Single word vs. directions solves

Last night, Given's ear infection kept him from joining Andrea and I for our Wednesday night session of Agon. Deciding not to waste puzzling time, she and I enjoyed some practice for the SF Mini-Game by working on BANG 12 clues, picking up where we left off after The Smoldering YAK's practice session on Sunday.

One thing I noticed from both sessions, apart from how much fun we had and how well we worked together, was how much more satisfying it felt to solve puzzles to a single word, as opposed to a directional message (monoverbum vs. polyverbum?). I'm not quite sure why this is; all I can say is that in the former case, the clue felt truely solved while in the latter (admitedly only taken from my experiences in Midnight Madness: Back To Basics and a few other practice puzzles) didn't have that feeling of closure. I suppose this could be due my experiences at the Google and Microsoft Puzzle Hunts, where puzzles often solved to messages that told you how to re-solve the puzzle.

Interestingly, it seems clues in SF Mini-Game will do both, solving first to a location and then to a solution word.