HALLOWEEN MONTH II! PUZZLE #303: Gryptics 4

HALLOWEEN MONTH II!

PUZZLE #303

GRYPTICS 4

Yup, you read that right! Not only is this October another theme month, but it's my first ever sequel to a theme month! And just like the Halloween Month from exactly five years ago, the common link will be the same: All of the FINAL ANSWERS this month will have something to do with the horror genre! And surprisingly, not a single one of them is a video game of some sort (so you won't get answers like Days Gone or anything like that)! So with that introduction out of the way, I'm gonna paraphrase Goosebumps and say "Solvers beware, you're in for a scare!"

Insert a single letter in each space of each grid so that each grid's five rows and five columns spells a word from left to right or top to bottom (including the letters outside the grid).

Once you're done, take a word from the first grid and a word from the second grid and pair them up to get the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a horror novel

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 link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Family Reunions 4

It's been thirteen days since "Family Reunions 4" was posted on this blog, and I suppose revealing the category ahead of time was the right move, as an impressive fourteen people have successfully solved it, all of whom can be seen in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Cindy Weatherman ****
• Leslie Yonce ****
• Debbie Benford ****
• David Cole ****
• Morgan Chase ****
• Lynn Sweeney ***

As a reminder, the people colored in orange all support me on Patreon. Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #302: Honeycomb 2

PUZZLE #302

HONEYCOMB 2

Each six-letter word is to be entered clockwise or counterclockwise around the correspondingly numbered black cell, though the direction and starting point of each answer is for you to determine.

Once the grid has been filled out, the colored hexagons, when read either clockwise or counterclockwise, will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a 6-letter noun

1) Makeup applied with a puff

2) Color of Waluigi's cap

3) Gentle breeze near the end of a dictionary

4) Conspiracy _____

5) Polished a Porsche, perhaps

6) Word following "stick" or "father"

7) Madonna song that samples ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)": 2 wds.

8) First name of a nursery rhyme egg found in Through the Looking-Glass

9) Sorry situation

10) Kids' welfare org. with Halloween donation boxes

11) Designer of a famed French tower

12) Roman _____ (current WWE Universal Champion)

13) "Cars" singer Gary and his daughters

14) Bit of Baskin-Robbins ice cream in a tiny spoon, say

15) Made water so hot, it bubbled over

16) Insect with a 17-year life cycle

17) King whose album Tapestry obtained Diamond status

18) Secret groom

19) All episodes of Gunsmoke, nowadays

20) Egyptian god who leads souls to the afterlife

21) Increased a poker bet

22) First name of "Mad Dog" Tannen from Back to the Future Part III

23) Half of a circle's diameter

24) _____ My Mom Will Shoot (film that Sylvester Stallone regrets making): 2 wds.

25) Don Carlos and Don Giovanni, for two

26) Resident of Oranjestad

27) White mouse from The Rescuers Down Under voiced by Eva Gabor

28) All lined up: 3 wds.

29) Secondhand apartment rental

30) Definitely gonna: 2 wds.

31) Hostile attitude

32) Culpeo or coyote

33) Crustaceous claw

34) Monarchs and measuring sticks

35) Thigh bones

36) Evoke a forgotten memory

37) The Wrestler director Aronofsky

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 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: Meta-Crossword 7: He Wears Many Hats

Well, it looks like turning my 300th puzzle into a meta-crossword certainly paid off, as a whopping sixteen people successfully figured it out since it was posted here two weeks ago! There's a bunch of them new to this blog, too, and they all came here because one of the users at the Xword Muggles forums stumbled onto this puzzle and linked to it over there, so a big thanks to all the solvers who found it via that forum! Now then, let's look at that large list of solvers!

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Yossi Fendel ****
• Lynn Sweeney *
• Chris Kochmanski ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Richard Basuk ****
• David Plass ****
• David Cole ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Alex Sisti ****
• Morgan Chase ****
• Laura-Leigh Mohr ****

Now if you just happen to still be stumped on this meta-crossword, head below the break for the answers, as well as a few solvers' comments!

PUZZLE #301: Family Reunions 4

PUZZLE #301

FAMILY REUNIONS 4

For this puzzle, just change the group of 10 words below into a "family" of different words (that is, words or proper names that all have something in common) by dropping one letter from each word and then rearranging the remaining letters. For example, if three of the initial entries are SMEAR, HATRED, and TURBANS, you could drop the E from SMEAR to get MARS, drop the D from HATRED to get EARTH, and drop the B from TURBANS to get SATURN, all in the category "Planets". As an additional help, the category for the new words will also be listed on top (unlike previous versions of this puzzle).

Once you're done, the letters that have been deleted from each word will unscramble to spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: a ten-letter word that also fits the category

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 link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Moving Staircases 10

It's been close to two weeks since "Moving Staircases 10" was posted on this blog, and ten people since then have successfully solved it, and you can see all of them in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Mom ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Morgan Chase ****

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

PUZZLE #300: Meta-Crossword 7: "He Wears Many Hats"

PUZZLE #300

META-CROSSWORD 7: "HE WEARS MANY HATS"

It's my 300th puzzle!! And to celebrate, I decided to create a meta-crossword, which I haven't done since..... well, my last milestone puzzle! As you may already know, meta-crosswords are like normal crosswords, except they have a Bonus Puzzle for you to solve once you fill out the grid. I won't tell you how to get the Bonus Puzzle's FINAL ANSWER, as the techniques in getting them vary with each meta-crossword, so you pretty much have to figure it out yourself.

The FINAL ANSWER to the Bonus Puzzle is someone with a well-known piece of headwear.

If, for whatever reason, the embedded interactive crossword isn't showing up above, you can go to the link at http://crossword.info/Redhead64/He_Wears_Many_Hats and solve it there. Anyway, 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 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 download and print out!

ANSWERS: Sunburst 2

My 300th puzzle is coming up tomorrow! But before we get around to that, I should probably reveal the eleven people who solved my second "Sunburst" puzzle that was published about two weeks ago:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Giovanni Pagano ***
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Mom ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****

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

PUZZLE #299: Moving Staircases 10

PUZZLE #299

MOVING STAIRCASES 10

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 (the name of a top ten hit song from the 1980s) will be hidden inside it; one of the words is hidden horizontally (is it a Short or a Long? that's up to you to find out!), while the other is hidden vertically.

SHORTS
* Crimes of fiery passion?

* Elaborately ornate

* Figure It Out host Sanders

* Real name of Sailor Moon, in the original English dub (or Venus Williams' sister)

* Someone who graffitis bathroom walls, say

* "We're not lost, we're just taking the _____ route!"

* Word following "twist" or "cliffhanger"

LONGS

* 2010s political thriller starring Kerry Washington

* _____ and Old Lace (Cary Grant film based on a play)

* Gatorland's state

* More tranquil

* Order to show up in court

* Type of machine stocked with soda bottles

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 link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Slot Machine 4

My fourth "Slot Machine" puzzle from thirteen days ago was a pain to create, and since I believed the final result was harder than usual, I expected less solvers as a result. However, as you can tell by the following list of eleven solvers, that turned out to not be the case:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Giovanni Pagano ***
• Joe Bernard ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Mom ***
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Lynn Sweeney ***

Congratulations on solving this puzzle, everyone! Now head below the break for the answers!