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Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:13 am
by kfahey714
I got the correct answer, but in a totally different manner. From the start of the puzzle I thought the grid blocks were unusual and might be involved in the answer. When considering the "missing piece" clue in14 across was a "line," I started to consider the grid blocks were actually sort of tetris shaped and the "line" was actually missing. Whatever works!
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:17 am
by Nlobb
I thought this puzzle was so much fun. I can't imagine how anyone puts together something so clever week after week! It brought back memories of my husband playing this for hours after our first two babies were in bed...quite a long time ago. Thanks for a fun solve Patrick.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:48 am
by DBMiller
As far as the letters being out of order in this one, I'm not too upset. Tetris is a game where you can not only rotate the pieces, but slide them left or right to make them fit. The fact the we needed to move them into the correct order was yet another click for me.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:59 am
by howardl
I recognize that this was an easy solve for a lot of people. That did not include me. I found solved the grid and noticed the patterns of letters, and wrote out TEISTR. I briefly looked for an anagram there. But (and here's where I am apparently alone in the crossword universe) I have never heard of a game called TETRIS. So the "line" hint didn't help much at all.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:12 am
by Joe Ross
Joe Ross wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2020 5:17 pm
Ashore & submitted.
o/~ I fall to pieces! o/~
Hoping that nobody felt this was a spoiler or too leading! I considered it fair game, since PIECES is in the puzzle title. I was poking at myself for posting under a different name, PastWSJCCSolutions - only used to post past puzzles. It was much later that I learned that there are online versions of TETRIS that have the pieces "fall" down the screen, allowing a player to rotate & move them side-to-side to fill empty squares in the game grid.
EDIT: Thought that I had played a board version with young nieces & nephews, then with my children, but TETRIS has always been a video game. The board game which I played was BLOKUS. Similar, but more shapes and non-video.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:24 am
by Geoduck
FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:09 am
If the answer is ever 'shore' or 'tiki bar' we are going to be in trouble.
Remember the time the answer was PINT? Everyone was leaning over backward avoiding using the word PINT in their "On shore!" announcements. But then someone asked for a pint of[insert favorite brewed beverage here] when they made it to shore.*
A few people said it was a spoiler.
But I think the spoiler was having the word PINT so conspicuously absent from the comments that week.
So, I agree with whoever said that most of these kinds of postings are seen as a spoiler only after you know the answer.
* I don't know the exact wording, and I ain't gonna search for it, either. This is the gist of the discussion, not a word-for-word transcript, although a certain someone has tried to redefine the word "transcript" in the past year or so.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:40 am
by spotter
Never managed to post it, but I was on the beach all weekend as well!
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:48 pm
by MikeMillerwsj
A brilliant puzzle, right? With a blockbuster turnout--2113 entries, about 88% correct. Our favorite wrong guess was the near-anagram TWISTER (15). Also TIC-TAC-TOE (28), BATTLESHIP (16), SCRABBLE (16), CLUE (15), CONNECT FOUR (14), MONOPOLY (10) and various others.
Congrats to this week's winner: Margaret Woodhouse of Farmington Hills, Mich.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:50 pm
by MaineMarge
I was among those totally in the dark about this game- no room in my wheelhouse for video games. I had to anagram the nonsense clusters of letters ETRTSI. Tetris was the only word I was not familiar with, and research showed me how the shapes fit into the meta. And cleared up 14a as there was no line of 4 letters, just 3.
The other choice could be that the IRS has some new delight in store for us??
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:51 pm
by ky-mike
Limerick Savant wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:05 am
I finally finished the race
And I feel like I did it with grace
I may not break the tape
But I know I’m in shape
Cuz the answer just ____ ____ _____
Isn't it nice when things fall into place!
Great limerick
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 1:31 pm
by TMart
For those who have never played Tetris, there's a free version here:
https://tetris.com/play-tetris
But beware - it's highly addicting!
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 1:42 pm
by BrianMac
Thanks. Rest of workday...shot.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 3:09 pm
by Bob cruise director
amheissan wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:36 pm
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!
Congratulations. If you go to the tab Come Aboard/ FAQ-Community, it explains the background of a lot of our comments, e.g ship vs shore, where Isaac came from and other.
Welcome to the group
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 3:19 pm
by Bob cruise director
Good afternoon muggles
This was such a beautiful day in Massachusetts, I had to spend it chasing a little white ball around a golf course.
We had two last minute new muggles: amheissen and kfahey bringing the total of our merry little gang to 552.
And including those that posted this morning that they were on shore we had 150 on the beach breaking the old record of 146.
And as Bill Belichick says "we are on to Thursday" Have a good week
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 5:55 pm
by KayW
MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2020 12:48 pm
A brilliant puzzle, right? With a blockbuster turnout--2113 entries, about 88% correct. Our favorite wrong guess was the near-anagram TWISTER (15). Also TIC-TAC-TOE (28), BATTLESHIP (16), SCRABBLE (16), CLUE (15), CONNECT FOUR (14), MONOPOLY (10) and various others.
Congrats to this week's winner: Margaret Woodhouse of Farmington Hills, Mich.
