XWord Muggles Forum

Ooh trying to set a record so you can put me on shore too.

I got the meta!!
I'm new, so I'm not sure if that means I'm ashore or on the boat or drinking with Isaac, but I got it before the deadline! Woohoo!

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:08 pm

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:09 pm Our final count is 4 on the ship and 145 on the shore.

Is that a record?

No the record is 146
H
Normally I don’t bother entering things after I go to bed but I do for a record
We have two late additions that I willm enter in the morning

The answer is right in front of you ... just let the blocks fall into place.

Blame Russia for this one.

Fun Meta, but my OCD is kicking up with the orientation of the two bottom pieces (must... rotate... at least 90 degrees...). The two middle pieces aren't making me feel any better - lol.

Good luck to all muggle-pudlians!

Now that the cat is out of the bag, if you haven't played it, give it a shot. It's a charmingly simple puzzle game that is available in one form or another for just about any computer or game system capable of supporting it (there's even an entire course and book called NAND2TETRIS, where one starts with logic gates and eventually programs the computer created by them to play TETRIS), but be warned: being mediocre is easy, but being good is quite difficult. Second warning: it is addictive and may occupy a lot of your time.

I got the answer from the shapes and only later realized that the pieces spelled out "TETRIS". However, this wasn't perfectly aligned and would have been difficult for someone who didn't know the game.

I thought of a clue for the missing item: "Four, on some clocks" - answer "IIII". But there was no clear way to include that without killing the I-don't-know-it route to the answer.

Edit: I can spell, but apparently I can't type at night on my phone.

Kas wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:30 pm Perhaps this is one of those weeks where everything just fell into place, but I suspect there will be a lot of right answers.
On shore!!

Now that the danger of spoilers has passed, I just wanted to highlight this (possibly unintentional) remark from Kas. "Fell into place" indeed :-)

My only minor pet peeve is that the letters of the answer in the grid are not in any specific ordering unless you say it is serpentine. The letter E being above the upper left T prevented a top to bottom (or theme clue number) ordering. However, I could see the ordering of the letters right away, so that's why it is only a minor pet peeve.

This was a pleasantly easy romp.

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:41 am

Kas wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:30 pm Perhaps this is one of those weeks where everything just fell into place, but I suspect there will be a lot of right answers.
On shore!!

Now that the danger of spoilers has passed, I just wanted to highlight this (possibly unintentional) remark from Kas. "Fell into place" indeed

I didn't think it was unintentional because it was too clever to be an accident, and I didn't think it was a spoiler because it would be appreciated only by those who had already gotten the answer.

I didn't want to say anything before the deadline, but I never played this game and knew nothing about it other than its name. Even the "line" clue meant nothing to me. Thank goodness the blocks of multiple letters were so obvious! I immediately knew the triple letters in SCOTT TUROW and DRESS SHIRTS would be important to the answer.

I briefly dove into a rabbit hole with 54A (Wiig), which includes the name of a once popular gaming console. I looked for other gaming consoles and, having found none, managed to escape the rabbit hole and find my way to shore.

The rabbits, btw, are adorable but of absolutely no help whatsoever.

The way the pieces in the grid are falling are how they look when *I* try to play.

My son (20) occasionally excitedly tells me about competitive Tetris matches he's watched online, and some teen phenom who is the world champion. I didn't find it that thrilling, but then he doesn't see what I like about metas...

Wendy Walker wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 8:39 am I didn't want to say anything before the deadline, but I never played this game and knew nothing about it other than its name. Even the "line" clue meant nothing to me. Thank goodness the blocks of multiple letters were so obvious! I immediately knew the triple letters in SCOTT TUROW and DRESS SHIRTS would be important to the answer.

My precise experience as well, Wendy, which may explain the high number of correct solvers. Knowing how ingenious Patrick Berry is, I envy the Tetris players who were able to savor the “AHA” that sealed it for them.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 7:49 am

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:41 am

Kas wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:30 pm Perhaps this is one of those weeks where everything just fell into place, but I suspect there will be a lot of right answers.
On shore!!

Now that the danger of spoilers has passed, I just wanted to highlight this (possibly unintentional) remark from Kas. "Fell into place" indeed

I didn't think it was unintentional because it was too clever to be an accident, and I didn't think it was a spoiler because it would be appreciated only by those who had already gotten the answer.

I have to agree with Bird, but I can also see why it might be unintentional. I almost put it in my post by mistake when I was making a comment on the AHA moment but realized that with all the other mini clues (1/4 of the grid, game I played a lot a long time ago, etc) it might just have been the tipping point. It is one of those phrases that we probably use a lot on this board and this time it meant a lot more.

My nitpick with this puzzle is that for a meta like this to be technically perfect, the letters making the shapes shouldn't appear anywhere else in the puzzle. T, E, R, I, and S appear all over the place, not just in the game pieces. But as they say, perfect is the enemy of good enough, and the appearance of the letters elsewhere didn't prevent the mechanism from being pretty clearly visible.

My nitpick with this puzzle is that for a meta like this to be technically perfect, the letters making the shapes shouldn't appear anywhere else in the puzzle. T, E, R, I, and S appear all over the place, not just in the game pieces. But as they say, perfect is the enemy of good enough, and the appearance of the letters elsewhere didn't prevent the mechanism from being pretty clearly visible.

DrTom wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:54 am

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 7:49 am

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:41 am
Now that the danger of spoilers has passed, I just wanted to highlight this (possibly unintentional) remark from Kas. "Fell into place" indeed

I didn't think it was unintentional because it was too clever to be an accident, and I didn't think it was a spoiler because it would be appreciated only by those who had already gotten the answer.

I have to agree with Bird, but I can also see why it might be unintentional. I almost put it in my post by mistake when I was making a comment on the AHA moment but realized that with all the other mini clues (1/4 of the grid, game I played a lot a long time ago, etc) it might just have been the tipping point. It is one of those phrases that we probably use a lot on this board and this time it meant a lot more.

I can also see how it was unintentional, even if spot on. A few weeks ago, when the answer was DASH, I posted that I was on shore, and I included a parenthetical thought, separated with dashes. Did I intentionally do that? No...or did I? I wonder sometimes if we have this stuff going on subconsciously and it just comes out, without our conscious self even catching it. Now I re-read everything I put in a post just to be sure my subconscious is not subconsciously trying to get me thrown out of this forum.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:03 am A few weeks ago, when the answer was DASH, I posted that I was on shore, and I included a parenthetical thought, separated with dashes. Did I intentionally do that? No...or did I?

I noticed that and definitely thought it was intentional! Gave me more confidence in my answer, but I wouldn't have thought twice about it if I hadn't solved the meta.

If the answer is ever 'shore' or 'tiki bar' we are going to be in trouble.