XWord Muggles Forum

Hi all and welcome to the ninth installment of the MEOW! The answer to this week's meta is a nine-letter word that I hope applies to this puzzle. The difficulty level is a Persian.

Starting this week, nudges will be posted on Saturdays since I realized Sunday doesn't give enough post-nudge time for solvers. And there will never be a leaderboard for the MEOW. Feels too competitive that way.

Good luck as always!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
http://crossword.info/madhatter5/Number_Sixteen


EDIT #1: I am getting some feedback that the puzzles recently have been too challenging, which is becoming a bit depressing for solvers. I hear that and agree that the puzzles have been pretty tough of late. Luckily the next one is a calico, and in general I will try to calibrate towards more approachable puzzles going forwards. This is still a learning process for me so I appreciate everyone's patience as I try to get the right rhythm for the MEOW.

EDIT#2: Since I've come to decide the puzzle's a bit unfair without it, I am adding a belated nudge to everyone: consider the long diagonals.

Got it, I'm pretty sure. Cleverness (is not the answer)!

I’ve submitted. I really don’t know what to say about the meta. Joshua is certainly creative!
The feline has left the Ziploc, which is a good thing because they’re dangerous. For cats.

Extremely difficult and sneaky. But solved.

Submitted. That certainly was unique! But 100%. 200%, even. No need to wait for a confirmation before posting.

(Just to make sure no one misses it, I added a hint to the original post)

Okay - probably 75% there but stumped. I get the nudge provided (had already figured that out based on one of the clues) and then thanks to SOMEbody I won’t name (would be a spoiler?) I found something else fun (twice!)... but the final answer? No 9-letter word is coming to me. Though I’ve said a LOT of phrases out loud to hear something.

Nudge Saturday!

The puzzle is basically in two steps. You have to understand the diagonals before you can think about step 2, which is where the title comes in. If you're stuck on the diagonals I suggest you go to the post office with a jump rope and try skipping some letters.

The difficulty level for this puzzle was merely my own guess (which I clearly underestimated) rather than the official word of the test solver. The reason is that it was impossible to have this puzzle test solved, because the puzzle would be literally unsolvable until the day I posted it here. How could that possibly be?

The answer is explicitly written out. Once you see it you will know it is correct.

Yup - Thanks to *he who must not be named*, I figgered it out. But *he* had to drag me with nudges (shoves), as I have a very obstinate habit about how I like to do crossword puzzles. ( :

Cat's out of the bag!

I give this one 4 highlighters! (Even if I'm still not sure I understand it all)

Now that it's been revealed that I didn't test solve, I'm free to say that I'm pretty sure I've finally wended my way to the answer* --- but, oh, the bunny burrows I've seen.......

* with some significant help

Solution:

Both main diagonals, skipping every other square, spell out the name JOE ROSS in the shape of an X. Joe Ross is, of course, the creator of the amazing Excel files provided each week for the MEOW puzzles.

As per the title, if you look at grid #16 of the Excel sheet you will find the solution, EXCELlent.

Many thanks to Joe for the co-construction, and of course for the fantastic Excel sheets that he makes for every single puzzle!

Till tomorrow then ...

No offense to Joe, but the Excel file produces gibberish on my system (Windows, in the Chrome browser) -- dozens of copies of the grid, etc. Didn't need it to guess the answer, but out of curiosity, what does "grid #16" mean?

I thought that #16 referred to the clue at 16A: Try again? Perhaps that too? Especially since you'd have to do the puzzle many times to reach the 16th grid?
I had never used the Excel [1,2] because I'm not very familiar with Excel in general -- but when I found out I needed to, my husband helped with loading the grid into it, and then when scrolling down to check it all out, we saw the inserted message at the end.

1. Although I've always been very envious of all the pretty colors people get to work with.
2. And because if I've found something that works for me, I'm a bit hesitant to change it, which sounds like the trouble you ran into too, HeadinHome!

Hector wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:45 pm No offense to Joe, but the Excel file produces gibberish on my system (Windows, in the Chrome browser) -- dozens of copies of the grid, etc. Didn't need it to guess the answer, but out of curiosity, what does "grid #16" mean?

I don't think those copies are gibberish. There are intentionally 16 grids, all of which are normally blacked out except for the first one (they unblacked when you fill out the previous grid, if I understand correctly). So the answer is found on the 16th grid in the file:

Ah, I see, thanks. But I think it's not displaying properly in my browser:

\


I got to EXCELlent by assuming #16 means Sweet, which like 1A BRAVO can mean excellent.

Hector wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 2:03 pm Ah, I see, thanks. But I think it's not displaying properly in my browser:

excel.jpg

Huh that's strange. That's only grid #4 though. Can you not see grid 16 if you scroll down? You can see the grid number on the top-right corner.

Yes, only grids 1 and 16 display for me. (I hadn't scrolled down that far because the black areas seemed like unintentional gibberish, and the sheet opens with column P as the leftmost one too, which made it look even weirder.)