PUZZLE #211: Slot Machine 2

PUZZLE #211

SLOT MACHINE 2

In this Slot Machine, the Row answers are entered normally, from left to right in the order of the clues given. The Tumbler answers going down are entered in the same way, but all of the Tumblers have been "spun", meaning that the Tumblers' answers can start in any row and continue downwards. When a set of Tumbler answers hit the bottom of the grid, it continues at the start of the same column that it started in. There's also a "Jackpot Answer" that is comprised of the first letters of the first answer of each Tumbler. In the example above, the Rows spell out INN, TIE, and WOW, while the Tumblers spell out WIT, ION, and NEW, and the first letter of each Tumbler spell out WIN.

This week's FINAL ANSWER is the answer to the Jackpot.

JACKPOT
• A video game set during the holiday season: ? wds.

ROWS
1) SpongeBob's pet Gary, e.g.
    Language that gave us "plaid" and "clan"
2) Seedy amusement park workers
    Stink to high heaven
3) Pizza sauce herb
    Prefix for "scope" or "vision"
4) Stop sign's shape
    Calvin and Hobbes' winter glider
5) Ferb's friend in a Disney Channel cartoon
    _____ kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart composition)
6) Toy that's like Rubik's Cube, but with triangular faces
    "_____ guy walks into a bar...": 2 wds.
7) To-do list entries
    Goat-legged creatures like Pan
8) Cryptographers' creations
    Nickname of John Goodman's character from Monsters, Inc.
9) "Autobots, transform and _____!" (Transformers catchphrase): 2 wds.
    Thomas Edison's middle name
10) Crosswordese hodgepodge
      Madison from Splash, for one
11) Zesty chip dip
      Eliza's older sister from The Wild Thornberrys

TUMBLERS
1) Type of logic puzzle also called a "Nonogram" or a "Griddler"
    Hen pen
2) A complete lack of government
    Metal band that released Lateralus and 10,000 Days
3) No longer working for a living
    Real first name of Diane Sawyer
4) "I Got _____" (posthumous Jim Croce song): 2 wds.
    Failing to win
5) Country located on the Horn of Africa's tip
    Jewels used as currency in the Spyro the Dragon games
6) Sent out, like magazines?
    Birthplace of Columbus
7) Traitorous acts
    Flagstaff sch. (answer hidden in SCHNAUZER)
8) Phone no. add-on
    Openly gay singers Adam and Mary
9) Peyton Manning's younger brother
    One of six in "onomatopoeia"
10) Number for a frequently-married Henry
      1968 Turtles hit that parodies their own "Happy Together"
11) 2010 Emma Stone flick that references The Scarlet Letter: 2 wds.
      Sent to the canvas

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!

ANSWERS: Brick By Brick 6

I do have a DeviantArt picture for this week, but I'm going to save it until the very end of this post. Instead, I'm going to show you guys a couple Christmas presents I got earlier this week:

Besides the usual video games and newspaper comic collections, I also got the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia and a book filled with rebuses from Classic Concentration! But you're not here for me showing off gifts like I'm on Instagram; you're here for the answers to "Brick By Brick 6" as well as the list of people who solved it!

• Grant Fikes ****
• Pavel Curtis ****
• Dan Simonds ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****

Now head below the break for the answers, an Easter Egg of sorts that I hid in this puzzle, and a picture I made of one of the answers that I usually put on the top of these posts!

PUZZLE #210: Link-Letters 6

PUZZLE #210

LINK-LETTERS 6

Merry Christmas Eve! Today's offering is one that I've done before, but the formatting of it has changed a bit from the previous times that I've done it, and the directions have been changed slightly to reflect that. Read on to see what I mean...

There are two clues for each numbered row. The answers to each row's first clue go in the squares to the left of the first black bar in each correspondingly numbered row in the puzzle's grid, and the answers to the second clue go into the squares to the right of the second black bar. Then a single letter (the "Link-Letter") goes in the square in the middle to complete a single word that reads all the way across. For example, if the two words are CON and ACT, you can put a "T" between them to get CONTACT.

