XWord Muggles Forum

Beam me up. Fun one.

Beam me up! This was so clever. I’m always amazed at his puzzle construction.

Finally I can beam up! Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

hcbirker wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:51 pm Finally I can beam up! Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

at least you'll put pineapple on your pizza, that makes you your own friend also.

MajordomoTom wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:18 pm

hcbirker wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:51 pm Finally I can beam up! Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

at least you'll put pineapple on your pizza, that makes you your own friend also.

No pineapple on my pizza! Or anchovies, either. To each his/her own. I don't judge.

Beam me up!

Anchovies, yum! Pineapple, yech! Meta answer? Not yet!

olives, yes
mushrooms, no

anchovies - why?
PINEAPPLE, YUM

Meta - keep working on it, you'll get it.

This one takes a bit of housekeeping to find the answer.

Anchovies and pineapple -- both fine on a pizza -- but never together.

As a relative newcomer to Mark's Matt's competition and meta crosswords as a whole, how much in the way of hints can I potentially receive? Feel like there are a couple of things I've tried exploring but nothing has yielded a result so far.

edit - name mixup

hashbrown wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:55 am As a relative newcomer to Mark's competition and meta crosswords as a whole, how much in the way of hints can I potentially receive? Feel like there are a couple of things I've tried exploring but nothing has yielded a result so far.

Hash,
I guess you mean Matt's competition? We call it the MGWCC. You won’t get any hints from the message boards. However, a dm to someone who has solved it can get you A BRAND NEW CAR!! No, that’s a lie. In dms you can ask for all the hints you want. I suppose it depends on whom you ask, but we are all fairly friendly and helpful. One suggestion: don’t ask for a hint 2 hours after the puzzle drops. Put some work into trying to solve it.

Meg

bhamren wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:24 pm Fun week 2. I showed it to my son and wife and they asked if I was speaking Finnish. Oh well, fun for me anyway.

Very close to the reaction I frequently get from my wife, except I'm pretty sure she's asking "Are you finished speaking??" !!

Meg wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:42 pm You won’t get any hints from the message boards. However, a dm to someone who has solved it can get you A BRAND NEW CAR!! No, that’s a lie. In dms you can ask for all the hints you want. I suppose it depends on whom you ask, but we are all fairly friendly and helpful. . . .

Now that hinting has become a thing, maybe there ought to be a thread about giving hints. It seems there’s an art to constructing hints at various levels of helpfulness. At one end are hints that would “help” only those who had already solved the puzzle. For example, over on the WSJ board this week, I referred to something being “kinky.” Unlikely that anyone still at see would make the connection. But a reference to “Kinks hits” (or “Paul Simon musical”) would, for most solvers, be TMI. How do you create something in between?

My first guess is that it depends on the puzzle and that there aren’t any general principles. But it might be worth discussing. Maybe someone has already constructed a systematic outline, “Notes on Nudging.”

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 2:09 pm

Meg wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:42 pm You won’t get any hints from the message boards. However, a dm to someone who has solved it can get you A BRAND NEW CAR!! No, that’s a lie. In dms you can ask for all the hints you want. I suppose it depends on whom you ask, but we are all fairly friendly and helpful. . . .

Now that hinting has become a thing, maybe there ought to be a thread about giving hints. It seems there’s an art to constructing hints at various levels of helpfulness. At one end are hints that would “help” only those who had already solved the puzzle. For example, over on the WSJ board this week, I referred to something being “kinky.” Unlikely that anyone still at see would make the connection. But a reference to “Kinks hits” (or “Paul Simon musical”) would, for most solvers, be TMI. How do you create something in between?

My first guess is that it depends on the puzzle and that there aren’t any general principles. But it might be worth discussing. Maybe someone has already constructed a systematic outline, “Notes on Nudging.”

I've heard that giving hints has become a thing...

Guidance on Hints/Nudges

If i've said once, I've said it. . .
well, five times.

Apologies for the multi-post. I can't imagine how it happened. And the rules of the board do not allow me to delete them.
I hope nobody read all five, or even two, thinking that some brilliant variation must be lying hidden in them like a clever meta.

hashbrown wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:55 am As a relative newcomer to Mark's competition and meta crosswords as a whole, how much in the way of hints can I potentially receive? Feel like there are a couple of things I've tried exploring but nothing has yielded a result so far.

When you submit your answer to MGWCC, you select a button to indicate whether you solved it 'solo'. Google or other electronic/paper references don't count as getting help; that's just research. But if you receive any help whatsoever from any other person (*) you should mark 'no'. If you mark 'yes', the help can be pretty much anything you like. You probably wouldn't want to bother submitting if someone just told you, "The answer is pink elephants". But hints can run from very basic reminders of general principles to telling you to drop the path you're on and start over to an idea where to start to very detailed instructions. And it's totally up to you how much help you can get and still submit.

If you'd like help on this one, feel free to PM me and tell me what you're working on and I'll try to nudge you in the right direction without telling you so much that you won't want to submit. (As Bird notes, that's a challenge of its own.)

(*) For MGWCC, there is some rule about small groups that always solve together being counted as a single solo solver, but I've forgotten the details. They should be in the FAQ on the new improved website that's going to be up one of these days.

solved. i really enjoyed this one.

I am amazed at the number of solvers this week. This is not a trivial, take the first letters from the theme fills and it spells your answer type puzzle. This puzzle takes some thinking, but over 500 people have solved it already. That really speaks to the high skill level of Matt’s subscribers.

oldjudge wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 5:48 pm I am amazed at the number of solvers this week. This is not a trivial, take the first letters from the theme fills and it spells your answer type puzzle. This puzzle takes some thinking, but over 500 people have solved it already. That really speaks to the high skill level of Matt’s subscribers.

Yet I still can’t see it! I’d appreciate a small nudge if anyone is willing.

Edit: Beam me up!

Whew made it to the board again and I’m AMAZED. I doubt I’d ever have found the rather intricate mechanism (at least it seemed that way to me) that gave me the first part so I could get to the second when I first started all of this. Plus, were it not for a warning shot across the bow I still would have managed to mess it up in my disordered approach. Still, there I am listed along with the gods of METAs (OK so maybe 400 plus levels AFTER them but still within a thousand!). I’ll be interested to see the answers that were considered wrong, and also how people knew there were wrong answers? I still cannot determine how they do that from the information that is available. Ah, the META gods.