Entertainment Centers

Not sure how "entertainment" fits in, but thanks for the fun of finding the right path. I really enjoyed that! So maybe solving is the entertainment.

tough one!

The thing that threw me off the correct path at the start was ALE -> BALED, IRE -> WIRED, ALI -> MALIBU. Plus at least 11 others where the "center" word is only off by one letter.

Thanks for the puzzle Will! I definitely needed the revised version though.

Great puzzle. Really tricky and clever. Thanks Will!

Brilliant!

I thought "Entertainment Center" referred to a game system/console where one might find arrow keys on the controller? Had the right idea, just took me a few cups of coffee to apply it correctly.

Clever, but the revised version greatly helped.

Tricky one! The hint saved me a couple hours, I’m sure. Thanks! Now I can do the leaves.

Thanks for the puzzle. Don’t think I would have gotten it without the hint.

From the home of the great St. Louis team, very much appreciated.

This was tricky, I'd score it 7/10.

Thanks everyone! For those curious about the title: The use of WADS in place of arrow keys is most common for gaming purposes, hence "entertainment" in the title. And, of course, the centers of the words are the starting places for finding the letters of the solution.

This is a hard one to solve online. Hard to recognize clue pattern when you only see one clue at a time. And once I got all the letters they were in clue order on my scratch paper so it didn't spell anything. If I had a grid printed out it would be easier to see what it spelled.

Gaming is NOT my thing, but I understood the WADS significance quickly. I needed v2, though, to begin to understand what to do with WADS. It was fun to start this meta in the morning, get frustrated, walk away, do errands, come back to learn there was a v2, and finally solve.

Never would have solved this without the hint that came out this afternoon.

Needed the revised version. Then took stepping away for a bit to see why some 3 letter clues were capitalized and others weren't! Without the capitalization, I know I wouldn't have figured it out. But it was VERY satisfying to see it come together.

Go Cardinal!

Definitely needed the easier version. Granted, I was already looking at the center of all the odd across entries (3, 5, 7) but didn't notice the clues to tell me what directions to go. Great job.

kinda tough even with the hinted version...

"It's never an anagram" until it is...

For the record, my paper copy is at home. My time of 3:26 is how long it took to start from the blank grid on Crosshare and do the actual "up, left, up" stuff eight times.

Finished grid Sunday evening, wasn't sure whether WADS was significant. Peeked at revised clues, saw that it was. Took center letter of each word, nothing. Forgot about puzzle for 36 hours. Early Tuesday morning, bored in a medical waiting room, had a flash of inspiration. Nice!

Novel idea, and I definitely needed the revised version! Printing it out sure helped!

Even with the revised edition, it still took me a while to figure out where to "start" the direction arrows...for whatever reason, I overlooked the "centers" sitting there in the title. D'oh! Glad it finally came together before the deadline. Quite the challenge, Will!

Got it, thanks to encouragement from the Tuesday night Zoom crew. I had jumped over a black square and wondered why I was getting gibberish that didn't anagram into anything!

Not sure how entertainment works into it, and had to get a nudge from Will, but I got it!