Slow roll to the reveal --
First, a couple more solvers -
CPJohnson
Cinny
Next, I vote we institute
@woozy's vivid description for New Years fun in the future:
...unless there's some cultural reference everyone but me knows about intrepidly running around beaches in foil and jousting.... is there? Is this a common New Years Eve tradition in those weird parts of the world that aren't California?
BRAVE -- um, not sure you'd get me out there
SILVER -- ooh, yeah, shiny!
JAB -- surely inevitable with all those pointy things flying around
DUNE -- well, clouds of dust and a Hi Yo Silver, away!
Finally, since we're at least halfway there --
The message we received from Josh was BRAVO, SOLVER! JOB DONE!
by letting the single O (ball) in the center of the top row of the grid, drop into each row that told us to PAUSE.
No grid reveal. Since I don't have the technical talent, I'll let you picture it yourself a la
@BrennerTJ. The ball descending, the O's in the new words flashing, chimes and whistles, etc.
I'm somewhat chuffed that I actually did get the difficulty rating about right this time! And I have a theory about why some of us found this one tricky. (Even after we'd discovered that the four even-stranger-than-normal clues, and the unorthodox repetition of the word PAUSE
didn't provide us with the letters or words for the meta answer!) Maybe we were so focused on the vertical drop that we forgot the horizontal possibilities. I'm comparing it to being asked to pat our heads and rub our tummies at the same time!
So thanks again, Josh, for one of your terrific and (ahem) unique puzzles! Good celebrating with you!
Oh, wait! I've neglected cat pic duty!
