Redactle, the daily ████████-█████ ████████ puzzle

[MrBlarney]

Today was a perfect Redactle day (#69, 2022-06-14).

Spoiler

My first thought on seeing the short title and disambiguation term was actually "Io (moon)", but I wasn't going to just go into a wild guess on just that. Skimming through the article, I noticed an interesting parenthetical "(up, down, {left?}, {right?})", and I later inferred from the opening sentence:

{title-2} is an {8} {8} {5} {game?} for {two?} {players?} in {which?} the {aim?} is to {8} {4} {9} than the {8}.

That led me to the second sentence being:

The {game?} was {invented?} in {China?} {more?} than {number-4} {years?} {ago?}...

and that was enough for me to, uh, 'go' for the ace.

Yesterday, I started off on the wrong foot and got a bit turned around before a fairly lucky recovery (#68, 2022-06-13) - sitcom - 24/36, 66.67%:

Spoiler

Opening sentence:

A {title-6}, {8} for {alt-name-11-6}, is a {5} of {6} {8} on a {5} {3} of {10} {3} {6} {5} over from {7} to {7}.

We can assume the {11-6} in the opening sentence is an alternative name from the quotations in the first sentence of the first subsection (origins?):

The {5} "{alt-name-11-6}" or "{title-6}" {4} {3} {8} {4} until the {5}.

I correctly inferred "By {country?}" as a major header, and recognized "United States" as the last in that list. I also saw I see a lot of italicized words that suggest works of art or entertainment, along with numbers in the #.## {million?} form. And near the end of the article, there is a bullet point that seemed to be "{List?} of {title-plural-7}", which suggested the article to be some category of produced work.

Unfortunately, my mind was thinking works of literature (millions of readers?), and ended up going with 'serial' as my first guess. I actually made a fairly early confirmation of

The terms "{alt-name-11-6}" or "{title-6}" were not {commonly?} used until the {decade-5}.

but I didn't quite latch onto the fact that a decade time period should suggest something more modern like radio or television. It was only after I accidentally revealed "{10}: A Tale of Two {Cities?}" that I actually tried some more key words like "genre" and then realized it was not something 'read', but something 'watched'. I eventually revealed 'comedy' before finally getting the article title, 'sitcom'. ("romcom"'s "romance" would not fit the alternative or full name in the opening sentences.)

 

[lincolnic]

27 guesses here today, which felt pretty good. Oddly enough, I didn't even have to get game, that automatically filled in once I got Go.

 

[Violentvixen]

67, definitely assumed it was language-related for far too long, oops.

 

[Eishtmo]

I got stuck in the same hole. Felt really stupid when I figured it out.

 

[RT-55J]

#69: Got it in 34 guesses, and had a good laugh when that happened.

I managed to get the early sentence "The [thing?] was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago" fairly quickly, but since I was missing a word I still didn't know the precise subject. I was working under the assumption that the subject was a tool or device of some sort. After being confused for a bit, I noticed a randomt two-letter word in the opening paragraph. I'll just say I was not expecting to get the answer when I guessed that.

This probably would have gone even quicker if I had correctly counted the number of letters in the title (lmao).

 

[Yimothy]

26 for me. My first thought was to think of two letter words, but I didn’t come up with many. After Ur, Ys, and id failed I was out of ideas so I spent a while trying to reveal more context then took a break. On return I went pretty much straight to the answer, though I was actually thinking of Go (film).

 

[lincolnic]

64 guesses today. I got hung up on cameras and printing before remembering modern technology is a thing.

 

[Sarge]

I should have gotten today's a bit faster, but I'll take a 34.

 

[RT-55J]

#70: got it in 92 guesses

It was slightly frustrating because I guessed "computer" pretty early on, and the hits in the opening paragraph made me think it was related, but nothing obvious was going to mind. Eventually (on guess 88) I stumbled into the first word of the answer, after which I was able to make quick work of the puzzle.

 

[DFalcon]

Today (#70) was rough for me, 168 guesses. I felt like I was never all that far away from getting it - clearly it was a three-letter acronym, I started in on chemical guesses and switched to electronics stuff before long - just was not able to find one that would break it open.

 

[Yimothy]

128 for me, felt very frustrating. I really had no idea until I stumbled on to light at guess 104. From there I eventually got image, and from that burn (as in burn-in), then plasma, then LCD.

 

[Violentvixen]

From there I eventually got image, and from that burn (as in burn-in), then plasma, then LCD.

Yeah as soon as I got burn I had a much more focused idea of where this was going. Took me a bit to get there, but 71.

 

[lincolnic]

Today was rough for me, 141 guesses. I got Greece/Greek and Africa very early, which sent me on a wild goose chase through the Mediterranean and the Second Punic War. I somehow got to European Capital of Culture and got even more confused. By the time I got to France I was at 136 guesses. Woof.

 

[pudik]

19 guesses /73%

could actually tell from the lists at the bottom and the paranthesis at the beginning that it was likely a country or city (the lists are often sister cities). after some shots in the dark, opened some generic words and figured that it's a capital from the hyphenated portion that it was probably in europe, got to france, figured it from the length in two guesses

one of the few times i actually did some deduction from the structure of the article, so that's a good feeling lol

 

[Violentvixen]

51, used up a lot of guesses on cities that wouldn't fit in the title but might help me figure out what it was.

Ultimately I did have to confirm my spelling of the answer with Google, because it's way too frustrating to just be one letter off or something.

 

[RT-55J]

#71: Done in 58 seconds.

I would have never guessed the article name offhandedly, but as soon as I figured out that the subject was a city in France I went straight to the broader internet to Do Research (apologies to Octo).

