XWord Muggles Forum

Thanks, everybody!

The answer, which I think everyone got, is WRAP AROUND, achieved by taking each of the entries on the right edge of the grid, adding a letter, and adding them to the entry in the same row on the left edge of the grid. The added letters spell the meta answer.

HAY W IRE
TATE R TOTS
SIMP A TICO
GRAND P ARENT
FOR A GER
ADO R ING
REZ O NES
POST U LATE
SERE N ADE
DOO D ADS

I had mixed feeling about this one. I originally wanted to make it a 15x15 with more 9 and 11-letter long theme entries. But it was just too challenging to find words that (1) could be split into two valid words, (2) had a specific letter in between, and (3) could then be stacked to make down entries. I also tried to avoid words that were related to the longer word (e.g., LASE R BEAM). So, the result is a 15x12 grid made 50% of 3-letter words (35/71), many of them ugly abbreviations, foreign, etc. I hope the "aha" was worth all that junk.

As for the title, it's just other things that "wrap around," and I'm a sucker for alliteration. Sorry to Laura M who Googled more than she bargained for .

Thanks again for solving! If anyone has an idea for a meta and would like to collaborate, I would be happy to take your idea and help design and/or fill the grid. Then I would leave the cluing to you. Just shoot me a PM.

Did anybody else see the spider in the grid? All 8 legs. It should have meant something! The aha was lovely.

I can't believe how long it took me to see that, even as I tried to make those short words on the sides into longer words. I kept getting stuck trying to turn TICO into PORTICO. Thanks for keeping me busy!

Meg wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2020 9:09 pm Did anybody else see the spider in the grid? All 8 legs. It should have meant something! The aha was lovely.

Oh man, that is awesome!

PM sent with two meta concepts

Fairly early on, after completing the grid, I noticed TICO and SIMP, and thought of SIMPATICO, but I concluded, at the time, that it was a coincidence.

ARGH!!!!

That kept me from the mechanism and the answer for quite a loooooooooong time.

Still, a very satisfying solve when I finally got there (with a slight hint to bring me back to my start).

I was thinking about TATER TOTS for a while, then wrote down the R, and it was a wrap shortly thereafter.

Right, after I solved the meta I had to Google wraparound spiders--I'd never heard of those! Eek.

(Really they don't look at all terrifying, they mostly blend in, which I suppose is the point. I don't recommend doing an image search for "huntsman spider" though...)

Great puzzle, I'm looking forward to the next one!

Laura M wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2020 12:11 am Right, after I solved the meta I had to Google wraparound spiders--I'd never heard of those! Eek.

(Really they don't look at all terrifying, they mostly blend in, which I suppose is the point. I don't recommend doing an image search for "huntsman spider" though...)

You left your Zoom window open; there's one right behind you!

I'm kicking around some meta ideas, and have some completed grids. They are still a little too clunky for prime time, but if I get them to a point where they make some sense, I'll try to get them posted.

This was VERY good