XWord Muggles Forum

ChrisKochmanski wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:46 am

ChrisKochmanski wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 9:19 pm Well, I got it, but only by getting two pretty big nudges. I won’t submit because I wouldn’t want to get a prize (is there one? I can’t remember) without being a true solver.

I’d have liked this puzzle better if I hadn’t needed the help. It’s a pretty cool meta, I think.

Responding to my own post ...

I'm feeling like I should amend my previous note ...

I'd have liked the EXPERIENCE of this puzzle better, if I hadn't needed the help. In fact, I'm kicking myself for not getting to the solution all on my own. The mechanism is a particularly clever one, and I wish I'd seen it. That would have made for a very nice aha indeed. I'm envious of those who got there by their lonesomes.

It’s also a mechanism that’s been used before. Certainly not my finest hour. Sigh.

Again a mechanism I thought I'd tried early on. I guess I'd halved the themer numbers but not those for MOON, etc., so I didn't revisit the idea until I was told my rabbit holes were off base.

For the record, the deepest were:

• LIE, BOOB, and OVAL are reasonable synonyms for PREVARICATION, SIMPLETON, and SEMICIRCULAR (the latter admittedly a stretch).

• Synonyms for TRUTH, MOON, and ASS are words, namely VERACITY, CRESCENT, and BACKSIDE, halves of which fit nicely on bottom down entries, to make ALOEVERA, BLOWBACK, and RETICENT. I was so sure that at least the first and last of these could not be coincidences: the gel is not aloe but aloe vera, and, I mean, RETI?

Very nice puzzle.

I was trying for a synonym without half. Titan moon was right there taunting me. Orate or outgun for wit. Ape for ass. And, lie for baked. There we have it in grid order total. I knew I was just making it work but was stuck.
Another kind of cool thing that almost worked. (Take note you super smart meta creators) Full moon BFD. Full wit ESP. Full truth TBH. Full ass??? Full baked BHS. If those middle letters would have spelled the answer that would have been a cool mechanism.

You got me again Peter Washington. Maybe this week I’ll have better logic.

I also kept going back to looking for synonyms of either the MOON, TRUTH, etc or their halved versions. I felt like half-baked could be soft, halfwit could be boob, half truth could be lie, but there was clearly no half moon or half ass in there. I kept hoping to find a CHEEK or a MULE hidden in there. In spite of having been doing PGW's metas from almost puzzle 1, I just didn't think numbers. Those damned numbers get me so many times! Good and fair puzzle, though. I'm just a slow learner.