Monday, November 30, 2015

PUZZLE #52: Moving Staircases 3

PUZZLE #52
MOVING STAIRCASES 3


The two staircase-shaped halves of a "Moving Staircases" puzzle are designed to be pushed together in two different ways, horizontally and vertically. A horizontal push creates shorter words ("Shorts"), while a vertical push creates longer words ("Longs"). The example above shows a completed grid and the grids that result from pushing it both ways. The lists of clues given for the Shorts and Longs are not in order; it's up to you to determine where the answers go by working back and forth between the two lists.

Once you've completely filled out the grid, the FINAL ANSWER will be hidden inside it: it's a five-letter word that isn't hidden horizontally OR vertically!


SHORTS
* Isometric match-three game by FreshGames
* It precedes "City" in Chicago's nickname
* Joined together like oxen
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous host Robin
* Part of Pink Floyd's Wall
* Powerful political pull

LONGS
* Dead Hamlet character with a well-known skull
* Picasso or Braque
* Popular anime featuring Ichigo Kurosaki
* Sent a sly eye signal
_____ with a Chance of Meatballs

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 get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured that one out (be careful; it's a toughie!). If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

Sunday, November 29, 2015

ANSWERS (And Contest Results!): Squeezed in the Middle 4

My third Contest Puzzle has now drawn to a close! As you can see from the list below, there are a lot of entries for this contest, but only two of them will win a signed copy of the December 2015 issue of GAMES Magazine that I got published in! Here are all the solvers of that puzzle from the past two weeks:
  • Grant Fikes ****
  • Eric Maddy ****
  • Yossi Fendel ****
  • Sam Levitin ****
  • Mom **** (ineligible for this contest)
  • Tyler Hinman **** (opted out of this contest)
  • Lynn Sweeney ****
  • YYW ****
  • Dan Simonds ****
  • Debbie Underwood ****
  • Adam Weaver ****
  • Cayden Curtis ****
  • Brad Eldredge ****
  • My sister Alex and Eric Milton ****
And now to reveal the two contest winners, chosen at random through random.org! The winners are... Grant Fikes and Dan Simonds! Congratulations to you both!

Now just go below the break for the answers, along with some solver comments!

Monday, November 23, 2015

PUZZLE #51: Section Six 3

PUZZLE #51
SECTION SIX 3

Happy Thanksgiving week! Before we get to this week's puzzle, I'd just like to remind everyone that last week's Contest Puzzle will be open until next Sunday, so make sure you get your entry in before then! The number of solvers for that puzzle has already passed the double-digit mark, so I'll be giving away a second copy of the December 2015 issue of GAMES Magazine in addition to the first one! Now with that update out of the way, let's get to the directions of this week's puzzle!

This puzzle's grid has six rings and six sections. Each ring contains a series of words placed end to end, reading either clockwise OR counterclockwise; all the words in a given ring will read in the same direction. Ring 1 (the outermost ring) contains six answers that read clockwise; the starting spaces are numbered in the grid. Clues for the answers in the remaining rings are given in order, but their starting points and direction are for you to figure out. The sections (separated by the heavy lines radiating from the center) will help you place the inner rings: in a given section, each ring segment contains all but one of the letters in the next segment outward. In other words, a section's outermost segment contains six letters; the next segment inward contains five of those six letters in some order; and so on, until only one of the original six letters remains.

Once you're done, unscramble the six spaces with stars in them to get the FINAL ANSWER: a six-letter word.



