XWord Muggles Forum

I am curled up in a ball... sobbing... my lawn filled with shallow rabbit holes lol

Abandoning my proud quest for a solo solve, message me to bounce ideas off of each other thanks

Been working on this all weekend, but nothing I'm trying seems to be working. Can anyone give me a small nudge in the right direction?

I belong to the "a nudge, if there must be one, can only be of confirmatory nature, otherwise this forum will get out of hand and this is a contest after all" school of thought so take my opinions with a grain of salt, but I believe a nudge is a nudge is a nudge is a nudge.

Now, for WSJCC whether you received a nudge or not doesn't matter that much since there is no implicit/explicit rule for/against it, but here we have a clear "solo solve" distinction so I think all nudge-receivers should be unclicking that box.

But again, I'm not super fun at board game parties as I spend 10 minutes going through every rule and every possibility before the game gets going.

Holding out to the bitter end, hoping for a sudden epiphany. I’m not optimistic. But my streak is only 7 or 8 so it’s not a massive loss... Sisyphus will rally again.

Is the deadline noon today?

Yep.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Mon Feb 22, 2021 12:34 am Deadline for MGWCC #664: Wednesday, February 24th at 12 Noon ET

"Dear MGWCC Solver,

"My apologies: I meant to note yesterday that the deadline for the current puzzle has been pushed back a day due to my late post. The contest deadline for MGWCC #664 is Wednesday, February 24th at 12 noon ET.

"--Matt"

Just saw the solution over at Fiend, all I can say is never in a million years. Even with a nudge from a kind soul, I only got as far as the adjectives. This seems more like a week 5 to me.

Stay well all

Time for the post-op (won't rip off the band-aid of the solution just yet).

Very curious on this one actually (once it's safe to discuss): For those who did it get right away - or at least on your own with some noodling - what was the trigger? What prevented you from getting sucked down the rabbit holes? ("Who's to say we didn't??")

Well it took some teamwork to make the dream work... much more fun joining up with a fellow muggle than stubbornly falling on my own sword.

Grateful for this board and for my 11:59 time stamp LOL... you guys spared me a lot of raw anger today

Roses are red
eels are wet
Strangest meta
That I’ve seen yet



I saw the adjectives and the asymmetry early, but never knew what to do with them. Never would have guessed this. Nice work to all who solved (especially Al at #2!)

Streroto wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 12:14 pm Just saw the solution over at Fiend, all I can say is never in a million years. Even with a nudge from a kind soul, I only got as far as the adjectives. This seems more like a week 5 to me.

Stay well all

Yes...looking at the 6 elements, 1 looks to be the obvious port of entry for anyone who solved; 2 seem like easy *clicks* once you got that first one, a 4th seems legitimate, but 2 of them make me say "HUH?!?!"

I got hung up on the literal "by example" part of the title and the pieces of the following clues:

4A: ", maybe"
15A: ",e.g." (*)
55A: ", say"
52D: ",e.g."
And wondering about if ", in French" or ", in material science" or a few others counted as "examples".

My Hail Mary was TOP DOG, so I claim half a point.

C-food and Y-t sauce were the entry to the deepest of many rabbit holes (D-ity, O-kay, O-mens, but ORTHOTROPY proved stubborn). I did have the three-letter adjectives but did not notice the crossings.

Saw all the adjectives early and often, and looked at crossing entries at least once, but didn't connect the leading part. Don't think this was ever going to be in my wheelhouse. Which is fine.

I didn’t spend a ton of time on this one, but certainly enough that I should have noticed the asymmetric square before last night. Once I finished slapping my head, I looked at those four entries and immediately saw two on my list of letter+word entries and knew that was the right approach.

I’d been thinking about letter+word because of that weird clue for I M Pei. I wonder if one of Matt’s test solvers told him that was a big leap, so he added M arch. to nudge in that direction.

Darn! I got "top hat" but didn't submit because it didn't seem right. Oh well.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 1:02 pm

I’d been thinking about letter+word because of that weird clue for I M Pei. I wonder if one of Matt’s test solvers told him that was a big leap, so he added M arch. to nudge in that direction.

Good point. I spent a lot of time looking at that odd clue. I’m curious if that was indeed Matt’s intention.

I was the blind squirrel who found myself on the leaderboard with an answer I realized had to be "wrong" a minute after I submitted. I had been staring at the puzzle without any concrete ideas since Saturday, and finally on Tuesday noticed that the letters nestled in the nook of black-square overhangs formed a word. I think my overtired brain was reasoning that the first few black square patterns happened to look like upside-down "L"s for "Leading", and the letters in my answer were "TOPped" by a black square HAT. I was so excited to finally see a two-word phrase that I quickly submitted.
(Note to future self: Always count to 10 before submitting!)
Almost immediately after I submitted, I noticed the extra A and G in my pattern that were not in my phrase. And then I realized that these letters did not tie to the starred clues/entries AT ALL. When TOP HAT turned out to be the correct answer, I was almost ready to turn myself in to the meta police as an imposter. But then decided that if I could find the correct path to the answer before deadline, I'd "live" with the win. Admittedly, it was easier to spot as a back-solve, but after a few hours I found it.
Last night, I confirmed this mechanism with another muggle already on the leaderboard. Interestingly, all the letters in my first "acorn" except the A were the same instances as the correct path. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart!
And thanks as always to Joe Ross, who very kindly makes an excel template of MGWCC puzzles available to subscribers only, upon request.

KayW wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 1:20 pm I was the blind squirrel who found myself on the leaderboard with an answer I realized had to be "wrong" a minute after I submitted. I had been staring at the puzzle without any concrete ideas since Saturday, and finally on Tuesday noticed that the letters nestled in the nook of black-square overhangs formed a word. I think my overtired brain was reasoning that the first few black square patterns happened to look like upside-down "L"s for "Leading", and the letters in my answer were "TOPped" by a black square HAT. I was so excited to finally see a two-word phrase that I quickly submitted.
...
And thanks as always to Joe Ross, who very kindly makes an excel template of MGWCC puzzles available to subscribers only, upon request.

When Joe announced at the Zoom meeting that you'd made the leaderboard, you had a perfect "Wha? Ha!" expression.

Sniffing all around it. I had the adjectives and saw the asymmetry at AROSE, but I don’t think i would have stuck with the RED/ROSE and RAW/ANGER pattern once I saw ODD/ONE and LOW/TOE... believing that based on the two more obvious pairs, each pair ought to be a recognizably common pairing, not just a noun that “could” be described as the adjective.

Given the adjectives and Matt’s current life, I really wanted the answer to be DIAPER RASH (odd, low, wet, raw, red, hot) - but clearly that did not fit the instructions.

The symmetry problem had me looking for E’s to remove (since that final E space should have been blank, what other E’s should be blank?)

The “by Example” part of the title made me focus on the two “e.g.” clues, to no avail — time wasted. I also wasted way too much time with the opening part of each starred clue — the “leading” part of each one (SUN, ALL, BELL, BLACK, ALF (??), ORTHO).

Reset streakto zero, as predicted... and if next week’s is kinder, maybe i can get myself back up to 8 (7 in 2021).

It's all so clear in retrospect.