Mix & Match

[cbarbee002]

Okay, Day 1 lineup below - - let me know if I missed you (not sure which solvers on Crosshare might be muggles). I'll post another nudge later this a.m. to lure more of you off the couch.

Al Sisti (TS)
Abide (TS)
rjy
boharr
HeadinHome
CPJohnson
woozy
hcbirker
schmidzyu
lbray53
markhr
Cinny
Ergcat
LindaPRmaven
benchen71
ReB
ChrisKochmanski
Schmeel

[cbarbee002]

Nudge time:

Each "mixed" group of letters forms a new word

So if the first number tells you how many letters to mix (and 64D tells you where to look for them), what could the second number mean?

The second number also refers to the length of a word

[edestlin]

Classic "write a PM asking for a nudge which helps me see the answer" puzzle here. Finally off the couch!

[MatthewL]

Classic "write a PM asking for a nudge which helps me see the answer" puzzle here. Finally off the couch!

Ditto! Did the same thing and then saw it right in the body of the PM I was typing. Thankfully, didn't push send on that one. Off the couch.

[ky-mike]

Needed the clues to get me off the couch. Confirmed via Crosshare.

Nice one Chris!

[Wendy Walker]

Yeesh! I needed all the nudges for sure! Thanks, Chris, for a challenge.

[KayW]

Very clever puzzle! Off the couch with some 2x4 variety of epiphanies provided by the nudges above. Thanks, Chris!

[mkmf]

Off the couch. Needed the nudges to confirm that what I was trying was the right approach. I'd given up too soon. It took looking at several cases before one of them finally clicked very nicely. Fun.

[whimsy]

Off the couch. Who's afraid of parentheses?

Thanks, Chris!

[Bird Lives]

The cat is out of the bag. I used the Tuesday nudge, though I like to think that I could have eventually solved without it. Then I had a perfectly reasonable mix-and-match mistake, so I needed two tries to score.

[MikeyG]

I see two or three things that cannot be coincidence, so I'd like to think I'm on the right path? Just need to see if I can tie it all together!

[bhamren]

Nice one. Would not have gotten it without nudges.

[Eric Porter]

Finally off the couch. I saw the nudges yesterday, but didn't think I was going to be able to solve it. Then I took another look.

[cbarbee002]

This definitely played harder than anticipated (hence my refusal to try to "rate" puzzles). Anyway, more Muggles are safely OTC:

edestin
Matthew L
ky-Mike
Wendy Walker
kayW
Berto
Whimsey
Bird Lives
mkmf
bhamren
Eric Porter

I know that some of you are still snuggled on the cushions, so here are some more nudges:

Most seem to be hung up on LEM, and how to "mix" that. It's not ELM.

Also, many were hung up on how to mix ATE. It's not TEA.

The meta title is Mix & Match -- you will need to connect letters from the Mix AND the match. So, the answer is 8-letters.

[minimuggle]

Pulled off the couch thanks to nudges and Chris's patience. Great puzzle

[MikeyG]

Finally reverse-engineered one component of the last step, but I pulled it out somehow without any nudges. Toughie but a good one, thanks!

[MarkWoychick]

Off the couch with the nudges - thanks for the puzzle, Chris!

[ajk]

Got it with the nudges. Only actually used a couple of them, but they were needed.

[hoover]

Ooh! That was a very nice one! I had to read all three sets of nudges about 15 times to figure out what was going on, though, but that's on me.

[Cap'n Rick]

Ditto what @hoover said above. Clever and unique (to me) mechanism and a fun puzzle overall. Thanks, Chris!