No, that’s my answer too.

Adri,

Just to let you know that I have looked at this but I've been too busy elsewhere on WCG (as you may have noticed!); I'm obviously suffering from brain-fade as a result, because I can't get a handle on this at all :-)

I have several "puzzles" about the puzzle:

• Does the 'x' actually signify a secret (but possibly constant) value, or is it some sort of position marker, or something else?
  
• Does END indicate that one must consider the numbers nearest to it last of all?
  
• If there is something algebraic about this, are the operations the same in all 4 cells?
  

I don't expect answers to those questions, they're just my "problems"...

Confronted with those confusions, I am getting nowhere fast (and yes, I do realize that when you eventually explain it I'll think some [probably impolite] version of "Oh, yes, of course"...)

I'll revisit when I'm not feeling so exhausted, but I doubt I'll do any better then :-(

Cheers - Al.

Adri.

Thanks for that. It was one of the options I'd considered, but I still hadn't managed to suss out something based on that, especially as a "walk" through the numbers that didn't allow diagonals (or knight's moves?) couldn't visit every number when the x wasn't in the top left corner! (But then, what if it doesn't have to visit every number...???)

Still confused, but now in a better position to try to sort it out when I can get to it... You certainly got the "meant to be extra hard at first" bit right, judging by the silence from our other "regulars"

Cheers - Al.

No, I really don’t see this one :-(

Dear puzzle participants,
You may have been waiting for the solution to last weekend's puzzle:

What is the value of the question mark?

┏━━━┯━━━┯━━━┓┏━━━┯━━━┯━━━┓┏━━━┯━━━┯━━━┓┏━━━┯━━━┯━━━┓
┃ x │ 1 │ 4 ┃┃ x │ 1 │ 4 ┃┃ 1 │ x │ 2 ┃┃ 4 │ 1 │ 2 ┃
┠───┼───┼───┨┠───┼───┼───┨┠───┼───┼───┨┠───┼───┼───┨
┃ 2 │ 6 │ 5 ┃┃ 3 │ 3 │ 4 ┃┃ 0 │ 5 │ 3 ┃┃ x │ 4 │ 5 ┃
┠───┼───┼───┨┠───┼───┼───┨┠───┼───┼───┨┠───┼───┼───┨
┃ 1 │ 0 │END┃┃ 2 │ 2 │END┃┃ 2 │ 1 │END┃┃ 8 │ 3 │END┃
┗━━━┷━━━┷━━━┛┗━━━┷━━━┷━━━┛┗━━━┷━━━┷━━━┛┗━━━┷━━━┷━━━┛
     → 3          → 6          → 4          → ?

Answer: 7
Explanation:
In each of the four grids, the 'x' marks the beginning of a series and 'END' marks the end. The number below each grid denotes the lowest possible sum of the figures in the grid, moving from beginning to end, where only horizontal and vertical moves are allowed. In the rightmost grid, you can move from 'x' to 4 in the middle, then move down to 3, then move to END: 4 + 3 = 7. That is the lowest possible sum.

Thanks for your efforts!
Adri