PUZZLE #493: Touchword

PUZZLE #493

TOUCHWORD

This puzzle type was suggested by Patron Grant Fikes. Support me on Patreon at $25 per month to suggest any puzzle type of your choice every month (but be careful, cuz there's only one slot left for that specific tier)!

In a normal crossword, words cross each other; in this puzzle, they simply touch. More specifically, all answers read across each numbered row (ranging from one to three answers per row), and every letter touches, along an edge, at least one identical letter above or below it. Since the top and bottom rows also loop around and connect with each other, they're considered touching as well.

Once everything is filled out, read out the highlighted diagonal line for the FINAL ANSWER: something that can be given

1) Bottommost building floor, often

    Ben & Jerry's is headquartered in this state

2) The three Magi in a nativity scene: 2 wds.

    Level at Lambeau Field

    Apt rhyme for "groan"

3) Barbed _____ fence

    Best-selling 1993 computer game with a location called the "Stoneship Age"

    Language spoken by Michelangelo and Donatello (the artists, not the turtles)

4) Deserving

    Segment from Monty Python's Flying Circus

    How great minds think

5) Where the Coen Brothers' Fargo is set: 2 wds.

    Beverly Hills, 90210 actor Perry

6) Reminded again and again and again and.....

    Like music without any sort of key whatsoever

    Ballpark figure dusting off home plate, for short

7) "Maple Leaf _____" (Scott Joplin composition)

    Marshmallow ingredient

    Stay outdoors overnight in a luxurious tent with Wi-Fi, e.g.

8) Genre for Dungeons & Dragons and Dragon Quest: 2 wds., hyph.

9) Mr. Resetti from Animal Crossing, for one (HINT: He's a burrowing mammal)

    Sea anemone, say

    Cancel out

10) Board game with Mediterranean Avenue and Marvin Gardens

      Occur earlier

11) Fuel brand with a red arrow in its logo

      American university that's home to the Fighting Irish: 2 wds.

12) Poison ivy's cousin

      Word following "granny" or "Gordian"

      Seed on a Whopper’s bun

13) Country singer Lee Ann who had a big crossover hit with "I Hope You Dance"

      "¡Buenos _____!" (Spanish for "Good morning!")

      Bill Withers song that hit #2 in 1972: 2 wds.

14) Donned

      Winona Ryder's role in Beetlejuice

      Oregon's second-most populated city (after Portland)

15) By the skin of one's teeth

      Dystopian young adult novel with characters named Tris and Four

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: Pathfinder 4

Roughly two weeks have gone by since "Pathfinder 4" was posted on this blog, and seventeen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Chris Kochmanski
• Michael Lebowitz
• Sam Levitin
• Tamara Brenner
• Mom
• Josie Giles
• Mike Armstrong
• Tower
• Wendy Walker
• Steve Gunter
• KeoFam
• Lynn Sweeney

Now head below the break for the answers as well as a solver's comment!

PUZZLE #492: Squeezed in the Middle 21

PUZZLE #492

SQUEEZED IN THE MIDDLE 21

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, 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 a long-running television series

CENTERS

1) Awfully adorable, like anything that the Japanese call "kawaii"

2) Plan (to)

3) Pirate ship's steering mechanism

4) Struggle for superiority

5) Video game publisher of Asteroids and Alone in the Dark: Inferno

6) Drowned river valley

7) Word preceding "resort" or "hurrah"

8) "_____-la-laaaa!!!" (Captain Underpants' singsongy catchphrase)

WHOLES

• Developer of the video games Metroid: Zero Mission and F-Zero

• Like the walls at Wrigley Field

• Louise's road trip buddy in a 1991 film

• More sharp, as an angle

• Mr. Heep the clerk from David Copperfield

• Residents of a Middle Eastern country with a maroon and white flag

• Stretchy, in product names

• "Turkey in the _____" (folk 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 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: Triangle Tangle 6

It's been almost two weeks since "Triangle Tangle 6" was posted on this blog, and eighteen people have solved it since then, as you can see in the following list:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Wendy Walker
• Josie Giles
• Chris Kochmanski
• Michael Lebowitz
• Sam Levitin
• Mom
• Steve Gunter
• Tower
• Tamara Brenner
• Patrick Jordan
• KeoFam
• Lynn Sweeney

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #491: Pathfinder 4

PUZZLE #491

PATHFINDER 4

In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered square, goes in the indicated direction, and makes at least one right-angled turn as it winds through the grid. When you're finished, every letter will be used in exactly two entries.

