Rack Up The Points

[MikeyG]

I have an idea of perhaps the nature of the mechanism but not the mechanism itself. To accept a nudge or not accept a nudge, that is the question...

[whimsy]

Off the couch/scratch pad.
Capturecouchprinted.PNG
Thanks, DrTom!

I thought that couch had math formulas on it at first, haha.

Maybe it does.
Heck of a cheat sheet to try to sneak in to your SAT tests!

[TeamDoubleTow]

Ahhh… from the nudges I see that we may be in an area I know nothing about. Can’t even think of a thing that fulfills what they are cluing. Y’all go on without me…

It's possible that you are in an area you know nothing about, but considering the nature and subject of this forum I highly doubt that.

This conversation got me off the couch
Fun puzzle!

Add us to that camp! Great puzzle! Thanks @DrTom

[DrTom]

Finally off the couch!! Excellent meta and one I should have gotten without Dr Tom practically having to pull me out from under the couch!!

Oh, come on - after I pried that one paw loose you slid out like a trooper.

[DrTom]

I have an idea of perhaps the nature of the mechanism but not the mechanism itself. To accept a nudge or not accept a nudge, that is the question...

When you are ready let me know!

[JeanneC]

Some I see and some I don’t. This looks like it will fall into the latter category. I will continue regardless!

[HeadinHome]

Okay okay — after Dr. Tom was kind enough to assure me that I have indeed had experience with this subject matter (he was very sure) and letting me know it was not the subject matter I assumed and feared it was, from the nudges, I wracked my brain and remembered something. Looked something up, also remembered a comment in a zoom call about “wouldn’t that be a good mechanism…”. And it was. Very, very clever, and I’m sure a challenge to construct!

Couch vacant… back to work!

[DrTom]

I realize I have been remiss in posting a solvers board. Here are those who racked their brains long enough to get to the answer:

1 TMart
2 Mme
3 Carolyn
4 oldjudge
5 Laura M
6 Whimsy
7 Meg
8 Benchen71
9 dudeski
10 Bbaack
11 Beth Tyrpin
12 Darth
13 MarkWoychick
14 Woozy
15 boharr
16 Bob cruise director
17 Dplass
18 BarbaraK
19 rjy
20 adamsimonlevine
21 ChrisKochmanski
22 MaineMarge
23 cbarbee002
24 Schmeel
25 cinny
26 minimuggle
27 bhamren
28 mindle
29 lbray53
30 CPJohnson
31 TeamDoubleTow
32 markhr
33 Snood
34 HeadInHome

[ImOnToo]

Dang. I’m 2 for 3 so far this week.
I’m just not seeing this one.

[JeanneC]

Well, I finally saw it! A brilliant meta puzzle by one of our own! Congrats to Dr.Tom on its construction.

[DrTom]

Hmmm, WSJ comes out, MMM solves go down...I'll bet there is a correlation. OK, here are a few more for the solver board:

33 Snood
34 HeadInHome
35 MikeyG
36 JeanneC

Now, I'm back trying to solve the WSJ which of course everyone is saying is so easy...but then I thought that about this puzzle.

[benchen71]

Now, I'm back trying to solve the WSJ which of course everyone is saying is so easy...but then I thought that about this puzzle.

All the best with the WSJ. I wouldn't say it's easy. I usually do the WSJ within 10 minutes or so of finishing the grid. This one took hours!

[DrTom]

Now, I'm back trying to solve the WSJ which of course everyone is saying is so easy...but then I thought that about this puzzle.

All the best with the WSJ. I wouldn't say it's easy. I usually do the WSJ within 10 minutes or so of finishing the grid. This one took hours!

Right you are, not easy. Even though I had a good hold on the first part, step two took a bit of soul searching. Managed to get there though,

Thanks for the encouragement

[DrTom]

Well only one extra solver in three days.

37 MamaE

Either you are all wrestling with the excellent WSJ meta, finishing up the MGWCC or have tossed the MMM in the corner. Let me give one home stretch nudge for those still struggling:

There are three, possibly four, games that have something to do with “Rack” and “THREEPOINTPLAYS”. In any of those games what would give you three points, and only three points, in a single play? Remember that I said there were a lot of letters in the answer so whatever it is has to be rather plentiful in the puzzle!