 

[Yimothy]

68 for me. I figured out fairly quickly it had something to do with the Mediterranean, from there it took a while to hit on France, lucky that the one city I know fits those criteria was the correct one.

 

[Torzelbaum]

• You solved it in 44 guesses
• Your accuracy was 72.73%

Once I got very close I looked up the answer because I figured getting from there to the actual answer would have either been impossible for me or taken me tons of guesses.

 

[lincolnic]

Oh god. This one took 141 guesses because the answer was something I swore I'd already guessed. Mad about that.

 

[Eishtmo]

80 guesses at 33.75%. One of my worst percentages Had to think hard about what might give me the right clue took a bit. Played TMNT between guesses.

 

[Violentvixen]

the answer was something I swore I'd already guessed. Mad about that.

I did this too today! Weird.

All my guesses were zeroes until I tried light (24) at guess 13. Got it at 88, but spent too long thinking it was more of a concept than an object and was guessing things like the infrared versus uv spectra, which had hits but didn't steer me the right way. Beam (16) also helped.

 

[Yimothy]

71. Another where I had no idea whatsoever and then I hit on the right clue (light at 69) and got it.

 

[RT-55J]

Welp, looks like broke my streak by missing #72.

At the very least, I managed to solve today's (#74) in 4 guesses. My initial guess was "gin and rummy", though I'm sure that if I had looked at the article at all I would have aced it.

 

[Violentvixen]

Also 4 guesses for me, my first single digit solve! After skimming the article had a feeling it was some sort of cultural thing, and the second guess of history (13) combined with the length of the words made it pretty obvious. Also war is a word I usually throw in as an early guess, since it can help me figure out the place and time based on where and how it's used.

 

[Yimothy]

12 for me, I figured it was the title of some work but couldn’t think of the right one. If I’d been a bit more patient I probably could have got it first try.

 

[lincolnic]

26 guesses for me. I knew it was a book right away but the title didn't come to me until I got to French.

 

[Violentvixen]

Jun 19th- 80 for me, had lots of small hits but took me a bit to narrow down exactly what was going on. Control (31) then artificial (18) were the guesses that really got me on the right track. I liked this one. Also hadn't seen the hot pink text glitch before.

 

[lincolnic]

12 guesses today, which I felt pretty good about. Got computer and science right away, then data at 10 guesses, which led me to a paragraph that mentioned Data from Star Trek. Since android didn't fit, robotics was my next logical guess.

What's this hot pink text glitch?

 

[MrBlarney]

I've been fairly off my usual aptitude in Redactle lately, with a couple of failures to complete. To be fairer to myself, I've been trying to do these late at night before going to bed, so I haven't had my usual time for analysis.

No excuse for that for today's Redactle (#74, 2022-06-19), where I had a 71/94, 75.53%.

Spoiler

I knew early on that the article was some kind of category, but didn't get any insights into the domain until guess 60, with 'science'. I eventually find the relevance to STEM on guess 67, and 'computer' on guess 71, but bumble quite a bit around thinking it was some kind of technique or tool. It was only when I went back to the etymology section and tried out 'robot' on my penultimate guess. I really should have gotten it a bit sooner if I had stopped to rack my brain more: I guessed 'first' on guess 77 and should have been able to remember what the FIRST program was.

Previous Redactle Roundup
Saturday's Redactle (#73, 2022-06-18): War and Peace - incomplete

Spoiler

I correctly inferred from the opening sentence that the article was a show, literary work, or play, but I incorrectly thought that the language was Spanish (with 'and' coming from 'y'). The fact that the rest of the sentence didn't actually fit my assumptions really threw me off. Didn't get around to actually making guesses beyond figuring out that it was a 'novel', but it wasn't 'Spanish' or 'Italian'. The idea of it being 'Russian' didn't enter my head at all.

Friday's Redactle (#72, 2022-06-17): prism - incomplete

Spoiler

By guess 60, I had a lot of structural reveals, such as

and in {colloquial?} use "{title-5}" usually refers to this type.

in the opening paragraph and

{10} {title-plural-6} are used to {verb-5} up {noun-5} into...

in an early section. But I have no idea what this thing actually does, it's not a 'tool' or a 'machine'. I was thinking way too concretely on the nouns that the article title might verb.

Thursday's Redactle (#71, 2022-06-16): Marseille - 19/20, 95.00%

Spoiler

A relatively good result, but one that I could have really gotten with fewer guesses. My early exploration of cardinal directions and continents reveals a region with ties to "{Southern?} Europe, the {Middle?} East, North Africa, and {Asia}". I also get "{Mediterranean?} Sea" as inferred information. Unfortunately, the first {country-6}s I probe are 'Turkey' and 'Greece' before getting to 'France'. I'm not sure why I passed over guessing the title city earlier, I think I was thrown off of thinking of regions rather than cities.

Wednesday's Redactle (#70, 2022-06-15): liquid-crystal display - 62/72, 86.11%

Spoiler

I knew from the formatting that it was a term with a common three-letter abbreviation, and that it has a modern history, but I didn't know what domain it was in. I only had my first real breakthrough on guess 46 with 'device', but was confused that it had nothing to do with 'oil', 'iron', 'steel' or 'oil'. In the sixties, I got hits on 'effect' and 'power', but felt like it was something that used power rather than generating it.

But in the end, I'll be honest, I have no idea where I pulled this answer out from. It just came in a flash of inspiration.

 

[Violentvixen]

June 20th- As soon as I determined that today's was a German philosopher I had low hopes of knowing the answer. Guessed every German name I could think of and uncovered the first (Max) and middle (Ferdinand) names but still had no clue. Ended up Googling with what I knew and found the answer but unfamiliar with it. Oh well, pretty pleased with how close I got.