XWord Muggles Forum

Solved and confirmed - thanks for the puzzle, Ben

Hmnm... Don't know why I didn't see that until after the nudges where posted even though everything in the nudges I had figured and assumed to begin with. But somehow I see it now and didn't see it the first several days.

Nudged over the moat. Well disguised meta, Ben.

A good burst of solvers today! Keep 'em coming!

bergie
Charles Montpetit
Cinny
KayW
CPJohnson
Mwoychick
woozy
badgey
Kirk B

i had pretty much given up on this one but was revisiting a few metas and part of it finally just jumped out at me and slapped me in the face. then it all fell together. (confirmed by crosshare) i'm finally getting the hang of these i hope. thanks, Ben!

What the last two solvers said - we probably all saw it but didn't see it....dang moat!

Anyway, I'm dried off and sitting in the great hall awaiting the arrival of the jester! Oh good, I've been told that the jester just arrived...hey wait a minute I just arrived. OK, OK, let me fetch my pointy shoes with the bells.

I still struggled. Even with the hints! I just could not shake off the math/science discussion. I made this WAY too hard. But I did get a nice review of astronomy and dark matter.

Minutes after I discovered that my crosswords on Crosshare have stats pages (for constructors only), the website seems to have gone down! I was about to do an update of successful solvers, too.

Edit: Turns out it was just my browser malfunctioning. I restarted it and the site is fine. Weird!

From what was cached on my phone, I can add:

Dow Jones
el
vandono
DrTom
Carolyn
lbray53

I'll do a final solvers update before posting the solution Monday morning (Australia time).

Only one additional solver before the answer reveal:

hashbrown

Congratulations to the 42 successful solvers!

By the way, this was my most completed grid on Crosshare: 192 people completed the puzzle. There were 52 meta submissions, with 39 correct responses. (The other 3 correct solvers submitted via DM.)

Monday morning here in Melbourne, which means... the solution:


Four black squares ("DARK MATTER") were acting as MAGNETS, each attracting a specific letter. IRON is an appropriate answer, since IRON is ferro-magnetic. But props to a couple of solvers who suggested NOIR (perhaps following an inward spiral pattern, like something moving under the influence of gravity with some orbital velocity but not quite enough to escape!)

Another MOAT to cross coming your way on Tuesday. (And, if all goes to plan, a guest appearance on MGWCC on Friday!)