Once the grid is filled out, there should be another entry inside it that doesn't have a corresponding clue, nor does it start in a numbered space. This unlisted word is this week's FINAL ANSWER: a tool invented in the 19th century

1W) Muscular, yet stringy [6]

2W) Eye drop brand that "gets the red out" [6]

3W) Dwindling down [9]

4N) Use someone as a primary source of support [4 3]

5S) Mad Max: Fury _____ (2015 film) [4]

6N) Self-serving section of a Golden Corral [6]

7N) Cream-filled cookie that Weird Al's "The White Stuff" is about [4]

8N) 25 Words or _____ (Meredith Vieira-hosted game show) [4]

9N) Couple's night out [4]

10N) "Unharmonious" instant messaging app [7]

11E) Celestial [6]

12N) On the straight and _____ [6]

13S) Michael Jackson's out-of-this-world dance move [8]

14S) Tennis player Osaka who was born in Osaka [5]

15N) Nervous Nellies [10]

16S) Howling monsters such as Wayne from Hotel Transylvania [10]

17S) Often-restricted flight zones [9]

18N) Aesop character who removes a thorn from a lion's paw [9]

19S) Realm ruled by Princess Peach [8 7]

20S) "Pocket", "rocket", and "socket", for three [6]

21E) Beckon [6]

22S) "Oh, snap! What a clever comeback!" [4]

23S) Completely figure out, such as this puzzle (I hope!) [5]

24N) Innumerable [6]

25W) 9-1-1: Lone Star star and Mental Samurai host Rob [4]

26E) Win–_____ record (baseball stat) [4]

27E) Flipping over, as an unfortunate ship [9]

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: Deck It Out 9

It's been almost two weeks since "Deck It Out 9" was posted on this blog, and quite a few people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Pavel Curtis
• Joe Bernard
• Mike Armstrong
• Michael Lebowitz
• Josie Giles
• Chris Kochmanski
• Sam Levitin
• Tamara Brenner
• Mom
• Tower
• Lynn Sweeney
• Steve Gunter
• Kevin Orfield
• Wendy Walker

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #490: Triangle Tangle 6

PUZZLE #490

TRIANGLE TANGLE 6

To solve this puzzle, enter the 4-letter answer to each clue into the diagram either from top to bottom or diagonally upward. There are two numbers starting each clue; each answer begins in the triangle marked with the first number, and ends in the triangle marked with the second.

Once the grid has been filled in, there are two more words hiding in the topmost row of letters and the bottommost row of letters. Combine them both to get the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a candy brand

1-2) Grand Cherokee SUV manufacturer

2-3) Machu Picchu's country

3-4) Risk territory that neighbors Ukraine and Siberia

4-5) Past participle of "lie" (as opposed to "lay")

5-6) Christopher Columbus's ship whose name contains a tilde

6-7) "_____-Hero" (Taylor Swift hit with the lyrics "I'm the problem, it's me")

7-8) Tabloid twosome

8-9) Quick note from the boss

9-10) Prefix for "potent" or "present"

10-11) "So, are you _____ out?": 2 wds.

11-12) Reddish-brown horse

12-13) Siestas, in English

13-14) The Munsters' pet dragon (or a Dalmatian marking)

14-15) Frog and _____ Are Friends (Caldecott Honor Book by Arnold Lobel)

15-16) Week fractions

16-17) Match, like audio and video

17-18) Cable network that airs Mad Money and reruns of Shark Tank

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: Gryptics 8

It's been about two weeks since "Gryptics 8" was posted on this blog, and eighteen people have solved it since then, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• M. Sean Molley
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Josie Giles
• Mike Armstrong
• Michael Lebowitz
• Chris Kochmanski
• Sam Levitin
• Tower
• Wendy Walker
• Tamara Brenner
• Steve Gunter
• KeoFam
• Patrick Jordan
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney

Now head below the break for the answers!