Monday, November 21, 2016

PUZZLE #101: 4X Game 5: XX/XY 3

PUZZLE #101
4X GAME 5: XX/XY 3

Before we get to this week's puzzle, here's some backstory for it: in late August of this year, I sent GAMES Magazine four puzzles similar to "4X Games", though the ones I've sent them involved single X's instead of four of them crammed together. After months of silence from GAMES, I've decided to email them back last Monday, and a couple hours later, I finally heard back from them, and they've decided to ultimately pass on them (On the plus side, I finally got confirmation on the publishing date of my second set of "Word Sandwiches" puzzles, so look forward to seeing those published soon in the February 2017 issue of GAMES!) So after all that, I've decided to incorporate two of the unused puzzles into this week's puzzle (they're X #1 and X #3, in case you're curious).


Below, there are 3 "X"'s and one "Y"; the "X"'s each contain four 5-letter answers, and the "Y" has three. Each answer is entered at an angle (save for one of the words in the "Y"), following one of the arrows as it does so, and the last three letters of one answer will be the first three letters of another, albeit in reverse order. In the example above (I know all the answers are three letters instead of five, but hopefully you'll still get the idea), the words in the "X" are MAP, PAT, TAR, and RAM, and the words in the "Y" are ROT, TON and NOR. However, to make things even harder, none of the clues are numbered or in order, so you'll have to figure out which word goes in which angle, but don't worry, as each "tip" of each "X" or "Y" (the outermost letters) will contain the same letters as the "tips" of its neighboring "X" or "Y". Going back to the example above, the rightmost "tips" in the "X" contain the letters "R" and "T", so the leftmost "tips" in the "Y" has the same exact letters, in the same exact placement.

Once you're done, unscramble the letters in the "tips" that have no neighbors (the yellow squares) to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: A three-letter song title


X #1
* da Vinci's The Last Supper or Michelangelo's The Last Judgment, e.g.
* Fluid that could make you tell the truth, supposedly
* Shrek and Fiona, for two
* The largest of the Florida Keys

X #2
* Honey badger
* Indian instrument played by Muriel from Courage the Cowardly Dog
* "_____ Roll" (The Price is Right game): 2 wds.
* Zeus' first wife

X #3
* _____ cum laude
* Jordan's capital
* One giving a title, perhaps
* Romulus' twin

Y #4
* Romanian Olympic gold medalist Comăneci
* The British call this type of car a "saloon"
* West Wing workers

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!

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