XWord Muggles Forum

The answer to the metapuzzle is a letter taken from one of the six theme entries.

Aaand I got nothing.

Nothing here yet. And I'm slightly torn on how to interpret "a letter taken from one of the six theme entries."

I have no ideas yet, only a tiny one that quickly fizzled. And I just did the MGWCC grid and nothing jumped out yet on that one either. I'm more likely to get that one, though, that this one.

Got it! (Unconfirmed, but 99% sure.) I'm just on fire today :-)

FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 11:52 am Nothing here yet. And I'm slightly torn on how to interpret "a letter taken from one of the six theme entries."

I had the same problem, but it is a letter in one of those six grid entries. I think that the ambiguous wording is deliberate though.

Laura M wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 2:33 pm

FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 11:52 am Nothing here yet. And I'm slightly torn on how to interpret "a letter taken from one of the six theme entries."

I had the same problem, but it is a letter in one of those six grid entries. I think that the ambiguous wording is deliberate though.

Laura's answer was right, as is her guidance on how to interpret the prompt; I'm curious in what way the wording seems ambiguous - it was intended to be straightforward, so apologies if I threw anyone for a loop!

I read it as a letter that *is* to be taken from a theme entry, but it occured to me that it could be a letter that *had been* taken from a theme entry. I haven't gotten far enough for it to be an issue at all!

FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 2:54 pm I read it as a letter that *is* to be taken from a theme entry, but it occured to me that it could be a letter that *had been* taken from a theme entry.

Same. And I meant that the wording was deliberate, not the fact that it was slightly ambiguous. (That is, if PGW had worded the prompt the way I did above, I never would have solved it!)

FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 2:54 pm I read it as a letter that *is* to be taken from a theme entry, but it occured to me that it could be a letter that *had been* taken from a theme entry. I haven't gotten far enough for it to be an issue at all!

Ah - okay, makes sense. Sorry for any confusion. I included "taken" in the prompt because it ties in with the title, but missed the possibility of that alternate interpretation.

Submitted my answer, but made it difficult for myself with errors in the grid. Had to clear those out on the way to the solution.

Wow. Just got this one, thanks to a suggestion from my husband. I think I'll wait to submit it tomorrow when I'm sober, though. Maybe I can get him to figure out Matt's in the meantime...

For those still struggling - I see Pete has posted a small update to the puzzle. I suspect I am the "successful solver" mentioned in the commentary to the update as my issue on the way to the solve has been clarified/corrected in the update.

RPardoe wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:10 pm For those still struggling - I see Pete has posted a small update to the puzzle. I suspect I am the "successful solver" mentioned in the commentary to the update as my issue on the way to the solve has been clarified/corrected in the update.

Sadly, this didn't help (and I had already figured out the error...)

A last-minute solve, aided by a kind nudge.

A typically impressive construction, BTW.

Just read the solution (so, spoilers). The possibility of anagrams occurred to me, but I was trying to make them anagram to other entries or clues. I like the construction, but I think this puzzle needed some kind of indication that we were looking for for herbs. (Does "Taking Reveals" get at that somehow? The meaning of the title is pretty clear in light of the prompt, but it still sounds awkward to me.) Without that, this one veers too far towards wrong end of the "meta puzzle or inside joke" scale. But that's just me, and the construction itself is pretty impressive.

Never in a million years.

damefox wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 12:35 pm Just read the solution (so, spoilers). The possibility of anagrams occurred to me, but I was trying to make them anagram to other entries or clues. I like the construction, but I think this puzzle needed some kind of indication that we were looking for for herbs. (Does "Taking Reveals" get at that somehow? The meaning of the title is pretty clear in light of the prompt, but it still sounds awkward to me.) Without that, this one veers too far towards wrong end of the "meta puzzle or inside joke" scale. But that's just me, and the construction itself is pretty impressive.

REVEALS = LEAVES + R, so if you do the meta trick to the title, you get the more in-the-language phrase "Taking Leaves," which is also a pun on the herb theme. That doesn't help you move toward the solution, but it's a thematic tie-in that confirms the solution once you've got it.

There's certainly no inside joke here. The puzzle is based on a pattern that's repeated six (or seven, if you count the last step) times and makes use of a well known category of things. It's a pattern that's readily identifiable, but only once you spot it. Of course, it was hard to spot - very hard for some, easier for others. In my opinion (which is of course biased - I made the puzzle) that makes it fair, just difficult.

I suspect this puzzle played easier if, like me, you play a lot of Scrabble. Finding anagrams that are subsets of a larger set is one of the main skills you have to master to play that game well. If that's not something you're used to, I can appreciate how this one would have been hard to solve. But - again in my opinion only, and you may reasonably feel differently - a good puzzle should be hard to solve. If it's not, it's not really a puzzle.

Sorry if this sounds defensive. I'll stop now and hope that the next one is more to your liking.

pgw

damefox wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 12:35 pm Just read the solution (so, spoilers). The possibility of anagrams occurred to me, but I was trying to make them anagram to other entries or clues. I like the construction, but I think this puzzle needed some kind of indication that we were looking for for herbs. (Does "Taking Reveals" get at that somehow? The meaning of the title is pretty clear in light of the prompt, but it still sounds awkward to me.) Without that, this one veers too far towards wrong end of the "meta puzzle or inside joke" scale. But that's just me, and the construction itself is pretty impressive.

REVEALS is LEAVES plus a letter, which was fun to find after solving the puzzle, but it certainly wouldn't have helped me actually get to the answer.

Sorry; I see pgw has posted a response!

Didn't get REVEALS->LEAVES at all, but that's awesome! I thought that it might have helped to have an herb-related word in the title, but there already was one (sort of).

I really have no idea how I happened to stumble onto the solution to this one, but the idea of taking a letter from each theme word seemed worth a rabbit hole dive. It didn't seem that I could get new words with the letters in the same order, so I thought maybe anagrams. Here's where I cheated a bit, since it's on record that I'm hopeless with anagrams, and besides I still thought this wouldn't go anywhere. This is a useful site for this sort of thing if you're anagram-impaired like me:

http://scrabblewordfinder.org

From LAMPREYS, it came up with the following promising 7-letter words: SAMPLER, REPLAYS, PLAYERS, PARSELY.
ARROGANTE yielded the 8-letter word TARRAGON, so at that point I suspected I might be on the right track!

Kudos to anyone who got this without internet help! ORANGELO might have been the most obvious entry point, but I can see that only with hindsight...