Royal Titles

[Ergcat]

Off the couch, I believe!
Needed the prompts as I was going down another -wrong- path!
Clever! Thank you, Steve!

[minimuggle]

Well I'm embarrassed to say that I'm still on the couch. I have an idea but can't find the answer yet. I would not mind another nudge.

[Thurman8er]

Here is a late Thursday update. I'll post another spoiler or two tomorrow.

Benchen71
Schmeel
Meg
Boharr
Bbaack
Whimsy
MarkWoychick
Sharkicicles
Darth
Wendy Walker
ImOnToo
Dannyvee
ChrisKochmanski
Tom Wilson
FrankieHeck
Lbray53
HeadinHome
Dudeski
Woozy
Dow Jones
Cap’n Rick
Bhamren
MamaE
Andrew Bradburn
Hcbirker
Markhr
Laura M
Bird Lives
KayW
CPJohnson
TeamDoubleTow
Dplass
MaineMarge
BarbaraK
Beth Tyrpin
Cinny
Tom.Runner
Hidden in 3D
DrTom
Michaelm
Ergcat
Gmoney
Cbarbee002

[Anita]

I am finally off the couch. I solved the grid on Monday, didn't immediately get the meta, put it away and forgot it! Today, read the nudges and had a quick look, and boom. Waiting for confirmation, but I'm confident.

[michaelm]

Thank you Thurman8er!
You are building a nice collection of puzzles and solvers.
Looking forward to the next one too.

[minimuggle]

OK, I think I am literally the last person to be dragged off the couch. I received a lot of help and was basically led to the finish, and I am so embarrassed not to have gotten it earlier. Haven't yet gotten confirmation but I'm pretty sure I'm there.

[SewYoung]

OK, I think I am literally the last person to be dragged off the couch. I received a lot of help and was basically led to the finish, and I am so embarrassed not to have gotten it earlier. Haven't yet gotten confirmation but I'm pretty sure I'm there.

I'm right behind you. Just now got around to looking at the grid again after not seeing it a few days ago. Finally off the couch.

[Thurman8er]

Thank you Thurman8er!
You are building a nice collection of puzzles and solvers.
Looking forward to the next one too.

Thanks!

I have one more in the queue, and I'm working on one I really like so far. We'll see what the wise men say.

[Thurman8er]

Here are your final spoilers, Muggles!

There are four book titles hidden across black squares.

You might say those black squares are areas that are definitely deceased...they've rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. They are ex-spaces.

Stephen King is one of my two favorite authors.

[Joe Ross]

This Tuesday, January 25th, 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT & following the weekly Muggle Zoom meeting, there will be a Zoom session discussing the use of the graphical tools within Excel (& the spreadsheet forms I create for various meta puzzles discussed on this site) to solve metas.

We can also discuss other on-screen graphical tools that can be used.

Click on the Muggle Zoom Room link (above left) to enter.




Arrive an hour earlier and join the XWord Muggles weekly Zoom fun, which goes for an hour, then stay to discuss Excel.

[JeanneC]

Think I finally made it off the couch after much contemplation. Awaiting confirmation.
I much admire the talent of the constructor.

[Thurman8er]

Thanks to all the solvers this week, and especially to KayW for the graphic (that I cannot seem to remember how to do myself).

The Royal Titles in question were all Stephen King novels starting with a "The." The words "dead" and "zone" can be found in symmetrically placed spots giving the answer, "The Dead Zone."

The Dead Zone was the book that got me hooked on King waaaaaay back in my senior year of high school. I've since read every book Uncle Stevie put out and look forward to more.

