The Secret Seven

 Appearing on the Indian 1ACross site.

The Secret Seven

Highlighted letters provide the names of the dwarfs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

One, Two ...

 Appearing on the Indian 1ACross blog April 2021

One, Two ...

Seven across entries contain triple letters that spell TRIPLES

Feedback:-

1. Great effort
2. Sadly I didn’t enjoy the puzzle all that much. Too many obscure and/or British references with uninspired clueing. Nebbisher for instance, an arcane word clued using neb and bish with a surface that made no sense(to me atleast) is one among the lot. I plodded on awaiting a penny drop or a grand theme reveal which unfortunately never materialized. Maybe it’s just me being grumpy or dense.
3. Very enjoyable puzzle.
4. Unknown bonus answers
5. Interesting puzzle
6. Excellent puzzle, though a bit more straightforward than a barred puzzle with a twist I was expecting from Eclogue. Nice mix of clues, some crafty (Utensil and Sash in particular), but the long anagrams made solving rather less strenuous than one is used to. Very enjoyable. Theme word of course could easily be identified with the enumeration, but ‘What is the theme?’ gave me pause – could potentially be answered in a number of ways. Unless there is another theme that I’ve missed!
7. happy easter
8. Very well constructed with a good mix of well-known words and more obscure words. Very easy to get the theme after a couple of answers, but the theme word took some careful observation. Thank you for a fun puzzle!
9. Nice to have a quick solve after last month’s!
10. challenging but a lot of fun. Great grid. Kudos
11. good fun
12. A nice idea, though BRRRS and LEOIII were rather giveaways. 17D Italian is usually IT not IL. 19D surely SPEW and OOZE are not synonymous.
13. Neither too easy nor too difficult. Creative theme.
    “14. A lot of the surfaces just don’t make sense. 22a, 26a, 27a, 2d, 6d, 10d, 17d, 18d, 24d, to be specific.
    I also never thought I would see something like BRRRB in a crossword puzzle (assuming it is right). It’s understandable that it was done for the RRR, but I wonder if it’s kosher.
    The theme was evident after getting two of the triplets, and the word triples after the third. Save for the fact I knew there had to be an RRR sequence, I would never have considered BRRRB.
    To add to this, many definitions were vague. How are wasps malevolent ‘people’? Human interest = content of news story? AB = God? The connections once made are understandable, but they are either redundant or vague.
    I also have no idea how to annotate TYPHOON, SALT EEL, NEBBISHER, and UTENSIL either partially of completely, assuming of course that they are right.”
14. nice, simple theme. good fun
15. Many Obscure words, otherwise a nice grid with reasonable degree of difficulty
16. Couldn’t parse a couple of clues (10d and 17d), but otherwise found this fairly smooth. The theme is nice, but it did limit the kind of words that could be used, leading to some weird solution words like 9a and 11a. Overall – didn’t enjoy this one as much as I’ve enjoyed the last few puzzles on this site
17. Wonderful theme. Arrangement of themed words in the rows in a sequential order made it easy to spot the theme word. Brilliant idea.
18. Fun solving the puzzle.
19. Nice and simple grid.
20. Really enjoyable, clever use of the theme letters to spell a relevant word
21. Good fun…found some of the definitions a little vague..otherwise very entertaining
22. Nice Puzzle
23. Nice Puzzle
24. Not as fond of this one as some others. I feel like there may be some regional conventions that I’m missing in the word play because I’m Canadian.
25. Complicated by enjoyable.
26. A fun and inventive theme. Mostly good and challenging clues; a few seemed stretchy (25a WASPS=malevolent people? 2d HO=stop? 23d LANG is not a verb in Scots per an online dictionary, and the currency is actually Ban Liang). Clues for the 4 longest words were all anagrams; would have preferred more variety.
27. Tough puzzle but satisfying to solve
28. Superb
29. Easy theme to spot and fun solve.
30. Many surfaces are not plausible
31. Nice puzzle and theme! Found some of the clues difficult, especially the ones that use slang, and haven’t managed to anno a couple even after looking things up.
32. good one!
33. Good puzzle. Well constructed but some surfaces don’t mean much
34. Interesting
35. EXCELLENT

Instructions

Initial letters of clues spell FOLD EACH CORNER BEHIND TO CENTRE.  When performed the words (at various angles) REPEAT AGAIN are revealed.  Following this repetition, the NINA, ORIGAMI appears.

Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good score of 8.54. It got 12 perfect 10s – i.e 32% of  those who submitted thought it was perfect. The minimum score was 4.

Top 3 Clues:  The most favorite clues were for “GREAT-GRANDSON” with 11 votes, “AIRCRAFT” with 8 votes and “RANI”  and “SATORI” with 7 votes each.

Hope you all enjoyed the brilliant puzzle. Thanks for  your support and wonderful comments. Sharing these comments with our readers..

Comments from solvers:

1. First puzzle on this site, very cleverly done with the interactive grid.
2. As the puzzle folds, pure excitement unfolds. Brilliant idea.
3. Nice and novel idea!
4. Great grid. Some of the clues did not really add up, but all in all, a great puzzle.
5. A very good puzzle with an adequate level of challenge to keep it interesting till the end. Liked the software driven special effects, but the validation check before each step is executed was as good as providing a means to check entries in grid and instructions – could have been avoided in a high quality puzzle
6. Almost not connected
7. The concept and grid design is really innovative. Loved the instructions and the NINA. The clue surfaces suffered because of this, though. The crossword solving was not as enjoyable as figuring out the instructions and NINA
8. Brilliant. How does one even construct something like this? Superb!!
9. EXCELLENT CREATION
10. keep em coming 1AC and Eclogue!
11. Found some of the defs too stretchy/misleading with complex wordplay, thought the WP could be more approachable for those clues. Was a bit of a slog though the end results were worth it.
12. Was very very tough..:) But worth it
13. Had to guess the wording for the second instruction, based on the fact that I thought I could see what the nina was going to be from an early stage. Some of the clues were very obscure!
14. Well constructed to get the folding to work. First fold brings empty picture in Opera browser, but flip and second work OK. 21D isn’t a SAGA one tale?
15. Most Enjoyable Puzzle!
16. please try and avoid using devices that the compiler has got and the solvers do not! what if I do not have a printer .? what if I do not have a software which is only known to the compiler ? let’s restrict ourselves to cryptic puzzles only, no matter however hard they are ! That will be a challenge to the solvers !
17. The printing of the grid and other instructions could have been avoided. The green buttons are yet to appear !!!
18. Found it tough
19. Amazing! Extremely innovative but challenging too
20. Grid was on the tougher side. But the instructions were fun to solve
21. Nice puzzle. A bit challenging
22. Looking forward to discussion and seeing solution to this puzzle
23. Too tough.
24. innovative and challenging
25. Tough clues, and some dialect words I didn’t know. Couldn’t fully anno a few, but fortunately the green buttons confirmed I had them right. Delightful surprises at the end.
12d: be(s trow)ing also fits the wp in a different way! But not the def.”
26. Very tough grid. Loved the software behind the grid with all its hidden surprises.
27. Hard
28. Tough one for me. Missed the magic.
29. Very challenging. Thanks to Viresh for the special effects in the grid!
30. Wow!
31. Innovative concept
32. Really enjoyable puzzle! I had a lot of fun looking for the instructions and the nina. Most of the clues were good but I felt some of them were pretty tough. Haven’t managed to anno all of them. Nevertheless, the process of solving the puzzle step by step was extremely satisfying.
33. Eager to see the nina!
34. unfortunately couldn’t complete , bit frustrated
35. Submitting incomplete
36. Tough but well set.
37. Getting the feeling it’s really good, wish I could get all the answers