CROSSHAREAccount
Profile

Philip Chow

@pchow13

·

Welcome to Phil's Crossword Corner (PCC)... I recently got hooked into creating metas and will try and release a new one each week. For those of you who have been following me since the start and are new to metas, a meta puzzle is a crossword puzzle with a secondary puzzle within it - you'll need to figure out what's going on to answer a prompt. Mike D does a pretty good job explaining it here: https://crosshare.org/articles/meta-crossword-puzzles.
If you are not interested in metas, I'll still try to make my puzzles fun to solve and you can click the "reveal answer" button at the end. But give it a try! Hopefully you'll like the extra challenge and get suckered into joining the meta-verse. I'll include optional hints so you can get extra nudges to play along.
Note for the level designation, I am using the Gaffney scale in which a week 1 puzzle = easy, and a week 4 and 5 puzzle = hard. The level is the intended difficulty I had in mind when I designed the puzzle, but may play differently since every solver has their own area of expertise... what one person may find easy, another may find difficult.
I restarted the puzzle numbering system with Puzzle #67 as PCC#1. An archive of non-meta puzzles are in my Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1vsBrG5gENL9s2z2psq4KTCHO0OBVNt7Z.
I'm always happy to welcome any feedback, questions, typo-spotting, or if you just want to chat... You can reach me at pchow13@gmail.com
15x15

PCC#8 "Broken spirits"

· Published 2023-09-16T05:39:16.071Z

Hint 1: the name of five drinks are hidden in the puzzle
Hint 2: take the title literally
Hint 3: broken (across a black square), spirits (as in alcoholic spirits)
Hint 4: the five alcoholic drinks have something in common
Hint 5: what color is…
15x15

PCC#7 "Jibber-jabber"

· Published 2023-09-09T05:32:04.031Z

Hint 1: the four longest entries are thematic
Hint 2: JAB JEB ??? JOB JUB
Hint 3: I originally assigned this meta level 1 but bumped it up to 1.5 because the solution is a not-so-familiar term... so if you've never heard of the term before you…
15x15

PCC#6 "When one of us shines, all of us shine"

◆◆ · Published 2023-09-02T07:21:39.570Z

Note: Googling is encouraged as there are a lot of names in this puzzle - I apologize for the subpar fill... hope the payoff is worth it!
Hint #1: some solvers love them, some solvers hate them... rebus squares! but these aren't just ordinary rebuses
15x15

PCC Themeless #1

◆◆ · Published 2023-08-30T21:23:47.164Z

15x15

PCC#5 "Grandma means love in every language"

· Published 2023-08-26T06:46:34.466Z

(Googling most likely required)
Hint #1: the six starred entries have something in common
Hint #2: hopefully you don't get lost in translation
Hint #3: "tutu" is Hawaiian and "ugogo" is Zulu
Hint #4: check the clues
Hint #5: consider the first…
15x15

PCC#4 "Spoiled rotten"

· Published 2023-08-19T17:14:34.805Z

Hint #1: 6 letters in the first word, 8 letters in the second word
Hint #2: The central clue hints at "Royals"... maybe the starred clues are somehow connected?
Hint #3: The starred clues are all associated with the word "princess"
Hint #4: Isn't 12A
15x15

Puzzle #70 "10s! 10s! 10s across the board!"

· Published 2023-08-18T20:33:50.414Z

15x15

Puzzle #69 "Your Infernal Majesty" [PCC#3]

· Published 2023-08-12T19:14:23.131Z

Hint 1: The four theme answers are the four longest answers.
Hint 2: They all have something in common that relates to 71A
Hint 3: Google "Shania Twain songs" and look for a song that shares this common property. The song is from 1997.
Bonus Hint: In
Hint #1: It's not me
Hint #2: What do all the long entries have in common?
Hint #3: Go to https://www.xwordinfo.com/ and click on "Most prolific authors" under Constructors
Hint #1: The four long entries are not part of the meta. Focus on the title instead: what is 20% expressed as a fraction?
Hint #2: 20% = 1/5... concentrate on the five-letter words... say them out loud... do any of them jump out to you?
Hint #3: The…

Older Puzzles

Loading...