Everyone know that the letters in the answers to the clues are then eliminated from the plusword, right ?
Seems to make sense to me
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Hadn’t. Hadn’t properly clocked they were using the full Wordle-y green/yellow square in column system either. 
I wasn’t 100% sure if letters in the main grid couldn’t ever be the missing one but it’s definitely been that way.
Did todays in 10.5 minutes apparently but I had to break off to do a quick work email thing so probably closer to 7 mins. Actually thought I was going to have to refer to a dictionary.
Grumbles etc. (spoilered because even the grumbles are a clue): 2D, 3D and 7A were all deeply tricksy clues, while 1D is a blatant Americanism that no one in the UK ever fucking uses unless they’re some try-hard poser. I wracked my brains for window types I knew but the answer wasn’t one I’d ever really clocked.
Stumped today, only got two and not even confident on them
Yeah I had to change a few and kept going back and forth acrosses and downs before I got to the endgame. Some tricksy clues.
Absolutely stuck today. 1A could be tango, rumba, salsa, bomba, plena or mambo . None are clear. Like, I don’t think I could come up with a more ambiguous clue that has more 5 letter word options.
Managed to get this in 1:34 yesterday so set myself a target of 2 minutes total for this and the NYT quick.
Today they took me 6:26…
Yeah, deeply frustrated with this. I cannot understand a clue that is a single fucking word. Mate, actually do your job and make a clue.
I have 1 I’m confident with and even then…
I think the point for these is there is more than one answer so that you try one and see if it works. No different really to ‘Squareword’ except how you get your clues as to what’s in the grid. (Three of those options didn’t even occur to me, TBF, I just picked one and tried to make it work.)
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16.54.
Done by the window clue, the transfer (still don’t get it tbh, and ‘ground’ (kicking myself about that one- it’s a good clue)
Can’t remember that one.
I think that this puzzle is too obtuse and lacks feedback. The thesaurus aspect of the game is pretty much a bullshit shoot. Without a proper clue it becomes a dictionary game, and even then.
It fucking sucks.
I think the ambiguity of the clues is deliberate here. It gives a sudoku like edge which I actually enjoy - I blanked with my normal approach of only entering unambiguous certainties on the first sweep, so had to work out a couple together to get started.
Re the transfer, a ‘decal’ is the name they give to those bits they stick on the outside of cars and stuff. It’s basically the same as a transfer but yes, very sneaky. I only realised it as I was essentially plugging vowels into the second letter slot.
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You can do it reasonably easily in 10 or more guesses. But if you’re trying to get it in as few as possible you end up having to imagine 3 or 4 possible versions of, say, row 1 and then extrapolate from those to get the other columns and rows meeting up to make the 5x5 word grid.
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Yes this is key as to why I think I am starting to hate it. Sudoku is another game with zero feedback so you can go down a culdesac and the you’re fucked. Same here.
My grid so far today. Help needed. Spoilers
I would say focus on the downs you have left and keep plugging at alternate meanings. I didn’t know the window word and the transfer is slightly niche knowledge. The downs make more sense and you almost certainly will get what they meant when you work them out. I could imagine either of them in the NYT quick!
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I am stuck on Squareword. Can’t think of a word for Row 2 or 3 that fits with the letters it says I’ve yellowed but doesn’t use the letters I have eliminated.
Ah well. These are fucking not helping with my mood. Why do I get so frustrated with these. I want to fucking scream.
I can get the frustration of crossword clues being ambiguous but Sudoku should be completely unambiguous. It’s a logic puzzle so there is always a way to prove whether an entry is valid or not.
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4:59.
Figured the 1A/1D intersection right away which gave me a decent platform.
I liked that there was a bit of feedback for me between the main grid and the plusword - based on the shaded letters I had, I could figure out that the vowel in the plusword would not appear in the main grid.
1:52 All those wasted years building Airfix models finally paid off for 7A.
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