Once you've filled out all eight rows, the central letters will spell out two words reading down. Add a letter between those two words in the red square to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: An animal

1) Vehicles with periscopes
    Phoenix Wright: _____ Attorney
2) _____-Ra: Princess of Power ('80s cartoon)
    Fantastic Four member who says "It's clobberin' time!"
3) Montana birthplace of Evel Knievel
    Sugar Ray song with the lyrics "All around the world, statues crumble for me"
4) It's read by a Blu-ray player
    Use a blue pencil, perhaps
5) ___ XING (street sign)
    Chuck Woolery-hosted game show named after one of the seven deadly sins
6) Tutu-wearing mammal from a Fantasia segment
    City that wasn't built in a day
7) He loved Lucy
    Basketball Hall of Famer Archibald
8) The title character of 2017's Ferdinand, for one
    Metal whose elemental symbol is "Sn"

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 version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Gryptics

Princess Peach as a SHERIFF (one of the answers to this puzzle)

It's been roughly two weeks since my first pair of Gryptics was posted on this blog (well, okay, I've made other Gryptics before then, but you have to support me on Patreon to see those exclusive puzzles). You guys must've liked them, since eleven of you have solved it, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• M. Sean Molley ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Chris Hendricks ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Pavel Curtis ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Mom ****
• Dan Simonds ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****

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

PUZZLE #209: Brick By Brick 6

PUZZLE #209

BRICK BY BRICK 6

Two months ago, I got a comment on "Brick By Brick 5" from some unknown person that simply said "I need more brick by brick please". Well, I didn't feel like turning down that request, so here's another puzzle of that type! If that commenter just happen to read this, I hope you'll enjoy it, whoever you are!

Place the 2x3 bricks into the grid below so that a crossword puzzle with rotational symmetry is formed. Each of the Across and Down clues hint at answers that appear in that row or column, all of which are in order. Be careful with the rows marked with a 7, 8, and 9, as the bricks that are placed in those rows will be split in half by a blue line, which you can see in the diagram above. Also, the letters that go in the blue line's squares will complete one answer in every Down column, though you'll have to figure out what those letters are.

This week's FINAL ANSWER is the name of an anime

ACROSS
1) Headless cabbage variety
    Don Draper, for one
    Shark Tank network
2) "Do you have Prince Albert in _____?"
    Artist Kahlo portrayed in Pixar's Coco
    Moderately hot
3) Sound of a heavy impact
    They all lead to Rome, supposedly
    Box-office bomb
4) _____ and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
    Classic 1993 computer game where you gun down demons
    Pet rabbit's residence
5) Controversial Jeopardy! champion Arthur
    High-pitched flutes
6) Peanutty candy bar with an exclamation point in its name
    Alley-_____ (basketball move)
7) Actress Ida who starred in the Twilight Zone episode "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"
    Good buddy
    HTML5 formatting language
8) THE FINAL ANSWER
9) "Bad" cholesterol letters
    Opposite of the second answer in 1-Down
    "_____ borealis?! At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen?!?!" (Simpsons quote)
10) Lemon meringue dessert
      Novice employee
11) T-shirt from Six Flags, e.g.
      Be a couch potato (with "out")
12) Emulate a ghost in an abandoned mansion
      Crazy contraption cartoonist Goldberg
      Hurricane's center
13) Give off, as an odor
      Pipe-unclogging brand introduced in 1923
      Mountain goat with curly horns
14) Japan's tallest mountain
      Andy Kaufman's role in Taxi
      Overdo it on the affection
15) Mobster played by Abe Vigoda in The Godfather
      Pirate's box
      Wading bird sacred in ancient Egypt

