XWord Muggles Forum

Got there after a slight stumble. Great puzzle

Were Magpie and Leo in the second puzzle are a reference to this weeks Australian Football League Grand Final. If so GO LIONS!

SeamusOL wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:08 am Were Magpie and Leo in the second puzzle are a reference to this weeks Australian Football League Grand Final. If so GO LIONS!

Entirely unintentional. However, my wife supports the Magpies, so they will be who I will be barracking for!

Crossed the moat…. With nudges! Love this puzzle! Thank you, Ben!

Very cool indeed. Had the idea of nudge 4 early on, but needed nudge 3 to point me in the right direction of how to do it. Then needed nudge 6 to focus me on something I should already have been doing. Very fun one, thanks!

MOAT crossed, needed nudge 6 to get all the way there. Very clever Ben!

I had two dreams last night where I was solving this meta. But then I woke up and don't have it. Maybe the dream will help later.

I was completely blind to the first important element and totally ignorant about the second. Except for that, it was pretty easy.

Crossed the MOAT at last, but had to circle around the walls - I think it may have been seven times...

Well, the nudges have definitely helped. Another 17 solvers have joined the earlier 19, bringing us to 36.

markhr
SeamusOL
MrTheHan
DCBilly
Ergcat
kurtalert
JM
ajk
DrButtBeard
dannyvee
woozy
CPJohnson
rayyandroid
Bird Lives
hoover
ReB
Tane

Next (and last) update, before the answer reveal Monday morning, Australia time.

This meta is absolutely genius, and it was complete luck that I caught onto it quickly! My brain was on the right wavelength, for once.

Laura M wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 10:54 pm This meta is absolutely genius, and it was complete luck that I caught onto it quickly! My brain was on the right wavelength, for once.

I was going to award you a MOAT Music Meta Pack for being so quick! But then I realised you had already bought it!!

Two more solvers, bringing us to a grand total of 38:

Tyrpmom
Darrell

Here's the solution to "There's More To This":


This was a fun one to construct! I had the idea for a meta in which the answer was a link which, when you entered it into a browser, took you to another meta. The names for both came next, as did the idea of SECOND SIGHT sounding like "second site". The puzzle names then suggested the meta mechanics. I constructed the second puzzle first, and then once I had a Crosshare link, I worked out how to do a tinyurl custom link. I toyed with the idea of using valid words in this link, but everything I tried was already taken. So random letters it was! Then, I worked out grid entries that could include "more" in their clues, so that they would sound as natural as possible. Then I constructed the first puzzle. Doing this one after the other allowed me to slip the two subtle hints in.

Hope you enjoyed this double meta! Kudos again to @Laura M for the solve within 21 minutes of me posting the puzzle!

The stats on this puzzle are interesting:

248 grid completions for "There's More To This".
72 clicks registered of people entering tinyurl.com/TEHITAAST into a browser and thus getting to the second puzzle. (It's possible that people used the link more than once.)
38 completions for "Than Meets The Eyes".
44 attempts at solving the meta on "There's More To This".
38 correct answers.

So it looks like the 38 solvers who completed the second grid also solved the meta! But a lot of people completed the first grid and didn't get any further than that.

Great puzzle! I got stuck on the last step Saturday and finished it off this evening. (I solved it before the American deadline)

The Second Site/Sight cleverness went right by me. Really enjoyed it!

Missed the deadline on a fishing trip. I needed all of the clues to figure out the tinyurl. Unfortunately, internet was sketchy in the northwoods and the tinyurl brought up a blank page. I got confirmation that it was the right thing to do. @Dr. Tom was even kind enough to send me a link. But then the fish started biting and I did not get back to it until this morning.

I found the answer fairly quickly but stumbled on SICARII and why R was not used.

Bravo, @benchen71! Awesome idea and execution!