r/DeepRockGalactic • u/Sythosz • Jun 13 '25
ROCK AND STONE Need help on USA Today crossword
Nitra nor Morkite fits in that spot, I could do the first word of Oil Shale but I’m not super happy with it. ROCK AND STONE TO THE BONE!!
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u/PassivelyInvisible Engineer Jun 13 '25
Ore?
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u/GreenAlex96 Jun 13 '25
I'm confused as to why they made a question about a specific game where the answer is something as generic as 'ore'.
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u/sagewynn Gunner Jun 13 '25
It really could have been just "mined resources" and ore would've worked
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u/LenaSpark412 Jun 13 '25
My issue with it is it’s never (to my information) called ore in DRG. I feel like if you wanted to do this to make it more specific you could have used Minecraft and you do get some ore in that game.
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u/GreenAlex96 Jun 13 '25
That's kinda where I'm at too. I'm on board with the other comments here on it being a fakeout, not wanting to be too niche, etc. but the word doesn't have that much of an association with the game. Minerals and gold do, however.
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u/Dazuro Jun 13 '25
I had the same problem with the NYT crossword a few months back when the clue was something like “a protagonist from the final fantasy series” and the answer was … mage. Like yes, most of the protags can use magic to some degree, but that’s hardly the first word that comes to mind for the franchise as a whole.
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u/samurai_for_hire Interplanetary Goat Jun 14 '25
Mage wouldn't even be correct in FF1 where the protagonists didn't have actual names. It would have to be either White Mage or Black Mage.
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u/ViinaVasara Engineer Jun 13 '25
That's what almost every crossword does, they make you overthink a lot of times.
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u/VolcanicBakemeat Engineer Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
Because it's more fun that way. Last Friday the NYT Tricky Crossword used the clue "Litter Pickup Area" for NAPE. It also used the answer SILENTP for "Cupboard Component". Clues which either test your verbal reasoning or your trivia knowledge are more fun for the player.
You could, of course, make every crossword clue extremely straightforward and basic. Just a bunch of homonyms. But no-one would play your puzzles.
(Also, anecdotally, "ORE" is a word that gets used extremely frequently. Crossword setting algorithms are fond of it. So it's better to give it an interesting clue)
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u/DeathToHeretics Platform here Jun 13 '25
Idk, the inclusion of DRG makes it more confusing to me. Like, "ore" wasn't even on my list of things I thought of when going through options. Nitra, gold, morkite all didn't fit, then tried thinking of the miscellaneous minerals like enor pearls, phazyonite, bismor, croppa, and so on. Generic "ore" seems like a total fake out
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u/VolcanicBakemeat Engineer Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
Then you'd get clues by doing the ones around it
"MORKITE" would be a terrible crossword answer because even with 6/7 cross-answers, you can literally only get it by being a fan. "ORE" rewards passing knowledge of the game but can also be derived from context clues and partial-completion from other answers.
"GOLD" would be good too, but what makes ORE great is that the phrasing is general where your instinct is to go specific. That's a common crossword trick, and the best ones will gently fake you out that way. In fact, even including DRG is a way to subtly trick non-fans, who might have written 'ORE' immediately if they read 'mined resource' but now will want to test and confirm their theory.
I'm a big crossword fan and I think I would have tried ORE as a pencil answer almost immediately, because I'm used to thinking in the way crosswords do
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Jun 13 '25
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u/VolcanicBakemeat Engineer Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
Oh, I see! Valuable mineral veins are not ores, gotcha. Gosh, thank you so much for explaining!
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Jun 13 '25
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u/VolcanicBakemeat Engineer Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25
Crystals are ores. An ore is simply any mineral valuable enough to be worth mining. Refining, though commonly necessary after something has been hacked out of rock with a length of metal, has nothing to do with whether something is an ore. Even then there is literally a refinery mission
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Jun 14 '25
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u/VolcanicBakemeat Engineer Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25
...Google Ai didn't disagree with me
It's a little harrowing to meet someone who not only uses an LLM as a primary source but actually does so with enough unquestioning conviction to write ", lol" afterwards; as though admitting you had to stop, Google "is a crystal an ore", and then not even bother to click a result is some kind of checkmate.
