Before I start this week's puzzle, I have some disappoingting news for you: I'm not going to be published in Will Shortz's Wordplay after all! Yeah, sorry for hyping you up last week, but last Friday, I got an email from the magazine which said that Wordplay was going to be cancelled due to low sales, and that the current issue (Spring 2015) was going to be the final one. Dangit. And after I told everyone I know about the good news, too! On the plus side, any puzzles that I sent to them are now allowed to be sent to other magazines, so watch out, GAMES Magazine! Now, back to a Very Special Puzzle...
PUZZLE #22
WHICH-WAY WORDS
This puzzle is a commission! ...kinda. You see, one of my regular solvers,
Paolo Pasco, came up with this puzzle in mid-April and asked me to collaborate with him on it. He did most of it (including the FINAL ANSWER), and I provided the graphics and changed most of the clues.
If you're interested in doing a similar collaboration, you can always email me about it, and if you have a Paypal account, you can use that to commission a puzzle from me! (Provided it's not too objectionable; see sidebar for more info) With all that out of the way, let's see what kind of puzzle Paolo and I cooked up!
Each "Whole" word in this puzzle is made up of two smaller words (known as "Arrows") that both start with the same letter and go in opposite directions from each other. The letter that starts both words goes in the shaded square in the middle. In the example above, the two "Arrows" are KRAMER, which is in the arrow pointing left and is read from right-to-left, and KING, which is in the right-pointing arrow and is read from left to right. Put the two words together, and you'll get the "Whole" word, which in this example is REMARKING. Both the Arrows and Wholes have numbered clues, but for the Arrows, you'll have to figure out which word goes in which arrow.
Once you're done filling everything out, the shaded squares, reading down, will spell out an eight-letter word. Surprisingly, this is NOT this week's FINAL ANSWER! The actual FINAL ANSWER is a two-word phrase made out of that eight-letter word, each word starting with the same letter and going in opposite directions, like the Arrows in the main puzzle.
ARROWS
1) Buick blemish /
Joe _____ (Lousy David Spade movie that's somehow getting a sequel this year)
2) Bad day for Caesar / Coffee that you actually
want cold?
3) Mosey along / Trajectories of softballs or stories
4) Hogwarts's, once translated, is "Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon" /
No _____ Sky (Upcoming Playstation 4 game)
5) Run together? / Volcano name that appears in way too many crosswords
6) Covered with a certain circus canvas / Word following "Beer" or "Spinal"
7) Give out / Run out, like time
8) Gollum's "precious" / Utterly loathed
WHOLES
1) Gum brand that may come in "Layers"
2) Gets off the fence
3) Solve an anagram, say
4) Footstools frequently tripped over by Dick van Dyke
5) Gazelle, for one
6) Like over 1,300 of Edison's inventions
7) Film technique that turns hours into seconds: 2 wds.
8) Doing a package postman's job
Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either
redhead64@chartermi.net or
itsredhead64@gmail.com and I'll put your name on a solvers list about two weeks from now. You can also use those email addresses to send me comments and feedback, or you could even send me the FINAL ANSWER to last week's puzzle (located
here, with an easier version
here). If you want a version of this puzzle you can print out, just head below the break for just that!
