XWord Muggles Forum

Toby wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 10:25 pm That is not what us mere mortals consider much of a hint.

I thought that about last week's hint!

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2019 9:21 am I solved it... but after one bad submission and using the hint. Absolute genius!

Right??! I can't believe he did that...

Holy cow - this was amazing! It all ties together and it was a lot of fun finding all the pieces. Definitely a classic, and pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten it without the hint. I spent the last fours days chasing what turned out to be red herrings before stumbling down the right path.

I want to amazed.

Well I think I finally got it. I was much more confident about some parts than others, but the answer I came up with was so great that my justifications must be correct. Maybe.

When I was done, I googled "Can thinking too much hurt your brain?" If brain rest is recommended after a concussion, then thinking too hard must be potentially harmful, right? What if these metas are actually destroying our brain cells??

This is just too hard for me!

FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:54 pm
What if these metas are actually destroying our brain cells??

With all the pints of Guinness and fishbowls of beer, I don’t think it’s the metas that are destroying the brain cells of this group!

TMart wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2019 6:16 pm

FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:54 pm
What if these metas are actually destroying our brain cells??

With all the pints of Guinness and fishbowls of beer, I don’t think it’s the metas that are destroying the brain cells of this group!

Lol I have to admit I just ordered a fishbowl...

I’d like to buy a vowel.

I still have no idea what’s going on with this one.

I had an idea I was very excited about.

Wow!

After a week of on-and-off anguish, I finally got it, BUT ... only after a fellow puzzler let me know which is the not-parenthetically-numbered clue that helps points you to the path. That got me out of the very unpromising rabbit holes I had been pursuing, and put me in another rabbit hole, which, at first, was also yielding nothing much more than confusion. But THEN ... I finally noticed something. And the solution began to roll out from there.

This puzzle is, as someone else here put it so well, epic. In retrospect, I now see how I could have solved it on my own, but I don't think I would have, without the hints. I'm getting better at these meta puzzles, but still not that good.

I would rate this one, on a Gaffney-like scale, as a Week 5. What do other solvers think?

Peter, you're never ceasing to amaze.

RPardoe wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2019 9:33 am

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2019 9:22 am

Laura M wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 3:10 pm Got it with the hint, oh my heck. This will be a classic.

100% agree; this is the best meta I've seen in years.

Curious to find out (ie solve) as I think Pete's "Change Your Tune" (Matt Gaffney #525 - Guest Constructor Puzzle, June 22, 2018) was a pretty clever meta.

And I did find out about the solve as I got the puzzle (with help).

I will just say I disagree with the assessments and continue to think "Change Your Tune" was the more clever meta.

Got it. Had to have someone tell me which clue was the key to solving. So many other clues stood out more to me. I don’t think drawing more attention to this clue would have taken anything away from the puzzle. Actually, quite the opposite.

Anyone want to pay it forward and push me toward the relevant clue? (I think I may actually have found the relevant clue and I need the next step, but really anything's possible.)

Wow, so many people wanted to pay it forward. Thanks guys! I'm pretty sure I got it.

I have to say, I think there's a fine line between "meta crossword" and "inside joke the constructor has with himself." Without the hint, this puzzle is very much in the latter category. With the hint, IMHO, it's still only straddling that very fine line.

damefox wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 4:59 pm Wow, so many people wanted to pay it forward. Thanks guys! I'm pretty sure I got it.

I have to say, I think there's a fine line between "meta crossword" and "inside joke the constructor has with himself." Without the hint, this puzzle is very much in the latter category. With the hint, IMHO, it's still only straddling that very fine line.

I hear what you're saying, but in looking at my notes from the beginning, I had written down two... well, let's just call them "things" until tomorrow... that should have kicked me towards the trick, but for some reason I got away from them. Looking back, knowing now what I know, and now knowing what I didn't know I knew then (still with me??), I really believe he gave us enough to solve it. Maybe a MGWCC Week 5 difficulty, but definitely solvable.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:42 pm

damefox wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 4:59 pm Wow, so many people wanted to pay it forward. Thanks guys! I'm pretty sure I got it.

I have to say, I think there's a fine line between "meta crossword" and "inside joke the constructor has with himself." Without the hint, this puzzle is very much in the latter category. With the hint, IMHO, it's still only straddling that very fine line.

I hear what you're saying, but in looking at my notes from the beginning, I had written down two... well, let's just call them "things" until tomorrow... that should have kicked me towards the trick, but for some reason I got away from them. Looking back, knowing now what I know, and now knowing what I didn't know I knew then (still with me??), I really believe he gave us enough to solve it. Maybe a MGWCC Week 5 difficulty, but definitely solvable.

Much easier to comment now that the solution is out, so I don't have to do back-flips to avoid spoilers. I should rephrase "inside joke the constructor has with himself" to "inside joke the constructor has with himself and everyone who's been solving these puzzles since week 1." Maybe not impossible to figure out if you're new to PGWCC, but I think people who were already familiar with past mechanisms definitely had a leg up. I started at week 28, so nothing that hearkened back to older weeks stood out to me (maybe I should've recognized KURTWEILL at 31, but that wasn't enough). I won't dispute that it's a very well-constructed puzzle and extremely impressive that he was able to fit all of that in there, but I think it's a little bit of a bummer for new solvers that it doesn't stand alone.

damefox wrote: ↑Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:18 am I should rephrase "inside joke the constructor has with himself" to "inside joke the constructor has with himself and everyone who's been solving these puzzles since week 1." Maybe not impossible to figure out if you're new to PGWCC, but I think people who were already familiar with past mechanisms definitely had a leg up.

The above is a big reason I felt some hesitation about this one. Tried to mitigate it by linking to the archives, but I know - searching through them was probably less rewarding, and more annoying, than recognizing them from past experience. (I also thought the "clue numbers correspond to the past puzzle being used" part of it would click more readily than it seems to have.)

So - my apologies, and rest assured - this week's stands on its own (though not without a winking reference in the clues ...)

Wow, you definitely need more than one "meta-" prefix to describe this one!