[Thurman8er]

OH! And here is the final list of solvers:

Benchen71
Schmeel
Meg
Boharr
Bbaack
Whimsy
MarkWoychick
Sharkicicles
Darth
Wendy Walker
ImOnToo
Dannyvee
ChrisKochmanski
Tom Wilson
FrankieHeck
Lbray53
HeadinHome
Dudeski
Woozy
Dow Jones
Cap’n Rick
Bhamren
MamaE
Andrew Bradburn
Hcbirker
Markhr
Laura M
Bird Lives
KayW
CPJohnson
TeamDoubleTow
Dplass
MaineMarge
BarbaraK
Beth Tyrpin
Cinny
Tom.Runner
Hidden in 3D
DrTom
Michaelm
Ergcat
Gmoney
Cbarbee002
Anita
Minimuggle
SewYoung
JeanneC

[woozy]

RoyalTitles.JPG

Thanks to all the solvers this week, and especially to KayW for the graphic (that I cannot seem to remember how to do myself).

The Royal Titles in question were all Stephen King novels starting with a "The." The words "dead" and "zone" can be found in symmetrically placed spots giving the answer, "The Dead Zone."

The Dead Zone was the book that got me hooked on King waaaaaay back in my senior year of high school. I've since read every book Uncle Stevie put out and look forward to more.

You forgotten to mention how the numbers worked....

[KayW]

... the graphic (that I cannot seem to remember how to do myself).

You might be able to pick up a few tips on this at @Joe Ross excel tutorial Tuesday night at 8:30pm EST (immediately following the also highly-recommended weekly Muggle Meet Up at 7:30pm EST).

Joe might also give a few pointers about not assaulting viewers' eyes with hideous color schemes Apologies for that, folks - that was my hasty "as-solved" highlighting.

[rjy]

RoyalTitles.JPG

Thanks to all the solvers this week, and especially to KayW for the graphic (that I cannot seem to remember how to do myself).

The Royal Titles in question were all Stephen King novels starting with a "The." The words "dead" and "zone" can be found in symmetrically placed spots giving the answer, "The Dead Zone."

The Dead Zone was the book that got me hooked on King waaaaaay back in my senior year of high school. I've since read every book Uncle Stevie put out and look forward to more.

You forgotten to mention how the numbers worked....

I'm guessing just the number of letters from each answer? i.e., GUNS (4) LINGER (6). That pattern holds, though I couldn't get my mind past thinking it was indexing, say the 4th letter in BBGUNS...

[Thurman8er]

RoyalTitles.JPG

Thanks to all the solvers this week, and especially to KayW for the graphic (that I cannot seem to remember how to do myself).

The Royal Titles in question were all Stephen King novels starting with a "The." The words "dead" and "zone" can be found in symmetrically placed spots giving the answer, "The Dead Zone."

The Dead Zone was the book that got me hooked on King waaaaaay back in my senior year of high school. I've since read every book Uncle Stevie put out and look forward to more.

You forgotten to mention how the numbers worked....

AH! Thanks for the reminder!

The numbers indicated how many letters to use from each word on either side of the "dead zone." I wasn't sure about using them since it seemed to be an unusual use. Ultimately I liked how it helped zero in on the appropriate entries.

[woozy]

I'm guessing just the number of letters from each answer? i.e., GUNS (4) LINGER (6). That pattern holds, though I couldn't get my mind past thinking it was indexing, say the 4th letter in BBGUNS...

It was slightly more. It was how many letters from the end. left on one side, right on the other. As an enjoyable red herring it was *really* hard to get indexing out of my mind.

I had a weird experience solving. I saw that the clues with numbers word symmetrically paired but the numbers weren't. Couldn't make anything of it. Stared at the grid looking for odd patterns and saw "DE-AD ZO-NE" right there. Had to look up to see if DEAD ZONE was a book and it it was by Stephen King and figured that was the "royal" title. But couldn't get any more. Tried to see if the clues skipping black squares read anything (I had actually tried that earlier as it is a standard mechanism but there was something about this grid that made them hard to see even when you are looking for them) saw UNSLINGER and knew that King had written a Gunslinger series. Then I realized that GUNSLINGER was symmetrically located in the center of the row so I looked in the center of the row for the other group of clues with numbers and got the rest of the titles. And that was when I figured out what the numbers meant.

So in order: Answer, the clues for the answer, the mechanism, the clues to find the mechanism. In completely reverse order as intended.