"Pieces of Eight"

[MarkL]

Off the couch, or more accurately, the recliner!

[FrankH]

Off the couch! Fun one! As others mentioned, a tough grid that I needed Mr G's help.

[FrankieHeck]

Had a few false starts, but finally got it. Very nice!

[C=64]

Cool trick! I enjoyed the brain-busting trivia grid until I got to the dozen or so entries I couldn't figure out. I used two atlases (9D, 11D, 30A, 61A) before turning to online resources.

65A was a gimme for this New England native and ORR and ESPO fan; I imagine that one was tough for other folks.

[BrianMac]

Hey Tom, you're famous! You made it into Matt Gritzmacher's Daily Crossword Links list...


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Al, I noticed that you made it to the list last week, under your pseudonym "BrianMac."

I did ask Matt to correct that. Not that I would be above taking credit for Al's ideas, hard work, and creativity.

[Schmeel]

I'm off the couch!
I found the grid to be pretty difficult. Google galore, and even then there were a couple of clues I couldn't solve (yet).
Very creative meta that was probably very difficult to construct. Thanks Tom!

[spotter]

Off the couch! Fun one! As others mentioned, a tough grid that I needed Mr G's help.

I've been seeing Mr. G for a couple weeks and kept thinking people had a direct line to Matt Gaffney. It only just clicked in the context of this puzzle that it's google!

[spotter]

And I just made it off the couch. It came to me in my sleep last night!

[TMart]

I've been seeing Mr. G for a couple weeks and kept thinking people had a direct line to Matt Gaffney. It only just clicked in the context of this puzzle that it's google!

Matt Gaffney actually did a meta a few months back where the answer was “Google” and he included a tough grid with “Naticked” crossing answers that had to be googled to find the solution. When you have to resort to Google, there’s usually something going on in that part of the grid......

[C=64]

[...] a tough grid with “Naticked” crossing answers that had to be googled to find the solution.

Man, 21A crossed with 9D-12D was a Natick, a Waltham, a Fitchburg, and a Framingham.

[spotter]

I've been seeing Mr. G for a couple weeks and kept thinking people had a direct line to Matt Gaffney. It only just clicked in the context of this puzzle that it's google!

Matt Gaffney actually did a meta a few months back where the answer was “Google” and he included a tough grid with “Naticked” crossing answers that had to be googled to find the solution. When you have to resort to Google, there’s usually something going on in that part of the grid......

I remember that puzzle! It was shortly before I signed up for MGWCC so I had seen it when I was looking through the older puzzles to get a feel for what I was getting myself into. At the time I thought there was no way I'd have solved that one.

[Beth Tyrpin]

Excellent puzzle. I’m off the couch.

[markhr]

Done. A few pretty rough places in the grid, but I can see why they were necessary. Once I got the grid down, it was a fun solve.

[Dplass]

This is a KAS 5 for me...ah well. At least there's a MGWCC week 1 coming up In a few weeks...until then I'm LAS.

[TMart]

Around 20 solvers so far.

Here are some nudges (in rot13). Go to rot13.com to translate.

1. Gur prageny gurzr ragel ng 37N vf n ovt uvag ba jung gb qb.

2. Gur chmmyr gvgyr naq gur pyhr gb 37N gryy lbh ubj znal gvzrf gb qb vg, naq ubj ybat rnpu erfhyg fubhyq or.

3. Guvax bs “pvepyr” nf va “pvepyr gur jntbaf”.

4. Pvepyrf tb va obgu qverpgvbaf.

5. Pvepyrf unir 25Q.

[LaceyK]

It took all 5 nudges (mostly because I already had the mechanism but was going about it multiple wrong ways!) Finally I saw what I needed, and it was a fun process to the answer. Yo Ho Ho, happy to be off the couch...altho with this puzzle, it makes more sense to be on the shore!

[Laura M]

Off the couch. Nicely executed meta, but whoa that grid was tough!

I did get an answer that I'm 100% sure of, but there's one... aspect of the solution... that I couldn't figure out even backsolving. I think I must have a grid mistake but I can't find it!

[Geoduck]

I got the grid done, and I have a meta that almost has to be correct. But there is a piece that is puzzling. As others have noticed, even backsolving is tough for that last piece -- but it fits so well that it has to be right.

[Dplass]

I gave up on giving up and am off the couch. But, I needed all the hints and wound up backsolving part of it.

[TMart]

Here’s the solution to “Pieces of Eight:

The title is “Pieces of Eight” and the meta answer is something you might find in the islands. The big clue is the long grid answer across the middle at 37A - “something a pirate might do eight times to find what he is looking for” (CIRCLE THE ISLAND).

Here’s the “key” (pun intended): There are eight names of eight-letter islands hidden in circles in the grid:

BORA BORA - top left, clockwise
TASMANIA - top center, clockwise
ALCATRAZ - top right, counter-clockwise
CRIM ROCK (huh?) - center left, clockwise
AUCKLAND - center right, clockwise
ZANZIBAR - bottom left, clockwise
ATLANTIS - bottom center, counter-clockwise
GUERNSEY - bottom left, clockwise

and the eight letters ("pieces") at the central points (25D – FOCI – I should have clued that with a pirate reference, as no one picked up on it) of those circled islands (i.e., “in the islands”) in grid order, spell TREASURE, the meta answer, and a double meaning of the title “Pieces of Eight” - an eight-letter word broken into pieces that is also a type of pirate’s treasure.

CRIM ROCK is admittedly a little awkward - the Crim Rocks are a group of very small islands near England ( see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crim_Rocks), so one should qualify as an island, albeit not a famous one, but Googleable as two words. I needed it because I had to use my central themer as part of the island circles for that and for AUCKLAND to keep the grid 15x15, and it was the only thing closest to an island that started with CRI and had eight letters. I tried to squeeze Puerto Rico in there, but it just wouldn’t work. I thought if you found the other seven better-known islands, you could suss this one out on the back solve (which most solvers did), and then confirm it with Google (which most solvers found difficult to do – sorry!)

This one may have been a little overly ambitious, but I’m actually surprised this idea kind of worked out – after I had thought of a few eight-letter islands and started gridding them out, it was working, so I stayed with it, but had to stretch a bit to complete the fill. And there is some seriously ugly fill in here, but that should have been a big hint that something weird was going on in most of the grid. In all, 84 of the 183 white squares are theme-related, which left precious little room for anything else, and forced me to make up a few phrases, use some obscure abbreviations, and include more than a few Naticks. I tried to make all of that stuff as Googleable as possible. In retrospect, I probably could have used a 17x17 grid, which might have reduced some of the uglier fill, and wouldn’t have constrained two of the island names. I originally had TRINIDAD in there instead of ATLANTIS, but removed it because of fill that was even uglier than the final version.

So that’s it. Thanks for all the feedback. The biggest observation/complaint in solver messages was the hard grid (which is a nice way of saying ”your fill was very ugly!”) and the obscurity/not perfect fit of Crim Rock. Otherwise, most people seemed to enjoy it, although the difficult grid probably made this one more fun to construct than to solve.

I may be back in the future if I haven’t worn out my welcome with this one!

Tom