#604 - "See You Next Year!"

An excellent puzzle written by one of the innovators of the meta crossword format. It comes out every Friday at noon and increases in difficulty throughout the month. Available for modest subscription (worth every cent) here: www.xwordcontest.com
damefox
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Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2019 2:18 pm

#21

Post by damefox »

Beam me up! Minor quibble about the mechanism, but pretty satisfying anyway. Happy (almost) New Year!
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Jacksull
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Location: Scottsdale AZ

#22

Post by Jacksull »

For the first time, I submitted backsolved answer. And it was right!

See you next year: 2020. A 20/20 grid. A six letter word. VISION.

My only week four victory in 2019 and it gets an asterisk.
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anjhinz
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#23

Post by anjhinz »

Big face palm on this one... read the solution and looked back at all of my scribblings on the back of the puzzle, and there it was: VOSIIN, which, in the midst of sequences like NEAAEA, ELMEAE, OOANLD, MMIOKA, NATSYN, ERLHNR, etc. looked just as much like jibberish... I probably would have seen it if I'd circled the letters, but I didn't want to clutter the grid... lesson learned for 2020!
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oldjudge
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#24

Post by oldjudge »

GRR, to quote an answer. I got to VOSIIN in the first hour and never plotted it on the grid. Like Marlon said, “I could have been a contender.”
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Hector
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#25

Post by Hector »

I wanted VISION from the start given that it's 2020 and "see you". Took a while to just think logically: what do the themers have in common? They're datable events. What are the years? Hmm, they're all early-century years. How can I use them to identify single letters? I got one wrong and had something like VOSOIN, but that was so close to what I was looking for that I knew to backtrack. A solid meta with bonus google education on historical events (I totally plan to bring up the Battle of Aksu as an ice-breaker tonight.)
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ky-mike
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#26

Post by ky-mike »

I never could connect the years with letters. I figured that “next year” was a clue and noticed the 20x20 grid and guessed “vision”. So close to solving, but I’ll take the Hail Mary guess for a win this week.
Leslie
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Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 2:18 pm

#27

Post by Leslie »

I feel like an idiot (or at least someone with very poor VISION). I had VOSIIN too, but quit for lack of time. I spent too long thinking "next year" referred to the years of the events in the grid rather than to 2020. My first rabbit hole was seeing that the Council of Arles took place in 314 and remembering that Arles was in the grid. When I couldn't make that work, I tried using the grid coordinates for 2005, etc. (row first, then column) as well as for 2004, etc. (column first, then row). Never got around to circling the letters in the grid. Nice puzzle though. Looking forward to starting a new year with a clean slate tomorrow!
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oldjudge
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#28

Post by oldjudge »

Not sour grapes since I had the years of the contest answers, but it seems that puzzles should not rely on looking things up on Google. Sometimes some people will need Google, but not everyone. I would bet that the vast majority of people had not even heard of a few of the events, let alone the dates of the events. Battle of Aksu? Really?
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BarbaraK
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#29

Post by BarbaraK »

I'm another who initially got VOSIIN and said that must not be the right approach. But I was confident that it was the right general idea, so I tried the "next" years, starting in the bottom and counting up, etc. When none of those worked any better, I went back to across then down and this time circled the letters and there was VISION <forehead slap>

This reminded me of another puzzle from a couple years ago. I got from the theme answers to numbers, then looked up those numbered squares in the grid and got PININOO. Nope, obviously not a word, so I quit that approach and went down other rabbit holes never again getting near the answer. Turns out that was another one where you needed to put the letters in grid order, not theme answer order, and then it would have been OPINION.

I'd like to think this means I'm getting better at these with practice :)
Laura M
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#30

Post by Laura M »

I didn't have much time to spend on this one, so when I (unsurprisingly) couldn't get it more or less right away, I submitted what I thought was a pretty good 6-letter guess: ANNUAL. I like the real answer better though, and it's an excellent mechanism; I'm not sure that I ever would have realized the grid was 20x20, but in hindsight... well, you know. Kudos to those who got it!
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