XWord Muggles Forum

tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 8:54 am That's the 'Sisti' I almost pulled. Got so excited with finding Richard II that I stopped...then a few minutes later I noticed one more checker move to make and there was the final 'I'.

As several have mentioned, I started with the "checker-o's" being the jumpers rather than the "jumpees." Having speculated early on that the monarch might be (among others) a Richard, I noticed the R-I-C near some jumpees and found the answer. But I too, almost did not notice the last jumpee.

tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 8:54 am Also never noticed the START/FINISH.

I took the sequence starting near the bottom of the grid as a clever twist on starting at my end of the checkerboard rather than at the top of the puzzle. Oh, well.

tim1217 wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 8:54 am

Gwert wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 7:01 am Except there’s a difference between a “King Move” and “KIng Me.” I took the title literally and got Richard II not III.

That's the 'Sisti' I almost pulled. Got so excited with finding Richard II that I stopped...then a few minutes later I noticed one more checker move to make and there was the final 'I'.

Also never noticed the START/FINISH.

Made more complicated by mispelling 34A with a "U" instead of the "O" at first--until I forced myself to deal with the fact that there was no place in 28A called Fali (because I did Funds not bonds).

And like Majordomo Tom, I spent a lot of time at first trying to jump with the O's. I was trying to make them jump over a letter into a blank space (that is, the black parts of the grid), which went nowhere. Other jumpings led to random gibberish, although I noticed a lot of "I"s, which made me think of a monarch like X the second or third. Either that or a Hawaiian monarch with all of those vowels.

When I came to check this morning, I guessed that the answer might be on page 18, so I clicked there first. I was horrified to see a grid showing the answer to be King Arthur and Sir Lancelot--how was I that far off! Whew--that was the similar puzzle (before my time here) that people had been talking about.

boharr wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:17 am
I felt so foolish when I realized I missed START and FINISH. Seems though I was not alone.

Well I had figured out "The Letter O", "Start", "Finish", and that the meta was based on "O's" being checkers with 5 minutes of finishing the grid (granted I had to cheat quite a bit to finish the grid). I then spent somewhere between 8-10 hours staring at the grid and trying different combinations of letters from trying to use the "O's" to jump. I also tried other techniques when that didn't work and was thinking it could be Oedipus or Odysseus because of Obolos and even considered Henry VIII because there were 9 "O's" and I thought the "Bol" in Obolos might be a reference to Anne Boleyn.

I finally gave up and someone told me the answer - there was no way to really nudge me because I had figured everything out except that the "O's" were your Opponent's checkers and not yours.

Meg wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 7:47 am Completely missed START and FINISH!! Geez! Once I get the meta, I don’t usually keep looking for more indicators. Still, it’s a bit embarrassing.

Same here!

CPJohnson wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 8:55 am If you have ever heard of either obolos or obolus, you are way ahead of me! Cynthia J

OBOL, usually defined as "Greek coin." If I had a nickel for every "obol" I've seen in a crossword . . . .

TPS wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:29 am

boharr wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:17 am
I felt so foolish when I realized I missed START and FINISH. Seems though I was not alone.

I finally gave up and someone told me the answer - there was no way to really nudge me because I had figured everything out accept that the "O's" were your Opponent's checkers and not yours.

And that of course was key. That and accepting we were kings in our jumping around.

Nor did I. Notice START and FINISH, that is. Though I did get that it’s III not II. But with a bit of uncertainty. Seeing START and FINISH would have made it a lock.

boharr wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:34 am
And that of course was key. That and accepting we were kings in our jumping around.

And that is why I say this was not REALLY an elegant meta but more sloppy. Sure some people were able to figure out the answer but there was nothing that pointed to that hence why 80% of the people who either didn't get the meta or needed a nudge to get it were stuck on that one point. It was such a simple fix too as there could have been a clue that utilized one of the "O's" for Opponent as an answer. That would have been far more useful than a Start/Finish which a ton of people didn't even notice anyway.

I like the overall concept - the directions just could have been better. It certainly wasn't a "Russian Doll" type puzzle.

Have any of you read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey? Her detective, while laid up with a broken leg or something (can’t remember exactly), starts investigating, to pass the time (sound familiar?), and concludes that Richard III wasn’t the least bit like Shakespeare’s character. No hump, for one. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because R III may exist more now AS a Shakespeare character, than as a historical figure.

