MEOW #37: Josh and Tom's Terrible Horrible No-good Very Bad Puzzle

A weekly meta crossword on the forum started by member Josh (aka madhatter5). These puzzles are often very creative with solving mechanisms out of the norm and skewing towards the more challenging. Puzzles are posted every Wednesday, and the solution appears the following Tuesday.
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DrTom
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#41

Post by DrTom »

All righty then - it is reveal time...please stop collecting your slings and arrows for a moment while we tell you what we were going for (and you can tell us where you'd LIKE us to go)
JNTATNP.jpg

Hopefully you all did better on the B puzzle, or at least better than I did. I never found my way out of the woods, there appeared to be some force that would not let me move beyond my initial, and incorrect idea. I guess this is one time I SHOULD have been unbalanced, at least if I wanted to move that is.

Tom
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
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Hector
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#42

Post by Hector »

This was very well done, but tricky. It combines a doubly-unexpected function of paren numbers (they have nothing to do with the grid entries for those clues, and they don't end up specifying individual letters), themers serving only as amusing distractions, and a hard-to-spot MASS IN BMINOR sort of final step.
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boharr
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#43

Post by boharr »

First time I've seen paren numbers refer to a series of letters. Have to add that to the paren tip sheet.
Dplass
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#44

Post by Dplass »

Very well done!
Ergcat
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#45

Post by Ergcat »

boharr wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:16 pm First time I've seen paren numbers refer to a series of letters. Have to add that to the paren tip sheet.
Yes, I agree! I actually got to that last step but just thinking the (#) referred to a single letter or word of the clue. Now I know another trick!
Well done!
hoover
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#46

Post by hoover »

Ergcat wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:28 pm
boharr wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:16 pm First time I've seen paren numbers refer to a series of letters. Have to add that to the paren tip sheet.
Yes, I agree! I actually got to that last step but just thinking the (#) referred to a single letter or word of the clue. Now I know another trick!
Well done!
Me too. The last thing on my scribble sheet looks like this:

Code: Select all

3 4 2 4 3
C K D A C
That last C should have been an S. I think I took the 7th letter rather than the 3rd.
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Cinny
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#47

Post by Cinny »

Actually, a very clever puzzle. Wasn't able to solve it, but seeing the solution, it is a clever mechanism and use of the parentheses. Not so horrible!!
Cindy Heisler
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