PUZZLE #522: Back-Oops 3

PUZZLE #522

BACK-OOPS 3

Some words become different words when flipped around, such as PART and TRAP. The answers to this puzzle almost fit that description, but are a little off. To figure out what they are, fill in each space in the direction of the blue arrow with the answer to each corresponding numbered clue. Where a box is divided by a horizontal line, fill in a different letter below so that a new word is formed when read backwards through the pink arrow which matches one of the clues in the "Backward Words" section (listed in no particular order).

Once everything's filled out, the changed letters on the pink arrow, when read backwards, will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a term used in video games

FORWARD WORDS (blue arrow)

1) Large amount of soup or stew

2) Cut-and-_____ (simple and straightforward)

3) Winter sport for Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn

4) With "The", classic rock band that did "We Gotta Get Out of This Place"

5) Completely immerse

6) Lighthearted parody

7) Famous vampire Count whom Batman fought in a non-canonical comic book

BACKWARD WORDS (pink arrow)

• April _____ Day ('80s slasher film where, as a prank on the audience, nobody dies)

• Compact computer also known as a "notebook"

• Endurance that runs out when Lara Croft sprints for too long in Tomb Raider III

• Handicapped permit hung off of a car's front view mirror, for one

• Metamorphic rock that sounds pleasant?

• Quirky and quite odd

• Well-versed in a language

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Loopy Links 2

It's been almost two weeks since "Loopy Links 2" was posted on this blog, and twenty people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Cathy Bowen
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Josie Giles
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• KeoFam
• Tamara Brenner
• Chris Kochmanski
• Mom
• Derek Allen
• Marie desJardins
• Steve Gunter
• Lynn Sweeney
• Wendy Walker
• Stasi Gustafson

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #521: Anagram Chambers 12

PUZZLE #521

ANAGRAM CHAMBERS 12

One of the clues in this puzzle contains a word or phrase suggested by Patron M. Sean Molley. Support me on Patreon at $15 or more per month to suggest one word or phrase for me to put into a puzzle every month!

For this puzzle, there are several dark-green "chambers" with yellow rectangles and light green squares in them. For each chamber, you take a word in the first yellow rectangle as hinted at by the clue, add a letter from the light green square, and scramble them to get a word in the second yellow rectangle, then you repeat the process to get the word in the third yellow rectangle. Unfortunately, none of the chambers are labeled, and all seven sets of clues are in no particular order, so you have to figure out which set of answers go to which proper chamber so the columns of light green squares will both spell out words reading vertically.

Once all of the chambers are in the correct order, the light green squares will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a two-word phrase

• [Body lacking limbs and a head] + _ = [Groups of Girl Scouts] + _ = [Atom parts other than electrons and neutrons]

• [Pass into law] + _ = ["Hypnotic" subgenre of electronic dance music] + _ = [Human-horse hybrid seen in the "Pastoral Symphony" segment of Fantasia]

• [Angela's _____ (Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir)] + _ = [Stock market units] + _ = [Strapped device that can hold your horses]

• [What's left of a chopped-down tree] + _ = [It separates the nostrils in a human nose] + _ = [Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, and so on]

• [Word preceding "piano" or "prix"] + _ = [Fire-breathing creature such as Spyro] + _ = [Doting or devoted]

• [Narrator and protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird] + _ = [Specially made] + _ = [Any outfit worn by contestants on Let's Make a Deal]

• [My Dinner with _____ (minimalist movie from 1981)] + _ = [Made money] + _ = [#1 Bruno Mars song named after a throwable explosive]

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Logicrossword

It's been almost two weeks since my first "Logicrossword" puzzle was posted on this blog. I correctly predicted that it would be tougher than usual, as a total of thirteen people have solved it since then, but some of them did tell me that they successfully solved the normal version of this puzzle (as opposed to the easy one), so perhaps it wasn't too difficult after all.

• Grant Fikes
• Marie desJardins
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Stasi Gustafson
• Sam Levitin
• Steve Gunter
• Tamara Brenner
• Michael Lebowitz
• Josie Giles
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• Chris Kochmanski

Now head below the break for the answers as well as some solvers' comments!

PUZZLE #520: Loopy Links 2

PUZZLE #520

LOOPY LINKS 2

All of the answers in this puzzle weave through the grid in a single long chain via a series of straight lines and right-angled turns. Each square is used once except where the answers link together in squares with circles in them, each serving as the last letter of one answer and the first letter of the next. The letters in these circled squares are blank and for you to fill in. The chain begins and ends in squares that have letters already filled in.

Once you've solved this puzzle, the circled letters (when read left to right starting at the topmost row) will spell out a clue that will lead you to the FINAL ANSWER: a proper name

1) Reptilian movie monster with an atomic breath attack

2) Pop rock duo that sang "Potential Breakup Song": 3 wds.

3) Girl Scout gathering

4) Clint _____ (actor who played Dirty Harry five times)

5) Philadelphia university that The Gong Show host Chuck Barris graduated from

6) Like an elaborate banquet with food galore

7) Sophisticated, like some arthouse fare

8) Tootsie Roll's covering

9) _____ & Isles (2010s crime drama that aired on TNT)

10) Asthmatic's aid

11) Judy Hopps from Zootopia, e.g.

12) Perforated reward for getting a high score on Skee-Ball, perhaps

13) Robberies

14) _____ to change (may be different later on)

15) Stretchy, sleeveless shirt: 2 wds.

16) Face-covering game for babies: Hyph.

17) The Three Tenors tune whose name is Italian for "My Sunshine": 3 wds.

