A Riley by the Pool

Question

Okay, so maybe my Riley riddles aren’t as simple as I portray them to be. Here’s another for the community. Good luck as always.

Observe the prefix, you’ve already seen it; you all know it’s hidden; it’s place you’ll forget.

Remember the infix I tell you it’s rare; or maybe an animal, perhaps a bear?

Examine the suffix, four lines quite bold; this one is easy, the story unfolds.

Always look before crossing the road; left and then right, swap bear with toad.

Hint: Since this one seems to be a little more complicated, I'll help everyone out with a simple hint.

The letters you seek, are given to you; in order in fact, for you to view.
Take caution I say, here's food for thought; four letters are given, the acrostic is not.
But that is a lie, its only plus one; the suffix is lying, the acrostic undone.

Hint: I'm going to give a final hint for this riddle, mostly because I don't think it is worthy of a bounty.

I've given you the answer, look to the left; find what is added, what fits the best.
It's really hard work, especially alone; but build a team, and bring it on home.

Hint: This riddle needs more attention.

Look to the acrostic, the answer is there; just piece it together, of extras beware.

Hint: This is literally the final hint as I am giving away the answer at this point. Explain how it relates to the Riley and how the title was a hint. I am only doing this because I don't want to leave it unanswered.

The first letter is round, the last letter curves; the middle letter a mountain, with a bridge quite absurd.

Answer 1

Is this an

OAR?

The first letter is round,

O

the last letter curves;

R

the middle letter a mountain, with a bridge quite absurd.

A

Riley:

Observe the prefix, you’ve already seen it; you all know it’s hidden; it’s place you’ll forget.

It’s hidden in Observe

Remember the infix I tell you it’s rare; or maybe an animal, perhaps a bear?

In rAre, AnimAl, or beAr

Examine the suffix, four lines quite bold; this one is easy, the story unfolds.

You can make an R out of 4 lines (if the curve becomes two lines)

Always look before crossing the road; left and then right, swap bear with toad.

Crossing ROAD (ie changing and removing some of the letters) gives OAR

Title:

An OAR can be found by the pool.

Answer 2

Possibly way off track -

SInce its a @PerpetualJ riddle and also it has an acrostic tag, I had a look at the acrostic that spells- OREA, which didn't make any sense. so i used ROT13 and got BERN, which is a city in Switzerland and coincidentally it also means bear. Not sure where to go from here, or if i am even remotely on to something..

Answer 3

The Making Of: A Riley by the Pool

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Note: This is not a solution to the puzzle, but provides notes from its poser. This type of answer has been [approved by the community][1].

Caution: This post may contain spoilers.

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Inspiration

The inspiration for this riddle was actually the homophone riddles by @Duck. I wanted to create a heavily misleading Riley that had only one true answer, but was full of red herrings to lead to the other. The title was meant to lead to the true answer by:

Relating that an oar is a paddle used for steering a boat in water while ore is a naturally occurring mineral.

Creative Steps

The Initial Riddle: The riddle itself remained in its original form from the beginning. The idea was to present the answer within the riddle while misleading the audience.

Observe the prefix, you’ve already seen it;

This is telling you that the prefix is already present in the riddle and though it is not telling you exactly where you've seen it, you know that you have. This is helpful later on as you solve the rest of the riddle. I figured this would probably be the last thing people would find.

Remember the infix I tell you it’s rare; or maybe an animal, perhaps a bear?

This is showing the true infix while also giving a fake infix. While the false infix of r is present in rare, and bear, the true infix is present in rare, animal, and bear.

Examine the suffix, four lines quite bold; this one is easy, the story unfolds.

This was a lie meant to mislead you; the line begins with the letter e and a capital E is comprised of four lines.

Always look before crossing the road; left and then right, swap bear with toad.

This line is meant to help undo the lie of the suffix, and to correct the misleading nature of the infix. Left and then right is telling you to look at the acrostic and then the full riddle, while swap bear with toad can be solved one of two ways. Either you compare what was removed, or compare what is gained. Either way you end up with remove e or add a.

The Hints As time passed by I began noticing the riddle was more difficult to solve than I thought, or the community just wasn't a fan of it. Either way, I wanted to ensure a solution was reached so I began giving hints.

The letters you seek, are given to you; in order in fact, for you to view. Take caution I say, here's food for thought; four letters are given, the acrostic is not. But that is a lie, its only plus one; the suffix is lying, the acrostic undone.

This hint is telling you that the answer is in the acrostic but the acrostic is out of order and contains an extra letter. It also tells you the suffix is a lie.

Logistical Steps and Resources

This was mostly limited to Google and Wikipedia.

Final Thoughts

I believe this riddle was either really difficult or that the community didn't enjoy it. Feel free to give feedback so that I can write better riddles in the future.

Questions for the Community

If you would like to present feedback, please feel free to answer the following questions in a comment below. If someone has already stated something highly similar to your thoughts, just up-vote their comment!

• What are your thoughts on the riddle?
• On a scale of 1 - 10, how would you rate the initial riddle?
• Did any of the listed answers occur to you in your search at any point?
• Is there anything I could have done better?