PUZZLE #354: Sunburst 3

PUZZLE #354

SUNBURST 3

First, solve each 4-letter word listed in the first set of clues, then rearrange them and attach an extra letter to its end (which will be up to you to determine) to form a 5-letter word that matches one of the answers listed in the second clue set. For example, if an answer is ATOP, scramble those letters, add another letter to the end, and form the 5-letter word TOPAZ. Next, place each resulting 5-letter word into the Sunburst at their corresponding numbers, starting at the outermost tile and reading inwards. Since all the 5-letter words have the exact same final letter, make sure that each 5-letter word ends in the center of the grid.

Once the grid has been filled in, the outermost ring of the Sunburst, when read clockwise from 1 to 18, will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: The name of a Japanese anime series

4-LETTER WORDS
1) Snowman who sings "In Summer" in Frozen

2) North Carolina's state tree

3) Body parts "read" by deaf people

4) Clever quipsters

5) Facial feature that Patrick Star lacks

6) Strongbox

7) "Let You Love Me" singer Ora

8) "March" creature in Wonderland

9) Make do, somehow

10) "Do not go gentle _____ that good night"

11) Roam about aimlessly

12) Carnac the Magnificent, for one

13) Chunk taken out of the Apple logo

14) _____ Bridges (1996-2001 CBS series)

15) Woolly mothers

16) Bad thing to put before the horse

17) The "D" in "Nintendo DS"

18) Glide in a wingsuit, say

5-LETTER WORDS

• "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You" rock band

• As plain as day

• Awkward, clumsy, or bungling

• Character's quirk

• Emulate Muhammad Ali's butterfly

• Extremely preachy pamphlet

• "He _____ changed one bit"

• Inception

• Last name of Oliver from Oliver!

• Like any person legally allowed to see an NC-17 film

• M. Night Shyamalan movie about a man with 24 separate personalities

• NES button that starts over a game

• _____ of Fools (celebration that Quasimodo visits)

• Region in Asia nicknamed the "Roof of the World"

• Sour's counterpart

• Type of "beef" offered by Arby's

• Untagged in tag: 2 wds.

• Walt Disney World park featuring "The Seas with Nemo & Friends"

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 (and Contest Results!): Helter Skelter 6

It's been almost two weeks since my first contest puzzle in two years, "Helter Skelter 6", was posted on this blog. I'll get to the winners soon, but first, I have to list the nineteen people who have solved this puzzle:

• Grant Fikes (opted out of the contest)
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield (opted out)
• Alex Sisti
• Tyler Hinman
• Karen Spencer
• Tamara Brenner
• Sam Levitin
• Meg Duvall
• Mindy Moore
• Yossi Fendel
• Michael Lebowitz
• Lbray53
• Wendy Walker
• Mom (ineligible)
• Peter Abide
• Lynn Sweeney
• Giovanni Pagano (opted out)

Since I have so many solvers, I've decided to give away two copies of Octopus Crosswords by Brendan Emmett Quigley! And the randomly-chosen winners of that book are: Mindy Moore and Wendy Walker! Congratulations you two, and I hope you'll enjoy that prize!

Now that the contest is officially over, head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #353: Gryptics 5

PUZZLE #353

GRYPTICS 5

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 an American TV series that debuted in the 2000s

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: Moving Staircases 11

It's been nearly two weeks since "Moving Staircases 11" was posted on this blog, and thirteen people successfully solved it since then, all of whom are in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Giovanni Pagano
• Kevin Orfield
• Tyler Hinman
• Karen Spencer
• Tamara Brenner
• Mindy Moore
• Sam Levitin
• Peter Abide
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• Wendy Walker
• Meg Duvall

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

PUZZLE #352: Helter Skelter 6 (CONTEST PUZZLE!)

CONTEST!

PUZZLE #352

HELTER SKELTER 6

This puzzle contains a word 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!