18) With "The", Homeric epic that O Brother, Where Art Thou? was loosely based on

19) Japan's second-most populated city (after Tokyo)

20) Flight display by the Blue Angels, for one: 2 wds.

21) A _____ in Time (Madeleine L'Engle book)

22) Shouts something like "Holy smokes!"

23) Illegible doodle

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Eat Your Words 10

It's been about two weeks since "Eat Your Words 10" was posted on this blog, and twenty people have successfully solved it since then, as you an see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cathy Bowen
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• Stasi Gustafson
• Derek Allen
• Steve Gunter
• Wendy Walker
• Michael Lebowitz
• KeoFam
• Tamara Brenner
• Chris Kochmanski
• Marie desJardins
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• Josie Giles

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #519: Logicrossword

PUZZLE #519

LOGICROSSWORD

This puzzle type was suggested by Patron Grant Fikes. Normally, you can suggest a puzzle type of your own choice over on my Patreon page, but both slots are still full, so you might have to resort to PayPal if you still want to make a request of your own.

It's the final puzzle of the month, and I have a strong feeling that it'll also be the hardest puzzle of the month as well. Since I imagine that a lot of my usual solvers will struggle with this one, I've decided to include an easier version of this puzzle with most of the black squares already filled in, and it'll be located via this hyperlink (as well as below the break underneath the link to the normal version). It's up to you which .PDF file you want to use, and you're allowed to tell me if you used the easy version or not. However, if you think you're up to the challenge, keep reading for the directions to the regular version of this puzzle, as well as the completely blank grid it uses. 

Using the clues below (as well as your vocabulary and logic skills), blacken some cells in the grid and fill the rest with letters to form words that are two or more letters long. All of the resulting words are legal to play in Scrabble, contain at least one vowel, and should be reasonably familiar to most people (those that aren't may be explicitly mentioned in the clues).

Once the grid has been correctly filled out, use it to get the FINAL ANSWER: the last name of a current daytime talk show host whose first name is one of the words in the solved grid

• No two black cells share an edge, though most of them do touch at their corners. All the white cells connect each other through their edges.

• There are 13 black cells in total throughout the grid. Row 8 has two of those black cells, while Row 5 has three black cells and only one word: VEE.

• Of the eight planets in our Solar System, four of their names are legal in Scrabble and appear in the grid. The longest one is in Row 6, and the other three (one of which is VENUS) intersect with it.

• The letter pair "SS" appears twice in row 9, and once in row 1. The letter pair "RR" appears once in column C.

• The first word in Column A starts with D and ends in T; T is also the only letter in that word to appear in Column G.

• Column B and Column H both have two 4-letter words each; one of those four words has the letter combination "EO", and another has "UN".

• Column F contains the word KILN, which intersects with the word VENEER.

• Column I contains three instances of the letter E, and one instance of the letter Y.

• The letter W appears exactly twice in the grid, in D1 and H9.

• The word BE is located in the row immediately beneath the row containing YO.

• The last letter of FLEECY intersects with the last letter of a 5-letter flower (which is the only word that uses the letter P in the entire grid).

• One of the rows contains FIFTH and OUR, not necessarily in that order.

• Only one column has a 7-letter word; the other columns have shorter words.

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for links to two .PDF versions which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Wordy Web 6

It's been nearly two weeks since "Wordy Web 6" was posted on this blog, and a whopping twenty-one people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cathy Bowen
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Mike Armstrong
• Michael Lebowitz
• Sam Levitin
• Kevin Orfield
• Derek Allen
• Pavel Curtis
• KeoFam
• Chris Kochmanski
• Tamara Brenner
• Stasi Gustafson
• Patrick Jordan
• Mom
• Josie Giles
• Wendy Walker
• Lynn Sweeney
• Steve Gunter
• Marie desJardins

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #518: Eat Your Words 10

PUZZLE #518

EAT YOUR WORDS 10

In this puzzle, the words hinted at by the numbered clues (The "Numbered Words") can "eat" a word hinted at by a different set of clues (The "Eaten Words") without rearranging any of the letters. For example, the word BIT can eat the word AND to form BANDIT. All of the new words are entered into the grid in the order of the Numbered Words, and the Eaten Words are in no particular order.

Once all of the new words have been placed, the letters in the highlighted third column will spell out two more words. Insert one of the column's new words into the other to get the FINAL ANSWER: A first name or a last name

NUMBERED WORDS

1) New England fishes

2) Number of thieves that Ali Baba came across

3) Animal in a cattle drive whose name is also a synonym for "drive"

4) "It Ain't Over _____ It's Over" (Lenny Kravitz single)

5) Piece of jewelry worn by winners of the MLB's World Series

6) Musical symbol that looks like a lowercase "b"

7) Conjunction in many law firm names

8) Do as directed

EATEN WORDS

• Actor Wallach from the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven

• It's good for absolutely nothing, according to a hit Edwin Starr song

• Landlocked African country with Timbuktu

• _____ McBeal (former Fox show starring Calista Flockhart)

• Part of "TMI" or "FYI", but shortened

• Place one's posterior on a park bench, perhaps

• Recoils (away from)

• Washing the dishes or taking out the trash, e.g.

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Chain Reaction: Extra Links 12

Roughly two weeks have gone by since "Chain Reaction: Extra Links 12" was posted on this blog, and seventeen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cathy Bowen
• Cindy Heisler
• Kevin Orfield
• Josie Giles
• Mike Armstrong
• Chris Kochmanski
• Stasi Gustafson
• Marie desJardins
• Derek Allen
• KeoFam
• Wendy Walker
• Tamara Brenner
• Sam Levitin
• Mom
• Steve Gunter
• Lynn Sweeney

Now head below the break for the answers!