Gimme an A!
◆ · Por DrTom · Publicado 2024-01-31T12:30:35.320Z
Meta Prompt
Given the creator, what people might think the meta needs to be for maximum distribution (8 letters)
I had sooo wanted this to be 2 days later so you would solve it, see your shadow then solve it all over again! Alas, my loss is your gain, but if you do want to do it all over again you'll get an A for effort!
I'm going to rate this a:
Kitten
Calico
PERSIAN
Puma
Lion
Because once you see it you'll catch on quick...but seeing it, there's the rub.
Thanks to my testers (it has been so long ago they probably don't remember) HoldThatThought and Cap'n Rick.
Nudges will be Friday
Nudges:
Nudge 1] The title is a big hint on what you are to do.
Nudge 2] The theme answers are symmetric (which luckily helps eliminate an unintended red herring).
Nudge 3] There are only 7 theme answers, so you are going to have to do something at the end.
Nudge 4] The intro to the puzzle actually gives an example of what you must do in the puzzle.
Nudge 5] I had to change a clue that is meta related, but luckily it does not affect the solve. Enya, as it turns out, is from the British Isles, but not British.
Nudge 6] This meta is almost an exact opposite of one of Captain Rick's a month or more back.
The reveal:
There were 7 grid answers that could be "given an A" to make them different words:
(A)STERN
(A)CUTE
(A)BASED
(A)SHORE
(A)VOIDS
(A)DELE
(A)MENDS
Those new words could all be answers for other grid entries, for example:Behind=ASTERN, Word associated with sudden pain=ACUTE, etc.
If you use the letters of the replaced answers you get TOMIZED, which in itself doesn't mean much, but if you add the A one more time you get ATOMIZED, which fulfills the Meta prompt.
The theme entries were all symmetric and the Title told you what to do. There were even 8 A's on the cheer sweaters just so people knew they had to use 8 of them.
My apologies for RIA, which lots of people made ARIA. I absolutely did not see that, and since there was symmetry, neither did any of my testers. It was one of those herrings of a ruby nature.
For a graphic of the solve go to:
Comprobando datos de juego anteriores…
Was also focused on ones that end with A but could be entries (or alternates) if you removed it (LOVE, RI, TAR). But that quickly ran dry. Finally spotted ADELE and AMENDS and off I went. Did wonder if AMENDS could match 41D for a bit, before spotting 75A (not that it matters, as it happens). Thanks as always.