Did anyone else go down the monarch butterfly hole? My first idea was that the monarch had been named for William III of England also called William of Orange. This leads to all kinds of interesting facts about William and all the things named for him like William and Mary college, Nassau etc plus the butterfly. Guess I got into this having seen some on my walk... I soon realized it wasn't getting anywhere so switched to playing checkers also making the mistake of trying to move the O's instead of jumping over them... Finally saw the error of my ways after a small nudge and got the answer.

As mentioned in previous post. filling in the grid correctly does help!

For some unknown reason, I felt okay with EMCEE instead of EMOTE, and THELETTERC resembling a checker. That got me chasing the 16 capital C's in clues - which got absolutely nada, of Course. Once fixed. the O's made a lot more sense.

But I, too, looked at letters above, AND did the jumper/jumpee jete'. Inspiration struck while walking the dog, "what if we jump over the O's" and voila. At one point, I did count the I's thinking it may add up to a significant sum, but no.

Not usre START/FINISH really registered, as I first saw the R/I/C nestled the first clump of O's.

Argh! - I guess I was right to suspect my proposed solution.

I realized once I recognized 37A as "The Letter O" that the meta was intimately connected with checkers (both that clue and the title "King Me") and that the solution would involve jumping like a king over intervening letters to form the answer, especially once I notice the extreme paucity of "O"s and that they all were separated by one letter/square.

Where I stumbled on the last hurtle was to look at the "O" as the marking the path of the king's jumping, rather that the "O"s were the checkers which the King was jumping over and so didn't look for something like "start" and "finish".

Sort of like looking at an Escher drawing the wrong way.

In retrospect, I should insisted on a requirement that the movement had to be diagonal jumps, not merely jumps over intervening squares

Instead I connected the "O"'s by a pencil to form a letter "S" which then turned into an "8" when I connected the ends - which led to "Henry the 8th" as my answer.

I also manged to form BOL-EYN from OBOL and from KAYNE (backwards) along the path of the "O"s and extending the bottom of that figure to the bottom of the puzzle. That seemed too clever and more likely a figment of imagination, but I just couldn't come up with a better idea.

Ironic that I "jumped" right over "START" in my traverse to "KANYE".

This was the best meta that I didn't get. I never considered START and FINISH as part of the solution so my "checkers" were hopping aimlessly over the checkboard hoping to see the hint of an answer. No such luck --- congrats to those cracked this one.

Meg wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 7:47 am Completely missed START and FINISH!! Geez! Once I get the meta, I don’t usually keep looking for more indicators. Still, it’s a bit embarrassing.

I did too! I was concentrating on the "o's" so much, completely missed it!

BTW, there seems to be a "and four thou shall not count" nod in the grid. After the third I, there is an A and then an (inappropriate) I, in 30A ISM!

ChrisKochmanski wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:49 am Have any of you read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey? Her detective, while laid up with a broken leg or something (can’t remember exactly), starts investigating, to pass the time (sound familiar?), and concludes that Richard III wasn’t the least bit like Shakespeare’s character. No hump, for one. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because R III may exist more now AS a Shakespeare character, than as a historical figure.

The book sounds interesting. Just added to my Goodreads list!

ChrisKochmanski wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:49 am Have any of you read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey? Her detective, while laid up with a broken leg or something (can’t remember exactly), starts investigating, to pass the time (sound familiar?), and concludes that Richard III wasn’t the least bit like Shakespeare’s character. No hump, for one. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because R III may exist more now AS a Shakespeare character, than as a historical figure.

He probably looked like Raymond Burr.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:03 pm Very clever. Took an extra bit because I had to look up the workings of something I haven’t done in a long time.

And I just noticed a bow to wrap it all up (or maybe just a coincidence:)

When I saw you write this, I realized I must’ve missed something, even though I had the correct answer and had submitted. It was the start and finish you’re referring to I assume.

Very enjoyable and clever grid and meta!

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 12:13 pm

ChrisKochmanski wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:49 am Have any of you read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey? Her detective, while laid up with a broken leg or something (can’t remember exactly), starts investigating, to pass the time (sound familiar?), and concludes that Richard III wasn’t the least bit like Shakespeare’s character. No hump, for one. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because R III may exist more now AS a Shakespeare character, than as a historical figure.

He probably looked like Raymond Burr.

Or Richard Dreyfuss

Streroto wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 12:37 pm

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:03 pm Very clever. Took an extra bit because I had to look up the workings of something I haven’t done in a long time.

And I just noticed a bow to wrap it all up (or maybe just a coincidence:)

When I saw you write this, I realized I must’ve missed something, even though I had the correct answer and had submitted. It was the start and finish you’re referring to I assume.

Very enjoyable and clever grid and meta!

What Barbara meant was the shape the "o's" formed. Like a hunchback.