XWord Muggles Forum

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)
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

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.

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

Very well done!

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!

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: That last C should have been an S. I think I took the 7th letter rather than the 3rd.

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!!