This puzzle is also something that I haven't done in a long time (over 100 puzzles ago, in fact): a contest puzzle! Unfortunately, these contest puzzles may continue to be a rare sight in the foreseeable future, as when I told Grant Fikes that I was planning to turn this puzzle into a Contest Puzzle, he pointed out a pretty big loophole: those who got this puzzle early on Patreon may have an unfair advantage over those who don't (in this case, more time to solve it than usual), hence why his Contest Puzzles became separate posts and not his usual Wordy Wednesdays. In response, I've decided to dodge any potential pay-to-win scenarios by not letting Patreons know that a contest was attached to it until after they solved it, which seems to have worked out.

But anyway, back to this current contest. The prize for winning it is a copy of Octopus Crosswords by Brendan Emmett Quigley (basically, a book full of these Helter Skelter puzzles)! There will only be one winner for this contest (who will be selected at random), though if I get a high enough amount of solvers, it'll increase to two winners. If you don't want to enter this contest, you can still solve this puzzle and not partake in the contest, but you'll have to let me know if you do decide to opt out. So now with all that out of the way, here are the directions on how to solve it!

Each answer in this crossword variation starts at the indicated number, and then moves towards the direction of the next number (though it may or may not stop there). The direction of the last answer is to be determined by the solver.

Once the grid has been filled out, unscramble the gray squares to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: An 8-letter word

1) Up to the task

2) Graphic novel, e.g.

3) Was indebted to someone

4) Nick Jr. character who often says "Swiper, no swiping!"

5) Negatively charged atom

6) Org. co-founded by W.E.B. Du Bois

7) Simba's family, say

8) Form a thought in one's brain

9) The Importance of Being _____ (Oscar Wilde's final play)

10) Chem. or phys.

11) Baby bird call

12) Ancient Greek astronomer who compiled the original 48 constellations

13) Short-tempered Sam from various Looney Tunes shorts

14) "Sign o' the _____" (Prince song)

15) 1999 film co-starring Tom Cruise that ends with raining frogs

16) Doom's rhyming partner

17) Moved aside (for): 2 wds.

18) Railway service set to retire their Acela trains by late 2022

19) Reduce to ripped rags

20) Finnish company whose 3310 mobile phone is notoriously hard to damage

21) Illustrations and such

22) The "O" in "MMORPG"

23) Intl. military alliance headquartered in Belgium

24) Foreboding signs

25) Hernando de _____ (Spanish explorer)

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: Wonder Twins

My 350th puzzle from two weeks ago (dubbed "Wonder Twins") proved to be an instant hit, as eighteen people successfully solved it since then, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Giovanni Pagano
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Sam Levitin
• Meg Duvall
• Karen Spencer
• Wendy Walker
• Tamara Brenner
• Mom
• Tyler Hinman
• Patrick Jordan
• Mindy Moore
• Michael Lebowitz
• Lynn Sweeney
• Peter Abide
• Dan Simonds

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

PUZZLE #351: Moving Staircases 11

PUZZLE #351

MOVING STAIRCASES 11

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, hidden inside it will be this week's FINAL ANSWER: the name of a musician whose name is not hidden horizontally or vertically.

SHORTS

• _____ Artois (Belgian beer brand)

• Howe nicknamed "Mr. Hockey"

• Illusionist David who once held his breath underwater for 17 minutes

• Not as easy

• Presented a late-night talk show, perhaps

• Suggestions from Waze

• Taking a short snooze

LONGS

• Ended a relationship by not replying to any incoming texts, say

• Fast-food chain with the same owners as Carl's Jr.

• Fiery hot

• Incubus song with the lyrics "Meet me in outer space"

• Like a desperate dilemma: 3 wds.

• _____ maintenance (scheduled check-up)

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: Anagram Magic Square 6: Additional Adding & Anagramming

It's been close to two weeks since "Anagram Magic Square 6: Additional Adding & Anagramming" was posted on this blog. Since then, an impressive eighteen people all solved it, and here's a list of each and every one of them:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Giovanni Pagano
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Tyler Hinman
• Meg Duvall
• Joe Sampson
• Mindy Moore
• Tamara Brenner
• Peter Abide
• Sam Levitin
• Karen Spencer
• Mom
• Wendy Walker
• Lynn Sweeney
• Michael Lebowitz

Now head below the break for the answers! Only one solver's comment this time around, but be sure to check that out, too!