XWord Muggles Forum

Tough one, got it but needed both Josh’s nudges and other muggle assistance.

Okay.... Got it....

.....

edited, I think I gave too much away (somehow I forgot it was still only Thurs) also think I was too critical of what was a puzzling puzzle. (Puzzling's supposed to be good, right?)

Wow, I think I got it, with @woozy's spoilers.

woozy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:30 pm Okay.... Got it....

That's the type of mechanism I do when I'm grasping at straws. Usually they never work.

It's clever. But I'm with oldjudge... we need a few more hints to be lead by the nose... maybe some clue about things nesting in nooks of right angles (like something about eggs or acorns in the jousts of architectur joints??? I dunno.... something....) and maybe something to hint and something to indicate there are six phantom Ls. Possibly some clues with weird words like RACECAR or SCITOTIC (although it'd be really hard to come up with enough examples to make them noticeable)

Definitely agree, I didn't give solvers enough on this one. Sorry

I noticed a few things, but only got the meta after clicking on all of the spoilers* here. Pretty cool!

*Fair warning to anyone else doing this: some of the spoilers are pretty blatant, but I wouldn't have solved it otherwise! Not submitting though.

Got it. With Josh’s first hint, and help from another Muggle.

Got it. In retrospect it wasn't as impossible as it seemed. i'd say it was a fair meta. As Gaffney would say, it's a SAD one (Simple and Difficult).

I'm skipping nudge Saturday since there have been enough nudges I think If anyone is stuck feel free to send me a message.

Laura M wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:01 am I noticed a few things, but only got the meta after clicking on all of the spoilers* here. Pretty cool!

*Fair warning to anyone else doing this: some of the spoilers are pretty blatant, but I wouldn't have solved it otherwise! Not submitting though.

Ha I don't think any of the spoilers were blatant...ah well there's always Thursday.

Dplass wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:12 pm

Laura M wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:01 am I noticed a few things, but only got the meta after clicking on all of the spoilers* here. Pretty cool!

*Fair warning to anyone else doing this: some of the spoilers are pretty blatant, but I wouldn't have solved it otherwise! Not submitting though.

Ha I don't think any of the spoilers were blatant...ah well there's always Thursday.

My spoilers.... since redacted.... were very blatant.


My thought process is that I assumed only people who had solved would read my nudges. That was my intent. In hindsight it was utterly absurd that I would think such a thing.... but I did.

woozy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:14 am

Dplass wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:12 pm

Laura M wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:01 am I noticed a few things, but only got the meta after clicking on all of the spoilers* here. Pretty cool!

*Fair warning to anyone else doing this: some of the spoilers are pretty blatant, but I wouldn't have solved it otherwise! Not submitting though.

Ha I don't think any of the spoilers were blatant...ah well there's always Thursday.

My spoilers.... since redacted.... were very blatant.


My thought process is that I assumed only people who had solved would read my nudges. That was my intent. In hindsight it was utterly absurd that I would think such a thing.... but I did.

Oh I saw them and "tried" to use them and still get nothing. Sometimes I feel like a child in a room of adults...

That was a tough one. Even with nudges I couldn’t figure it out. A quick revisit this evening and there it is. Maybe that will happen with MGWCC.

Well I finally managed to release a very frustrated cat. I couldn't have done it without the "phantom L' nudge, but even then I labored over it. Once I got it though it seemed like a fair enough puzzle and of course an entirely different mechanism. Perhaps that is the reason for all the befuddlement, we keep looking for way that we have already solved and Josh constantly throws new ways at us. That is not a bad thing, just a frustrating one at times. I congratulate my young friend on another fun and challenging puzzle.

Oh, and in honor of last week's, and a picture I could not post because it was on my computer at home and I was away:

Dplass wrote: ↑Sun Sep 19, 2021 8:06 am

woozy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:14 am

Dplass wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:12 pm

Ha I don't think any of the spoilers were blatant...ah well there's always Thursday.

My spoilers.... since redacted.... were very blatant.


My thought process is that I assumed only people who had solved would read my nudges. That was my intent. In hindsight it was utterly absurd that I would think such a thing.... but I did.