RING 1
1) Vehicle that's perfect for flinging Koopa shells from: Hyph.
2) Slime girl from Monster Musume
3) With "The", high-heeled teacher from AAAHH!!! Real Monsters
4) Heavenly Sword protagonist
5) Smash Mouth song featured in Mystery Men and Shrek: 2 wds.
6) _____-squeezed orange juice

RING 2
* Seven of Nine used to be one
* _____ Krab (Spongebob's workplace)
* Ben 10's phantom-like alien form
* Contest loser by a wide margin: Hyph.
* Romanian coin (Hidden in ALEUTIAN)

RING 3
* _____ and Janis (newspaper comic)
* Yamaguchi and Lipinski, e.g.
* Dannon products filled with bacteria
* The _____ Identity (my mom's all-time favorite book)

RING 4
* What Bluto from Popeye is sometimes called
* Places for pearls
* Asian country that was split up after World War II

RING 5
* PewDiePie has the most subscribers on this website
* Formerly fat weatherman Al

RING 6
* Ben Franklin famously preferred this bird over the bald eagle

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 get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out (don't forget that it's a Contest Puzzle!). If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

Sunday, November 22, 2015

ANSWERS: Plus One

It's been almost two weeks since I've published my first "Plus One" puzzle (you can still solve it here if you wish), so now it's time for me to reveal the answers! Before I do so, however, here are all the people who have solved it withing that time frame:
  • Grant Fikes ****
  • Eric Maddy ****
  • YYW ****
  • Tyler Hinman ****
  • Yossi Fendel ****
  • Lynn Sweeney ****
  • Mom ****
  • Adam Weaver ****
  • Sam Levitin ****
Now just head below the break for the answers, along with a couple user comments!

Monday, November 16, 2015

PUZZLE #50: Squeezed in the Middle 4 (CONTEST PUZZLE!)

CONTEST!
PUZZLE #50
SQUEEZED IN THE MIDDLE 4

It's my fiftieth puzzle! To celebrate, it's time for another Contest Puzzle! The prize for winning this contest is a signed copy of the December 2015 issue of GAMES Magazine that I got published in! There will only be one winner for this contest, though if at least ten people solve this puzzle, I'll give out a second copy to another winner! If you don't want to enter this contest, you can still solve this puzzle and opt out of the contest. Now with the contest rules out of the way, let's get to the directions of the type of puzzle I made for that issue!


For this puzzle, you're going to sandwich together words (entered in the white rectangles) by surrounding it with a letter on each side, one at the beginning and one at the end, making a new word in the process. Once you're done, the extra letters you've added in the "crust" (the brown squares) will spell out a two-word phrase. In the example above, the words URN, RAT, and OVER become BURNT, IRATE, and GOVERN, and the letters in the brown squares, reading down, spell out BIG TEN. However, to make things trickier, the "Wholes" will be in no particular order, so it's up to you to figure out which one of the "Centers" it matches up with!

Once you've filled out everything, the letters in the brown squares, reading down, will spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: The name of one of the best-selling albums of the 2000s


CENTERS
1) Washingtons in your wallet
2) Like a tennis ball that didn't land in bounds
3) Serial Experiments _____ (weird anime)
4) "Doc _____" (nickname for a Spider-Man villain)
5) Suffix for "Awe" or "Grue"
6) It "implies can", according to Kant

WHOLES
* Wallaby who's best buds with Heffer and Filburt
* Former Soul Coughing frontman Mike
* Adjective for Abe
* Glucose, to fructose
* Magician and endurance artist David
* They've "Gone Wild" in a Skid Row song

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 get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured that one out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

Sunday, November 15, 2015

ANSWERS: Smush

Before I get to the answers for "Smush" and reveal the people who solved it, I just wanted to remind you that I'm going to publish my fiftieth puzzle tomorrow, and to celebrate that milestone, I'll be holding another contest, so stay tuned for that! Now then, let's find out who solved "Smush" in the past two weeks:
  • YYW ****
  • Sam Levitin ****
  • Mom ****
  • Adam Weaver ****
  • Tyler Hinman ****
  • Lynn Sweeney ****
  • Eric Maddy ****
  • Paolo Pasco ****
  • Grant Fikes ***
Now just click on "Read more" for the answers, along with an anecdote about the rather circuitous way one of my solvers completed this puzzle!

Monday, November 9, 2015

PUZZLE #49: Plus One

PUZZLE #49
PLUS ONE

To start this puzzle, enter the answers to the numbered clues (the "Partial Clues") in each correspondingly numbered area, skipping the gold squares as you do so. Then, add a new letter in each gold square to create a new word, which matches up with one of the "Whole Clues" that are listed in no particular order.

