There are three types of metas that I dislike from the get-go:
1. Pronunciation
2. Open-ended metas (the ones that don't have a strong click)
3. One with convoluted prompts.
This, at a first glance, satisfied two of those conditions (and possibly three: NE as in any? Annie?) I felt very strongly about this one and couldn't get over my frustration to solve it. It turns out I was wrong.
In retrospect, this is a very nice meta. However, if the prompt was way simpler, it would've been much more fun since in the end, the North East clue doesn't tie a super neat bow (Center Yourself -> Inner Peace -> Center letter of the words in question is hypothetically great but involves too many steps to get there). The idea of "oh you're just gonna apply a random two-word piece to these starred answers no biggie" felt overwhelming. I'd liked something to the tune of "Missing Something/Something's Missing" (also works with the inner piece/peace pun) which directs the solver to the mechanism more strongly.
Also yes, I guess you're applying an "inner piece" but the prompt is still too far-fetched for my taste.
MGWCC #737 - “Center Yourself” by Yossi Fendel
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burak
- Posts: 246
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BarbaraK
- Posts: 2615
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I solved this one just with the inner letters. Now, seeing the word squares, it’s much more elegant than I’d realized
If you want help with a meta, feel free to PM me. The more specific you are about what you have and what you want, the more likely I can help without spoiling.
(And if I help you win a mug, I’ll be especially delighted.)
(And if I help you win a mug, I’ll be especially delighted.)
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MMe
- Posts: 293
- Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:27 am
Right, I bet this one varied with your meta solving habits. I always transcribe the themers (or the starred entries or whatever) in a text editor window on my computer. It jumped right out that one of them was almost a symmetric grid with a row missing. The other one had to be reordered...
If you're just looking at the actual grid, though, I'm sure that would be very hard to see.