XWord Muggles Forum

GUEST CONSTRUCTOR PUZZLE:

Today’s meta is by MGWCC veteran Peter Gwinn. Peter (on the left in photo below) is a comedian who lives in Chicago and writes for NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me!” In his free time he writes trivia puzzles for AVCX and articles about doing escape rooms with your kids for Room Escape Artist. He met Kermit the Frog when he used to write for “The Colbert Report”.



Let’s see what Peter has in store for us…


THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This puzzle’s contest answer is something you can use to solve it.

Good luck! NOTE: there are two PDFs; use whichever one you prefer (or both even!).

--Matt

UPDATE:
Dear Solver:

Two notes on today's meta:

1) In the clue to 40-Across, "Northwest" should read "Northeast." Apologies for the error there.

2) Solvers using only the Across Lite file should also scan the PDFs if they are not seeing a certain mark before five clues. They are on the PDF and most solvers are seeing them in the Across Lite files but I'm told certain solvers are not.

--Matt

Submitted and awaiting beam. I found this incredibly impressive.

ETA #20 on the board.

Beamed with loads of help.

I just had an epiphany, and I feel like I'm getting close, but I'm not there yet. I'll keep at it!

Edit: Yep, wow. Up at 3³. And I'll echo you, @docison: wow. A Level 4 at least, and I can't speak for Matt, but this is certainly a puzzle I would have loved to have made. Bravo to Peter!!

Okay. The grid tells me I should go to the supermarket and buy kumquats. The title tells me I should go to the Guggenheim and look at the Mona Lisa. And the prompt is telling me that Dessert Tortoises like to dig. And together than means the meta is.... I have no idea.

Beamed up with assistance

Ditto @DCBilly.

Well, that note from Matt is pretty important. It helps explain why I was totally lost. There were no certain marks on my across lite clues! This doesn't mean I'll solve, but at least now I have a chance.

Funny my across light shows those marks and I had no trouble seeing the marks. But the PDF made it a bit more clear what they were.

Still at sea though.

Katiedid wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2024 3:10 pm Well, that note from Matt is pretty important. It helps explain why I was totally lost. There were no certain marks on my across lite clues! This doesn't mean I'll solve, but at least now I have a chance.

Yeah, I had the same issue.

Beamed, with an assist from @ajk . I was closer than I thought but missing a couple details. Pretty impressive puzzle!

Solved after a co-conspirator’s observation pointed me to the last step. Super impressive!

No freakin clue

November had seven weeks this year it seems.

This may not be the hardest week 5 I've even seen but it also might be. It's certainly the hardest one in several months.

If you can speak at least two of Tagalog, Shalishan and Cebuono, fluently , can perform a MANOVA before 7 AM, and know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop, there is absolutely no reason that you shouldn't be able to solve this.

There, that should boost everyone's confidence.

I only solved this because I remembered something from a puzzle a couple of years ago, which was slightly hinted at by one of the clues. Otherwise I doubt I would have gotten that final step.

The signposts here are rather faint, especially for a week 3. At least that's my take. Others may disagree.

Beamed!

With help.

Cool!

markhr wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2024 12:25 am

The signposts here are rather faint, especially for a week 3. At least that's my take. Others may disagree.

Others may disagree. But they'd be wrong.

That was incredible. One of my favorite recent metas. Experience from another type of puzzling definitely helped.

Wow. Definitely felt like a week 7. Like threading a progressively smaller needle multiple times...

Getting the construction right must've been a real "1Across inhabitant". impressive!