"Following Directions" - May 14, 2021

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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Collegetowngirl
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#321

Post by Collegetowngirl »

Sadly at sea too. Found a couple things but they don’t add up yet.
EVJ
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#322

Post by EVJ »

ASHORE!
Boharr drew me a map, gave me directions and practically had to hold my hand to walk me through this! This was a bear! KAZ 5 here. I’m impressed at all of you that got this on your own, or with your meta buddy. I think you all deserve a mug! And Isaac I’m buying boharr’s next drink.
Not submitting but what a wild ride!
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EdStrong
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#323

Post by EdStrong »

On shore with five minutes to spare. Very impressive and a bit exhausting.
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Joe Ross
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#324

Post by Joe Ross »

20210514 WSJCC Following Directions.png
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Joe Ross
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#325

Post by Joe Ross »

Image
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Geezer Weezer
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#326

Post by Geezer Weezer »

Nope.
I am a man of few...
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MajordomoTom
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#327

Post by MajordomoTom »

did not have any good ideas on this one, threw out a last minute guess that was pretty far into a different ocean altogether.
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
burak
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#328

Post by burak »

Huh, it turns out I only got half of the mechanism. I was pretty sure that NSEW had something to do with it, but for some reason the UDLR part never dawned on me. Alas, that's what happens when you can only start doing the meta Sunday afternoon.
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Colin
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#329

Post by Colin »

Darn! Followed the compass directions for a while but missed the L,R,U,D ones. Very clever meta that challenged my sense of direction!
One world. One planet. One future.
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TeaJenny
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#330

Post by TeaJenny »

I had the directions right - got all 8 of them. I had the mechanism right. I just couldn't figure out where to start. And I wasn't counting the black squares. Everything I tried ended up as gibberish.

That was brutal.
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis
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Abide
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#331

Post by Abide »

If you don’t see the signaling clue at 13-D, it’s impossible. IMO that clue should have read more like “Square____(good place to begin following directions)”
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TeaJenny
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#332

Post by TeaJenny »

MajordomoTom wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 12:14 am did not have any good ideas on this one, threw out a last minute guess that was pretty far into a different ocean altogether.
Same here. I think we were in the same ocean. :lol:
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis
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escapeartist
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#333

Post by escapeartist »

escapeartist wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 11:08 pm wow, seriously flummoxed with this one - hanging out with Isaac for the near future.

(although I did arrive at one solution I trust as far as Fauci can throw a baseball)
OK, I figured out the directions from the starred answers, but since the start and finish were on opposite sides of the grid, I went with:

DIAGONAL

my sticking point was that it didn't finish in exactly the opposite corner :(
* 2022 WSJ Mug Winner - I bask in its Glory *
Laura M
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#334

Post by Laura M »

After getting lost several times trying to figure out if "square one" referred to the first square of each theme word, or 1 in the grid, or ONE in the grid, or what, I simplified the directions to be less meandering:

DR SEUSS: 3D, 2R
SLURRED: 1D, 2R
REEDS: 2D, 3R
DRESS: 3D, 2R
WELDS: 2D, 1L
DRESDEN: 2D, 3R
DENUDED: 1D, 2R

which made things much easier! (Still took some time before I got it right though, I was stuck on the idea that there must be independent starting points for each path.)
KatieCollier
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#335

Post by KatieCollier »

Newbie here. I’ve been quietly following this board for several weeks and was able to get the last few on my own, but this one definitely humbled me! I might even say it ruined my weekend - i couldn’t stop thinking about it! Even with a nudge, I only got the mechanism right - I knew it was a pathway with directional letters, but I still don’t understand how MEANDERS ultimately pops out as the answer? Can someone show me how we were supposed to know to choose those letters from the “map?”
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DannyWalter
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#336

Post by DannyWalter »

Gosh dang darn it! I was there! A good place to start! I got EANDERS, no, that's not a word. I just didn't think to include the "M" as the first letter. Doh! Then I got onto ODDS and ENDS, which seems to have been intentional misdirection. Another excellent puzzle. Another almost. Next week. For Shirley.
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escapeartist
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#337

Post by escapeartist »

DannyWalter wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 12:38 am Gosh dang darn it! I was there! A good place to start! I got EANDERS, no, that's not a word. I just didn't think to include the "M" as the first letter. Doh! Then I got onto ODDS and ENDS, which seems to have been intentional misdirection. Another excellent puzzle. Another almost. Next week. For Shirley.
I'm a little miffed that it is the first letter along the path of every starred answer, but also includes the last letter of the "directions"

It threw me off since the beginning that there were 7 starred answers and the solution was an eight letter word. :cry:
* 2022 WSJ Mug Winner - I bask in its Glory *
PQ63
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#338

Post by PQ63 »

Ugh. Ned and Deb (Bed) was a rabbit hole from which I could not escape.
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Mister Squawk
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#339

Post by Mister Squawk »

This was a truly grueling puzzle. I spent all day Saturday beating my head against this. I quickly got the directions, but it I got stuck trying to apply each clue's directions to that clue in an attempt to derive an intermediate step. Also much angst about the presence of two all-direction German cities (ESSEN and DRESDEN) as well as the unstarred eighth theme clue (REDNESS). Like others, I converted each clue's directions into a vector, I even tried creating pairs of vectors, one using the NSEW directions, the other UDRL.

At some point, I realized that seven vectors could generate eight letters (including the origin). I missed 13D, so I tried the two plausible origins (grid center and UL corner, although technically the origin in the UL corner would make this a left-handed coordinate space).
IMG_20210516_205639287_HDR.jpg
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Streroto
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#340

Post by Streroto »

Interesting and clever. I had it all along and stopped when I hit a black square assuming this would not be allowed. Oh well.
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