PCC#28 "Check the Sound Cord"

Nice one, Philip! I needed a couple of hints since I wasn't familiar with the game, but it all came together nicely. I may have to "B or Row" that mechanism sometime.

Answer explanation: The clue for CORD tells us to interpret that as "C" or "D"... apply the three sound checks (BORR, PORK, FORK) to the three longest answers: BOWLER --> ROLLER, POSTER --> COASTER, TYPHOON --> TYCOON... and so the meta answer is RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Constructor Notes: RollerCoaster Tycoon was released on March 22, 1999. I have such fond memories of playing it - spending hours designing theme parks, building roller coasters, adding scenery to the park, all that good stuff... Easter eggs in this puzzle include: "Excitement" in the clue for ADO, "Intensity" in the clue for LUX, "Nausea" in the clue for SARTRE... These are the three stats that are scored when you build a roller coaster. The game was designed by Chris SAWYER who coded the game almost entirely using Assembly language (which is insanely tough to do) and he was a one-man operation (only help he had was with graphics/rendering)!

I only got it by going through the list (never would have known without it!) and hearing the similarity. But with your explanation I see and love the mechanism. The loop-the-loop g-forces were the easter egg that convinced me.

Great game, great puzzle! Thanks!

Very nice. I LOVED Lemmings, on my little blue 3 and 1/2 floppy. My computer expert with an external reader couldn’t get it to run. So sad……. Must was just so weird!! But it was a big puzzle.

Very clever!

Very clever Phil!! I did get as far as interpeting the sound checks on my own, but caved and used the nudges to get the rest of the way as computer games definitely not in my wheel house and I hadn't heard of this one. But it was a fun ride nonetheless. Thanks!

So fun! No nudges needed here. My brothers used to play this game a lot and let me watch... but they rarely let me play. Now I want to dig up an old copy and live my childhood dreams!

Nice one...thanks Phil! No hints needed.

Sadly I needed every last nudge to get there - I was thrown by the first nudge that said "comprised of three words" which to be fair is true enough. Unfortunately BuzzFeed showed it as a two-word title, so I fixated on Sim City 2000, Duke Nukem 3D, and Age of Empires.

Still! A fun and clever puzzle, just not my day this time. I'll get the next one!

Well I got it, and I got it the way it was intended so great puzzle. I never really played games on the computer (tried Doom and got motion sickness), though I did love arcade games as a young adult (Galaga!). I neve heard of most of the games but ROWLER KOSTER TYCHOON (after I got the "switches") was pretty seductive after I did some searching. Nice Easter Egg (I assume) with the Loop-de-loop. I did spend considerable time changing other letters since there was at least one reference to one of the "switched" letters except B (RNA, FAA, KAYOED, etc.) but there was that perky B. I also changed BAG to RAG, BUS to RUS, etc. and of course nothing. "He CANNOT have spent the time getting those long entries in there without using them" and you didn't. Thanks for the puzzle Phil.