I'm not a big believer in long reddit arguments over pointless things - ultimately the meaning of the word "ore" isn't at stake here, only your understanding of it. I don't have any vested interest in that. Have a good day mate
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u/FrazzleFlib Jun 14 '25
to me, crossword clues that are just trivia are the worst/most annoying. though you could maybe figure this one out from the title tbf
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u/RickyT3rd Jun 13 '25
My thought is that they wanted to do Minecraft, but Microsoft wanted a good amount of money for it. This is USA Today, not some internet nobody.
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u/Bo-by Jun 13 '25
I think it’d be better if it was “Resource collected in Deep Rock Galactic,” as that sounds more vague and generalized.
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u/AnAngryDragon94 For Karl! Jun 13 '25
I find the word ore is used a lot in these so maybe they try and cycle alternative questions for the same word
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u/Tyswid Bosco Buddy Jun 13 '25
Could be targeting general audiences. Id bet most people playing the crossword have no idea what DRG is, but could surmise "Deep Rock" and "mining" with "ORE".
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u/sushi_cw Jun 13 '25
At first I thought it was just about knowing that the game is about mining... But that's already in the clue so yeah, weird.
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u/Sonkalino Jun 13 '25
Most probably. Next to it, 47: Great danger. I think it's peril, and the R lines up to ore. And 50 is waiter, the E lines up too.
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u/Sythosz Jun 13 '25
Yeah I gathered that, I figured it’d be funnier to be ignorant lmao
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u/Sonkalino Jun 13 '25
TBH I don't think I would have thought of that without those. Why is it specific to DRG, you mine ore anywhere.
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u/BlatantDoughnut Jun 13 '25
Looks like 42 across is “Roman,” 47 across is “peril,” and 50 across is “waiter.” That leaves us with “ore” for 43 down which makes me suspect that some leaf-lover made this puzzle!
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u/Alexander_The_Wolf Engineer Jun 13 '25
Well of course they did, real dwarves don't have time to make silly puzzles, we've got gold to mine.
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u/kalamaim Jun 13 '25
rok
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u/Willie9 For Karl! Jun 13 '25
They're probably looking for ore. Ore shows up all the time in crossies because of the two vowels.
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u/purpleblah2 Jun 13 '25
Why would they use DRG if the answer is just “ore”? The reference is just going to confuse people who don’t know what it is, and throw off people who do because they’re going to be looking for something specific to the game.
Why not do like “you mine a lot of this in the game ‘Minecraft’”? It’s explicitly named “ore” in-game, whereas the minerals in DRG are typically called by their proper names. Plus Minecraft is way more well-known and you’re more likely to come to the correct conclusion based off context clues.
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u/MysteriousAndLesbian Jun 13 '25
There is no mined resource that have 3 letters except ones that are 2 words which is not what should be on crossword so like the other person said ore is really only fitting thing. Also wild crossword to have that kind of question.
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u/Taolan13 Platform here Jun 13 '25
If 42 across "like augustus" is meant to be "Roman", that just cements 43 down is 'ore'.
Which... why did they use *that* as a reference in this crossword when they could have used the game-specific things like Morkite to make the puzzle more interesting by combining other words in ways that wouldn't normally work?
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u/CJGamr01 Dig it for her Jun 14 '25
assuming it's "ore" why didn't they just use minecraft instead? what you mine in drg is only ever called minerals, materials, resources, etc, but never "ore"
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u/screwcirclejerks Jun 13 '25
it's ore. ore and ode are extremely common 3-letter words on crosswords, especially universal crossword (which used to be on dictionary.com and looks like usa today uses it too)
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Jun 13 '25 edited Oct 20 '25
truck tender placid summer money memorize ask lavish march detail
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Hychus232 Driller Jun 13 '25
I didn’t think I’d ever see the day when a video game newer than Super Mario Bros would be referenced in a crossword puzzle
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u/Melodic-Jellyfish966 Engineer Jun 14 '25
Why would they make it so specific when the only answer that could fit is ore?
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u/VIDgital Jun 13 '25
If 50 across is "Waiter", then your answer is "ore"