DOWN
1) "Professional Therapist" from a '90s Comedy Central cartoon
    Like a joke told too many times
    Nickname for either a steer from Rocko's Modern Life or a Playboy founder
2) Feel sore after a strenuous workout
    Chuck a baseball
    Female bounty hunter from the Metroid series
3) Pilot hired by Scrooge McDuck with a tendency to crash his vehicles
    Séance board featured in 13 Ghosts (1960)
4) What "fin" means in French
    The Ugly Truth actress Katherine
    Up to the time that
5) "I haven't the slightest idea"
    Lowest army rank: Abbv.
6) Hairstyle famously worn by Dr. J
    _____ James Dio (heavy metal singer)
    Extra songs for Rock Band 4, for example (and for short)
7) Cartoon dog who says "You know what? That makes me mad"
    "_____ Caught Stealing" (Jane's Addiction song)
    Generic cheerleader cheer
8) Will Smith song about a Florida city
    _____ Patrol (popular Nick Jr. show)
    Mad as heck
9) Make sums
    Stocking stuffer for a naughty kid
    Elephant noses
10) "Street Dreams" rapper
      What Yogi Bear has around his neck (besides a tie)
      Dory or dinghy
11) Move like a kangaroo
      Sophisticated shampoo brand?
12) So bad, it's horrible
      Two-time Nobel Prize winner Marie
      Forest's Oscar-winning role in The Last King of Scotland
13) 1995 animated film with a wolfdog hybrid voiced by Kevin Bacon
      He lives in a pineapple under the sea
14) Ugly shoes named after reptiles
      Desertlike
      Bentley from Spyro: Year of the Dragon, for one
15) Speedometer abbr.
      _____ Sremmurd (hip-hop duo)
      Former couple

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!

ANSWERS: Squeezed in the Middle 13

It's been over four years since I started this blog, so I think I'm well overdue in regards to attaching a face to it (as opposed to just an abstract black-and-red logo). Since I'm not yet ready to put a photograph of myself online, I've decided to make an avatar of my own, albeit as a Nintendo-related fan-character instead of a fursona like Grant Fikes has. So here I am:

Me as an ORANGE YOSHI (which are two of the answers to this puzzle)

Now with that out of the way, here are all the people that have solved "Squeezed in the Middle 13" from thirteen days ago:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Pavel Curtis ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Dan Simonds ****
• Mom ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****

Now head below the break for the answers as well as a couple of brief solver comments!

PUZZLE #208: Gryptics

PUZZLE #208

GRYPTICS

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 website

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 version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Pathfinder

8W) Complete and utter madness: INSANITY

It's been almost two weeks since my first attempt at a "Pathfinder" puzzle was posted on this blog, and nine people since then have correctly solved it, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Mom ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Debbie Benford ***
• Dan Simonds ***
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Patrick Jordan ****

Now click on "Read more" below for the answers!

PUZZLE #207: Squeezed in the Middle 13

PUZZLE #207

SQUEEZED IN THE MIDDLE 13

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: a video game released in 1999

CENTERS
1) Spy Mata who was once played by Greta Garbo
2) _____Kosh B'Gosh (kids' clothing company)
3) "Ha ha, it _____ laugh" (Daffy Duck quote): 2 wds.
4) "Raw" or "burnt" shade of brown
5) Used the doorbell
6) Sheep used in place of "you" in Classic Concentration puzzles

WHOLES
* Crash Bandicoot's fur color
* First or last name of an unreliable narrator from a Nabokov book
* Golden Globe-winning actor Omar
* Handgun used in Red Dead Redemption 2
* Long-tongued dinosaur from the Super Mario games
* More recent

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!

ANSWERS: Diamond Rings

No DeviantArt pic this week, so instead, here's a Picross puzzle of Pac-Man (mentioned in one of the clues to this puzzle) that I posted to Griddlers.net way back in 2004

Thirteen days have passed since "Diamond Rings" was posted on this blog, and eight people since then have successfully figured out the FINAL ANSWER, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Dan Simonds ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Debbie Benford ***
• Eric Maddy ****
• Mom ****

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