel (Nutfield)

words containing the first names of the beatles (defoxed by Colonel_K)
e2. pete (Colonel_K)
d3. paul (Nutfield, Colonel_K)
e3. ringo (Colonel_K, Viscount)
e4. john (Colonel_K)
e5. george (Colonel_K)

geert wilders (defoxed by Colonel_K)
b3. 6 september, 1963 (ylla, Nutfield, Phlebas)
c3. fitna (Viscount)
a4. mozart (Nutfield, Colonel_K)
b4. pvv (Colonel
a5. venlo (Nutfield)

incidents (defoxed by Colonel_K)
c4. gleiwitz incident (Colonel_K)
d4. crazy eights (Colonel_K)
b5. dyatlov (Viscount)
c5. uss liberty (Colonel_K, Phlebas, Nutfield)
d5. vlora (ylla, Nutfield)

61 Comments

  34. Now left, mostly in bits:

    2. TWO (NSDR) STRIP PLASTERS?
    13. CHRISTMAS CARD FROM (RTH)
    23. STRAPLESS (PRM) WRISTWATCH
    27. FLT YG GBYTMS

  35. 2. TWO UNUSED AIRSTRIP PLASTERS
    I’m mildly relieved they’re unused; though I was half-expecting some equivalent of Salonpas.

    • It was Nutfield who was interested in Obra Dinn-likes. I’ve not played that, but The Roottrees are Dead states that it was its inspiration, and even includes it as one of its’ tags. Development on the free browser version has just about ceased as the author looks to move to Steam.

      It took me nine-and-a-half hours and was pretty heavy going, all methods are needed: deduction, elimination, inspired guesswork and brute force.

      The basic premise is that you’re filling in a family tree and using late 90s internet to locate the necessary information.

      I managed about 88% of the info (I knew the names of who was involved in the major plot twist), but needed to look at a playthrough to figure out the keywords to fill in enough of the tree to end the game. (Continuing the game after the endscene allows you to keep searching and fill in non-essential bits of the tree).

      Anyway, that got me to 95% of total info (the game doesn’t track percentages, I’m just guesstimating). Watching the endscene gave me another 3% – stuff I was unaware of but it assumed I knew.

      Overall, then, I think it has issues: it’s a lot harder than the introductory section leads you to expect; crucial information is only accessible one way, if you can’t think of the one keyword that’d allow you access to a source the fragments you do have don’t allow you to progress any other way.

      It does have a system it calls ‘Intuition’ (IIRC) that keeps track of how many unfilled nodes could be filled from the data within each page of your dossier (photos, diary pages, etc). I found it worse than useless.

      What needs to be done? An actual hint/clue system would be transformative. It’s possible I missed it, but a magnifying glass for photos would be a nice touch – at the moment clicking a face does put a larger version in your scrapbook (which can show more detail to help disambiguate things, I discovered this late though) but at the cost of context. Lastly, it’d make it even more wordy but additional pages that give a second mention to keywords would make things fairer in my view.

      • Well, that was not expected! I actually did both games and I agree that “The Roottrees are Dead” fell sometimes a bit frustrating and obscure. To complete it to 100%, you really need to look for tiny connection that are quite hard to find. Also, the AI generated pictures does not help.

        In comparison, “The return of the Obra Dinn” feels more polished. But as the story unfold, it becomes quite difficult, as some of the clues to uncover the mystery are really hidden. In some case, you have to guess to progress.

        I’m happy to know that “The Roottrees are dead” is coming to Steam. It is a decent game.

  38. I’m looking forward to the ‘What’s in Roman’s pockets?’ edition of this Foxer.

    It’ll probably start like that late night phone-in wordsearch ‘Things you might find in a woman’s handbag’ where one of the answers was ‘sparkplug’.

    It’ll very much end like Bilbo versus Gollum.

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