Once you're done, the letters in the gold squares, reading down, spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: a seven-letter word that you probably don't want to see in your email inbox

PARTIAL CLUES
1) Invader Zim's malfunctioning robot
2) Where every rose has its thorns
3) Maine Coon or Manx, e.g.
4) Blacksmith that shoes racehorses
5) Word at a maze entrance
6) Great _____ (Scooby-Doo is one)
7) Emulate Eazy-E

WHOLE CLUES
* Steeped, as tea
* Former ABC World News anchor Sawyer
* "_____ Caster" (KISS song from Love Gun)
* Valve's digital video game platform
* Music genre of "Turn Down For What"
* Word that follows "Material" or "Magical"
* "Little" literary character from E. B. White

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 get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) 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 version you can print out!

Sunday, November 8, 2015

ANSWERS: Squeezed in the Middle 3 (And Some Big News!)

Before I reveal the answers to my third "Squeezed in the Middle" puzzle and the people who solved it, I'd just wanted you to know that my first published puzzles are now on sale!


Sorry I didn't inform you guys of this sooner (my subscription copy came very late, arriving just one day before I posted this), but three of my "Squeezed in the Middle" puzzles have been published in the December 2015 issue of GAMES Magazine (though they're now called "Word Sandwiches")! I would do another contest to celebrate, but my 50th puzzle is next week, so I'll just delay the contest a bit to match up with that milestone. Until then, make sure to grab a copy of this issue before it goes off the racks in early December!

Anyways, with all of that out of the way, here are all the people who solved my puzzle from two weeks ago:
  • Eric Maddy ****
  • Grant Fikes ****
  • YYW ****
  • Paolo Pasco ****
  • Adam Weaver ****
  • Sam Levitin ****
  • Lynn Sweeney ****
  • Mom ****
  • Tyler Hinman ****
  • Cayden Curtis ****
  • My sister Alex and Eric Milton ****
Now just head below the break for the answers, along with some solver comments!

Monday, November 2, 2015

PUZZLE #48: Smush

PUZZLE #48
SMUSH

This one's inspired by an obscure game show from the creators of You Don't Know Jack called Smush (if you're curious, you can watch the first round of an episode here, and apologies in advance for the low sound quality). In that game show (and this puzzle), you take the answers to two clues and combine them to make one smushed-up phrase. For example, if the clue is "Swirly candy on a stick + Frozen treat on a stick", then the answer would be "Lollipopsicle", since that's the smushed-up form of "Lollipop" and "Popsicle". Below are six more smushed-up phrases for you to solve.

Once you've completed the puzzle, the letters that overlap the answers in each smushed-up pair (the ones in the boxes) will spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: The smushed-up form of two video games in the same genre.


1) Like nice-smelling roses + Creator of A Cleverly-Titled Logic Puzzle Blog (2 wds.)
2) Hero from The Sword in the Stone + Villain from The Little Mermaid
3) Biggest city in France + Biggest city in Turkey
4) Apache chief + Precious Oscar winner
5) Human caretakers + Human chests
6) Energetic and memetic Darude song + Anguish probably caused by playing that song on an endless loop

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 get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured that one out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

Sunday, November 1, 2015

ANSWERS: Pent Words 4: The Return of Michael Myers

It's been thirteen days since I've posted my fourth "Pent Words" puzzle, and as usual, it's time for me to reveal the answers, but not before I list the people who have successfully solved it within that time period:
  • YYW ****
  • Eric Maddy ****
  • Grant Fikes ****
  • Adam Weaver ****
  • Sam Levitin ****
  • Joseph DeVincentis **** (watch him solve it here!)
  • Mom ****
  • Debbie Underwood ****
  • Tyler Hinman ****
  • Lynn Sweeney ****
Now just click on "read more" for the answers, along with plenty of solver comments!