Oh I saw them and "tried" to use them and still get nothing. Sometimes I feel like a child in a room of adults...

@woozy, I honestly did appreciate your spoilers (and agreed with your suggestions) because, like I said, I wasn't getting this one otherwise! Since this isn't (yet) an "official" meta like WSJCC and MGWCC, public hints are fair game, and you used the spoiler tags so people had to choose to see them.

@Dplass, "blatant" was too strong a word anyway, and I should have qualified it with "...to me" which is pretty much always implied in my comments. Everyone's mind works differently; I've often been the one who can't solve a puzzle that it seems like everyone else finds easy. The secret is that a lot of the people who don't get something, also don't post :-)

Laura M wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 2:08 am
@woozy, I honestly did appreciate your spoilers (and agreed with your suggestions) because, like I said, I wasn't getting this one otherwise! Since this isn't (yet) an "official" meta like WSJCC and MGWCC, public hints are fair game, and you used the spoiler tags so people had to choose to see them.

@Dplass, "blatant" was too strong a word anyway, and I should have qualified it with "...to me" which is pretty much always implied in my comments. Everyone's mind works differently; I've often been the one who can't solve a puzzle that it seems like everyone else finds easy. The secret is that a lot of the people who don't get something, also don't post

I appreciate this but I *did* write them thinking they'd be read by people who had solved (don't know why I thought that). Madhatter gave a nudge to look for XXXXXXXXX and my "nudges" went gave a rather explicit pointing what form the XXXXXXXXX would be. And another of my nudges gave a bit too much on what to do with the XXXXXXXXX.

But if I can give nudges (but still hard nudges)here are more for how to find XXXXXXXXX the 6 phantom Ls in the grid are not the 6 black empty space Ls, nor are they the 8 cells with Ls in them; they are in the letters, somehow in six spots the letters form an L; and here is my nudge (just a hint) on what to do with the XXXXXXXXX what does the letter L imply via gestalt.

Since this isn't (yet) an "official" meta like WSJCC and MGWCC, public hints are fair game

Well.... if you say so.... but because I am a self-torturer I'm going to put this test to the limit (which it being a tuesday and all [1] is probably okay) and have a spoiler In six spots in the grid the two lines of an L will be implied by three letters vertically being reflected at a right angle by the same three letter horizontally and once found the six single letters nested between the two lines of these phantom Ls spell the answer.

And just to push the fair use of spoilers to the limit: They spell "LOVE IT"



Okay... does THAT push the public fair use of hints too far? Well, I promise I doubt I'll ever do it again.

.....

For the record I didn't get it until a fellow muggle told me the XXXXXXX were not the 6 Ls formed by black squares. I needed that hint.

.....

[1] I think my greatest fault of my "blatent" nudges was that I posted them on a Thursday.

I won't quote @woozy's post above, but I LOVE the nested spoiler tags! Everyone should go look at them if you've solved or after the reveal :-)

Solution:




There were six "phantom Ls" in the grid which have the same string of four letters going down and across. The letters nested in the "crook" of those phantom Ls yielded the answer, LOVE IT



Thanks to @pjc for the idea on this one

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1147&start=320#p65331



EDIT: Whoops I see @woozy beat me to the punch!

madhatter5 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 1:56 pm Solution:



Thanks to @pjc for the idea on this one

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1147&start=320#p65331

I remember that! And I remember noting that! But I didn't see it in your puzzle until I was nudged. Clever (but hard to see) mechanism.

EDIT: Whoops I see @woozy beat me to the punch!

Oh, come on! A stray commentator can not beat the maker of a puzzle to the punch! No matter how explicit a jerk like me might be in ruining it, or jumping the gun, the actual reveal is always the province of the puzzle maker.

Wow, I would have never ever gotten that. I didn't get it with the blatant hints and the non blatant hints. I just did not could not would never see those letters as an "L".

Dplass wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:23 pm Wow, I would have never ever gotten that. I didn't get it with the blatant hints and the non blatant hints. I just did not could not would never see those letters as an "L".

It's ok, you're not alone. I knew from the beginning that this was what I was supposed to be looking for. Even after the numerous nudges / spoilers, etc., I still couldn't find them.