Sunday, September 18, 2016

ANSWERS: The Spiral Squared

It's been thirteen days since I've posted "The Spiral Squared", and since then, eleven of you have managed to solve it, and here they are:
  • Grant Fikes ****
  • Eric Maddy ****
  • Chris Hendricks ****
  • Mom ****
  • Alex Milton ****
  • Sam Levitin ****
  • Debbie Benford ****
  • YYW ****
  • M. Sean Molley ****
  • Giovanni Pagano ***
  • Lynn Sweeney ***
Now head below the break for the answers, along with some solver comments in case you're interested in what they had to say!


The FINAL ANSWER, highlighted above, is THEATRICAL

Thank you, Rio Olympics, for giving me a timely new clue for ABE!

Solver Chris Hendricks said that "I've tried making this kind of puzzle before, and the goal is always to try and get those neat long ones. Good job on SABRETOOTH > TOOTER."

Sabretooth, as he appeared in the '90s X-Men animated series

Solver M. Sean Molley said "Funny: I filled in ONE-SIDED instead of LOPSIDED for "Uneven" without having looked at the clue going the other way. This left me with "Something never to talk about in polite company" as ENO which actually kind of works. ;)" I was confused on that last sentence, so he clarified that "It was just a music/crosswordese joke. Brian Eno shows up so often in crosswords that many solvers are sick of him. :)".

Solver Giovanni Pagano said that this was "Largely a puzzle I didn't have a problem solving, as I was able to work both sets of clues to get most of it solved. Top right corner gave me the most difficulty, and you can take a star off thanks to the 11 to 14 region in particular. I have heard of IKO IKO before and I think I had heard of TOKIO hotel, but I kept trying to parse it as TOKYO and I K-something. Still a difficult spot compared to the rest IMO."

"The future is not written!"

1 comment:

  1. Can Giovanni Pagano have half of one of my stars? I didn't fill in the TOKIO/IKO IKO corner because I didn't know it, and it was inconsequential to final answer derivation.

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