OK, last weeks was WAY easy I was told, and the only way it was a Calico was if you tried to do the grid blindfolded...
Fine, let's see if I can have something for everyone. This puzzle started simple and then there were a few changes for PC reasons and then there were some changes for clarity, then I made some changes to make it a little harder, then someone else thought, well you can make it harder still if you....
In the end I had KITTEN, PERSIAN, PUMA, LION...which one to pick. To heck with it, I'll do a smorgasbord. You will see that I have included one of each versions and you can choose which one you feel either comfortable or like wasting your time on. There are no pictures of the GRIDS because if I did that I would be giving away the puzzle I am afraid, but of course you are free to look at/solve them all, and that may help you if you get stuck. Because there are several versions and each step “down” reveals a little bit more (the KITTEN is a different grid and concept completely, but the answer and mechanism are pretty much the same) I probably will not post Friday nudges. But, as you all know you can PM me for assistance anytime.
Difficulty Level: Kitten to Lion of course
So go ahead and pick the one you think you’d like to try…and get ready for a litany of colorful words! Oh and when I post the solvers I will note which one was solved: KITTEN, PERSIAN, PUMA or LION.
Thanks to my diligent and long-suffering testers: Cinny, Bird Lives, pchow13, hcbirker
The Reveal
Six (6) entries become colors when the meta mechanism (a three letter entry has two letters that correspond to the first two letters of a corresponding entry, cancel out the two common letters and you are left with a color) is applied. Depending on the version [PERSIAN, PUMA, LION] either the three letter entry had an asterisk, the corresponding entry had an asterisk, no entry had asterisks.
STREAM and STR =CREAM=C
DERANGE and DEO =ORANGE=O
BOINK and BOP =PINK=P
HILUM + HIP= PLUM=P
IMBONY and IME=EBONY=E
NOOSE and NOR=ROSE=R
When arranged in order of the longer word you get COPPER, a colorful word people use when discussing the police
For a graphic representation of the solve go to: