XWord Muggles Forum

Nudged across the moat.

The nudges were released a couple of days ago, and they had the desired effect: more solvers!

jbird
whimsy
Cindy Weatherman
Meg
Cindy Heisler
Johnny Luau
KayW
LindaPRmaven
CPJohnson

Keep at it. This puzzle is so much easier than the current Matt Gaffney week 4!

Before I release the answer, here are the remaining solvers:

Spid4567
prog plus chat
Laura M

That's a total of 20. I guess that's reasonable for a week 3!

Here's the answer to "Literary Numbers":


This grid was fiendishly difficult to construct. I had to get 4 entries in with specific clue numbers and four author surnames. PUBLISHER in the centre was a bonus: it was a word that came up as I was working on the fill and I realised it could be clued to provide a hint. Then, of course, there was the give-away at the bottom of the grid. As I worked on the fill, there were times I wanted to change the grid slightly, but every time it would mess up the clue numbers. In the end I just had to live with some tricky grid entries, especially in the bottom left corner.

As for the meta mechanic, I hope you enjoyed the moment when you first realised the clue number was part of a book title. Admittedly, I ignored "The" for two of them, and the number could go before or after the grid entry. But I figured it would be obvious enough once you found one (in conjunction with the included author names and perhaps some judicious googling). Out of interest, which one did you see first? My money is on either "CATCH 22" or "(The) 39 STEPS".

After the first day of play, I edited the clue for 22 down on Crosshare: there were definitely too many numbers, when only "8" was needed. I'll put it down to my unfamiliarity with the source material: as a baseball outsider, I did not know how well known "The Catch" was.

Before the nudges I saw only Catch 22!

Catch 22 was the first for me. Followed by 39 Steps. Then Station 11 as my wife just read it.