My detour on the way to the correct answer was CONNECT FOUR. The TTT, SSS, and III in the grid jumped out at me and I quickly noticed the fourth letter tacked on there as well as a few other quadruples in the puzzle. So CONNECT FOUR came to mind with a missing LINE to link them and a COIN in the grid to use to play (tho I think the pieces are called discs, not coins). But I didn't like the fact that I couldn't make a word like GAME or CONNECT FOUR out of those letters. Lucky for me a friend encouraged me to keep looking for a better answer. And when I wrote down all the letters involved I soon saw TETRIS.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 6:54 pm
by MajordomoTom
I initially had the TTT, III and SSS and struggled a bit to see if there was some game based on those letters.
Then went back and noticed lots of Rs, more Ts and quite a lot of Es. Realized it was TETRIS, but only about 30 minutes later, did I go back downstairs, saying "wait, are there block patterns in the grid of those letters?" Which made it 110%.
Wife wanted to know why we were done so quickly.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:47 pm
by DrTom
BarbaraK wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:25 pm
DrTom wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:19 pm
OK, a question to those of you who are regular MGWCCers. I have been ruminating over whether I should join, figuring that the Matt I usually see is in the WSJ world and his Metas may be easier there. So I tired the January 31st 2020 (How did you know..) and though initially a little stumped as to where to start I used the title and his clue to get me out of it rather easily. So. my question is; did I simply pick the simplest MGWCC in recent history or is that about usual (some harder, some easier). If that is the case then I'm going all in because I have not been able to abase myself nearly enough with one a week.
In a typical month, MGWCC has one puzzle easier than that one, one about like that one, and two harder.
Matt put all his January puzzles up on his website, so if you want to see the hardest one, look at
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc608_puzzle.pdf
And another one comparable to the one you did is
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc607_puzzle.pdf
And you should definitely sign up! It's now a month-to-month subscription, so there's not much risk in trying it. If you don't like it, you can always quit.
(Yeah, right, I could quit anytime, it's not like I'm hooked on these:)
Well BarbaraK you are right the Initial Public Offering I got (after an AHA that seemingly came from nowhere), the Illegal Activity I am wracking my brain over and am about to go see what it is. I have seen more rabbits, and even came up with a 7 letter phrase that I think might be it, but I could not tell you how I got there except WAG.
I will say that the grids seem harder than the WSJ ones because they appear to have less "old timer" references (which I do better with) and more current affairs. Still there is always Mr. Google! So. I'm gonna beat myself up a bit more about the Illegal Activity and then look it up. We are about to go on vacation so I think I'll start MGWCC after because I'll get in ALL kinds of trouble if I am sitting on the Amalfi working a puzzle instead of touring.
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:03 pm
by LesY
DrTom wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:47 pm
BarbaraK wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:25 pm
DrTom wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:19 pm
OK, a question to those of you who are regular MGWCCers. I have been ruminating over whether I should join, figuring that the Matt I usually see is in the WSJ world and his Metas may be easier there. So I tired the January 31st 2020 (How did you know..) and though initially a little stumped as to where to start I used the title and his clue to get me out of it rather easily. So. my question is; did I simply pick the simplest MGWCC in recent history or is that about usual (some harder, some easier). If that is the case then I'm going all in because I have not been able to abase myself nearly enough with one a week.
In a typical month, MGWCC has one puzzle easier than that one, one about like that one, and two harder.
Matt put all his January puzzles up on his website, so if you want to see the hardest one, look at
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc608_puzzle.pdf
And another one comparable to the one you did is
https://xwordcontest.com/downloads/mgwcc607_puzzle.pdf
And you should definitely sign up! It's now a month-to-month subscription, so there's not much risk in trying it. If you don't like it, you can always quit.
(Yeah, right, I could quit anytime, it's not like I'm hooked on these:)
Well BarbaraK you are right the Initial Public Offering I got (after an AHA that seemingly came from nowhere), the Illegal Activity I am wracking my brain over and am about to go see what it is. I have seen more rabbits, and even came up with a 7 letter phrase that I think might be it, but I could not tell you how I got there except WAG.
I will say that the grids seem harder than the WSJ ones because they appear to have less "old timer" references (which I do better with) and more current affairs. Still there is always Mr. Google! So. I'm gonna beat myself up a bit more about the Illegal Activity and then look it up. We are about to go on vacation so I think I'll start MGWCC after because I'll get in ALL kinds of trouble if I am sitting on the Amalfi working a puzzle instead of touring.
Love the Amalfi - enjoy!
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:38 pm
by DrTom
OK, finally could stand it no longer and looked at the answer for Illegal Activity. I can safely say that it was a KAS 1275 for me. Were I to be bitten by a vampire and ostensibly live forever, and spend 5 hours a day trying to solve the puzzle I believe I would eventually purposely walk out into bright sunlight and end it all. Still I'm gonna give it a go after Italy, maybe I'll be mellower?
Re: "Game Pieces" - February 21, 2020
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 6:16 pm
by Nlobb
Happy Mardi gras to all the muggles!!