To solve, add four or five words to the message until all is revealed.

I am clearly missing something direction wise
Can I confirm how the 90 degrees clockwise turn works? I had assumed it is relevant to the direction I am travelling so eg if I travelled South from the Z in the top row and got all the way to V in the bottom row, without being able to execute an instruction, my clockwise turn would effectively head me West towards the O in the bottom corner. But perhaps thats the wrong way??
And where do I go next if I have travelled SE from that same Z and gotten to the S in the bottom row? A clockwise turn would seem to send me outside the border
Or am I overthinking it and I should just ricochet like Pong

Your thinking is good, flotsam. If you were to go south to the border, your clockwise 90 degree turn would send you to the left, as you said. If you were to go SE from the Z in the top row, looks like you'd land up in outer space and eventually run out of oxygen - distressed not by your impending death but by the fact that you'll die without knowing the answer.

I want to play more with this one, myself. I'll let you know.

Thanks Pandora

One additional question...as I come back to this puzzle every couple of days to tackle again

I just noticed one (possible?) final instruction below the instructions and grid.



Where does one get the "four or five words" noted in your final instruction?

Or is this a clever part of the puzzle?

I meant that a solver should provide the next four or five words of the solution. As I recall, it's several sentences in length but I sure can't find it and I can no longer solve this puzzle on my own. I know it's been done before, I remember that it's devilishly hard and my apologies are profuse to all of you. Good luck to whoever is still trying.

I'm confused if the directions are singular moves or continuous strings of letters. Neither seems to work.

For example, tarting at direction 1, if I move S from the Z in the top row, do I say that is F? Or do I go S and keep going with that string of letters until I get to the next instruction to stop at the "cell before Q" and turn NE, in which case the answer would start with "FUSI"? It also appears that no matter what diagonal direction you go from the "cell before Q" in that starting row, you don't hit an X, which comes next, so I don't see how this works.

I think this is a five star puzzle because those stars end up spinning around your head.

This is as far as I got: It's_a_

Going south from the Z leads to the I before the Q. The FUSI letters don't get counted. Since we must change directions at I, we'd then go NE to the T. Since the T forces a change in direction, it becomes the next letter and we travel SE to the X. Direction #3 says to go W after the X so the ' becomes the turning point. The second K is followed by an S where we change direction to NW. Bounce off the left wall at the space (_) and go NE to the A (between two H's). From there we go E....

Wait, I'll stop here and let you try.