Hopefully that will assist some of you that are still “on the rack”

[edestlin]

I've been RACKing my brain all week. I'm new to meta crosswords and so far I'm completely failing nearly all of them. Even when the answers are revealed I'm struggling to see them or how a person would discover them. (It's so frustrating. Yes, I've read the tips post!) This week's search history is full of complex queries to try and discover games that meet the criteria. I might have found one game but again, no idea how it could apply to the puzzle. I look forward to the revealer and learning from everyone's journey!

[boharr]

I've been RACKing my brain all week. I'm new to meta crosswords and so far I'm completely failing nearly all of them. Even when the answers are revealed I'm struggling to see them or how a person would discover them. (It's so frustrating. Yes, I've read the tips post!)

Hang in there. We've all been in exactly your position. Yes, it's frustrating, but it will eventually be satisfying.

[BarbaraK]

I've been RACKing my brain all week. I'm new to meta crosswords and so far I'm completely failing nearly all of them. Even when the answers are revealed I'm struggling to see them or how a person would discover them. (It's so frustrating. Yes, I've read the tips post!) This week's search history is full of complex queries to try and discover games that meet the criteria. I might have found one game but again, no idea how it could apply to the puzzle. I look forward to the revealer and learning from everyone's journey!

One nice thing about the muggle metas is that the creators are right here on the board. And they really want you to solve their puzzles. So if the published nudges are not enough, you can PM @DrTom He’ll be happy to talk to you and will probably even tell you the game to help you along.

[woozy]

I'll retract this if Dr. Tom wishes but, my method of solving was to do librarian type research. Dr. Tom said this puzzle was inspired by an earlier puzzle. So I went through these forum discussions of past puzzles to remind myself of past puzzles. I found the inpsiration. (You will know the puzzle when you see it.) Let's call that puzzle; Puzzle X. Tom said that he used the mechanism many had attempted (but failed) on puzzle X. I tried the mechanism that *I* had tried on puzzle X to no avail. I read posts on the forums to see what other people had attempted and found a few people had tried a very creative method that I'd have never have thought of. I tried it on *this* puzzle and .... viola.

[KayW]

I've been RACKing my brain all week. I'm new to meta crosswords and so far I'm completely failing nearly all of them. Even when the answers are revealed I'm struggling to see them or how a person would discover them. (It's so frustrating. Yes, I've read the tips post!) This week's search history is full of complex queries to try and discover games that meet the criteria. I might have found one game but again, no idea how it could apply to the puzzle. I look forward to the revealer and learning from everyone's journey!

One nice thing about the muggle metas is that the creators are right here on the board. And they really want you to solve their puzzles. So if the published nudges are not enough, you can PM @DrTom He’ll be happy to talk to you and will probably even tell you the game to help you along.

I can attest to that - I finally got dragged off the couch with some remedial nudges from the good doctor.

[DrTom]

I'll retract this if Dr. Tom wishes but, my method of solving was to do librarian type research. Dr. Tom said this puzzle was inspired by an earlier puzzle. So I went through these forum discussions of past puzzles to remind myself of past puzzles. I found the inpsiration. (You will know the puzzle when you see it.) Let's call that puzzle; Puzzle X. Tom said that he used the mechanism many had attempted (but failed) on puzzle X. I tried the mechanism that *I* had tried on puzzle X to no avail. I read posts on the forums to see what other people had attempted and found a few people had tried a very creative method that I'd have never have thought of. I tried it on *this* puzzle and .... viola.

No need to retract, I think this is a great way of doing things. The other puzzle didn't tell you the mechanism, and there were plenty of methods people had tried, and talked about. The fact that you saw something and were clever enough to apply it in this instance and it worked is much like anyone solves a puzzle. In "real" life I often look at any number of indicators to tell me what a problem might be, but if I still cannot lock it down I go to the books (or online journals/tertiary references) to see what they say it might be, If I still cannot get a bead on it, or am not 100% sure, I'll ask for a nudge (or curbside consult).

Any solve is a good solve, whether it is an informed guess, a eureka moment on day 2 or days of slogging through mechanisms until you arrive at one that works. As a matter of fact that kind of journey will eventually make you a better solver of any kind of problem!

Tom