Pun of a Kind

PDF  /  PUZ Last week's Week 3 was probably a Week 5. 1.  Puzzle #35 recap Puzzle #35 answer:  IMPOSTOR Correct entries:  20 , of which fewer than  10  were likely solo solves I'm not sure how much credit I can take for a mere 15-by-9, but I'd love to see if this could've been done as a 15-by-15 (I think I tried for like 10 minutes, if that, and kept whittling it down, haha). There was certainly a lot of trial-and-error to make this one, and I figured what seemed obvious to me was probably only because I spent so long making it that the constraint loomed large in my mind. The left and right portions of the grid, not connected, and the "Left and Right" in the title referred to your hands, which may have even used to solve a bunch of the puzzle if you did it online! The left grid comprised, mostly, of letters that are typed using the left hand in a standard QWERTY keyboard; the right grid was, well, the right! Thank goodness I was able to at least squeez...

PDF  /  PUZ Welp, no records this week - sorry about that! 1.  Puzzle #34 recap Puzzle #34 answer:  AUGUSTA Correct entries: 26 , of which fewer than 12  were likely solo solves My original Week 2 idea didn't have a strong enough click in my mind, so I quickly put something together in about two days last week. I figured the spanner of CAPITAL with the word "state" in the clue would've been enough to get us over 40, but apparently, some of those capitals were really  well hidden! There's not much of purport in the grid, save for the main clue CAPITAL going across. This, coupled with the title, was meant to get you on a quest to find several hidden state capitals in the grid. I think the puzzle is fine; however , I think there did need to be more assistance for it to click down to a Week 2. Probably should've said "U.S. city" and got you thinking more about the clues than the grid. It wouldn't have been easy to hide too many others, although one a...

PDF  /  PUZ Quick recap this time as we set another record! 1.  Puzzle #33 recap Puzzle #33 answer:  STOP SIGN Correct entries: 61 - fans of prime numbers and Roger Maris, rejoice! This is also a record by far!! Eight definitely was enough in this meta for eight 8-letter answers to eight across clues. The problem? The entries themselves (also legitimate words and phrases!) were 9 letters long! You had to drop the unnecessary letter from each of those entries, and they spell STOP SIGN. Don't stop now, though - let's go to our next meta! (Any more traffic puns would be a dead end.) --- 2. A Week 2  meta this time! And that's all I have to say, haha. Good luck! Mikey G The answer to the meta is a city.

PDF  /  PUZ We had a couple of challenging metas last week - one of the best I've ever seen here and then my newfangled mathematical offering. Let's see how it treated you!! 1.  Puzzle #32 recap Puzzle #32 answer: DIVIDEND Correct entries:  24 -  Still a toughie, but several persevered! Here was the plan of attack. It is  a Week 5 , so keep that in mind! a) The four starred entries each contain a key word toward the end of them: FLAGS, CATCH, STEPS, AREA. b) In line with the title, each of these words is linked to another item (place or title) that contains a number: 6 Flags Catch-22 The 39 Steps  (arguably the hardest of the four, hence the Hitchcock clue elsewhere in the grid; in retrospect, I should've placed one for all four of these) Area 51 c) The title itself doesn't clue us into the number, but it does use the phrase "two-factor." Each of these numbers contains two main factors, other than 1 and itself . (Sometimes, we math nerds refer to thes...