Wordy Wednesday 111: One Size Fits All & Wordy Wednesday 112: Logicrossword 5

WORDY WEDNESDAY #109

FOXGERYPTICS 4 (answer)

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Brian Chen **
Bryce Herdt **
Peter Abide *
Punjit Sharma **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #110

PENT WORDS 22 (hint)

As of this writing, 10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #111

ONE SIZE FITS ALL

(click here for a PDF version)

Use the clues to the right of each grid (which are provided in no particular order) to fill it with 5-letter words (the same ones reading across and down). Click the image to enlarge it.
The answer is a proper name.

WORDY WEDNESDAY #112

LOGICROSSWORD 5

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle was written for patron M. Sean Molley, who supports me at the $20+ level on Patreon and is therefore entitled to suggest one word or phrase every month for me to incorporate into a puzzle. His May 2016 suggestion is used here.

Shade in some cells in the grid below, and fill the rest with letters to form words left-to-right and top-to-bottom, crossword style. All words are Scrabble-legal (see scrabble.merriam.com); however, most of the words in the intended solution should be familiar.

There is no “final answer” to this puzzle; just send your completed grid.

* No two black cells share an edge. All the white cells are connected through their edges.
* Row 1 contains the letter U, but not the letter K.
* Row 3 contains the word SH.
* Row 6 contains the same number of black cells as row 8.
* Row 9 contains the word FORGET reading horizontally, intersecting the words ME and NOT.
* Column B contains exactly one E.
* Column C contains exactly one P.
* Column E contains exactly one black cell.
* Column G contains the word DAFFODIL reading vertically.
* Column I contains a 9-letter word.
* Two 7-letter words starting with the same letter intersect, and a third 7-letter word intersects neither of these.
* The word IDLE reading horizontally intersects the word ALAR reading vertically.
* The word TROIKA reading horizontally intersects the word KAIN reading vertically.
* The words BY and RED read somewhere in the grid.
* The letter in cell H7 also appears somewhere in row 4.

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* In what city is the Sharif University of Technology?
* Patron Puzzle #14, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a pair of Codewords puzzles. Can you decipher these crosswords?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 110: Pent Words 22

WORDY WEDNESDAY #108

HEX PATHFINDER 2 (answer)

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Brian Chen **
Bryce Herdt **
Punjit Sharma **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #109

FOXGERYPTICS 4 (hint)

As of this writing, 11 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #110

PENT WORDS 22

(click here for a PDF version)
This puzzle was written for patron M. Sean Molley, who supports me at the $20+ level on Patreon and is therefore entitled to suggest one word or phrase every month for me to incorporate into a puzzle. His April 2016 suggestion is used here.

In this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (regions containing five cells each), and write a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, in reading order (left to right starting with the top row), will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example, the rows spell PLANT, SHARE, and BITES, and the pentominoes spell the words PLANS, TREES, and HABIT.) Use the ACROSS answers to determine where the pentominoes are.

ACROSS (two answers per row):
1 Dummy / Electric guitarist's need
2 Fairy queen from  A Midsummer Night's Dream / "____ Will Be Loved" (Maroon 5 song)
3 Just about all / Was environmentally conscious, perhaps
4 Approach / Old ____ (1957 film)
5 Many Shakespeare works / ____ Park, CA
6 A long period of time / Mommie ____ (1981 film)
7 ____ a bell (be familiar) / Hold, as a grudge
8 Hooded snake / Mombasa's country
9 New Haven university / Improvised
10 Part of a shoe / Chip 'n ____ Rescue Rangers

PENTOMINOES:
* HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* THE OTHER HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Head over ____
* Farewell
* Sully the reputation of
* Collect over time
* Actress Pompeo of Grey's Anatomy
* Brown of Good Eats
* ____ of Athens
* One of Christopher Columbus's ships
* Textile made from regenerated cellulose
* Car-stopping device
* "____ Eyes" (Bob Welch song)
* Unspecific
* Tricks of the ____
* Great bargain
* A Muslim woman might live in one
* Bicycle component
* Australian creature
* Don ____ (Much Ado About Nothing character)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* A bunch of word squares, and a Logicrossword!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 109: Foxgeryptics 4

WORDY WEDNESDAY #107

HEX PATHFINDER (answer)

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Brian Chen **
Bryce Herdt **
Punjit Sharma **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #108

HEX PATHFINDER 2 (hint)

As of this writing, 11 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #109

FOXGERYPTICS 4

(click here for a PDF version)

These puzzles are based on Gryptics. Gryptics seem like a neat concept to me; however, they are sullied by the main difference between the difficulty levels being how many randomly-placed letters are given at the start. (They're not even symmetrical ones, and even the hardest puzzles have them.) Apparently, Les Foeldessy didn't succeed in getting his puzzles to the large audience he wanted to, because the website gryptics.com no longer exists.

Insert a single letter in each space of each grid so that each grid's five rows and five columns spells a word from left to right or top to bottom (including the letters outside the grid).

Arrange the letters in the shaded spaces to form the final answer, an eight-letter word.

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's a 5-letter word for "'____ Eyes' (Bob Welch song)"?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Grant's Review Corner: Volume 13

It's been a while since I've written one of these things.

I have had many, many, many years of experience with puzzles, both solving them and writing them. With this has come the ability to form opinions on puzzles and hopefully explain them with well thought-out prose to help other people form their own opinions; this is why there are 12 previous volumes of Grant's Review Corner. However, they are also very sparsely written: the last installment was over a year ago, and the one before that was 16 months prior! The primary reason is that I don't want to be inundated with requests to review things. However, formulating an opinion, dissecting it, and working out how to express it is a good exercise, so when I recently got a request to review an iOS app, I decided to do it.

Disclaimer: I was given a review copy of this app, normally $1.99, for free. While getting review copies of things is par for the course in the world of reviewing, this is a first for Grant's Review Corner.

Wordy Wednesday 108: Hex Pathfinder 2

WORDY WEDNESDAY #106

SECTION SIX 10 (answer)

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Brian Chen **
Punjit Sharma **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #107

HEX PATHFINDER (hint)

As of this writing, 11 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #108

HEX PATHFINDER 2

(click here for a PDF version)

In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered hexagon and winds through the grid, starting in the indicated direction. When you have finished, every letter will be used in exactly two entries.

Rearrange the letters in the shaded spaces to get the final answer, a 7-letter word.

1W Get up (5)
2NE Angry (5)
3E 1995 film that ends with a boy getting a puppy for Christmas (8, 2 wds.)
4E Container for a message, perhaps (6)
5E ____ guitar (5)
6SW Flexible (5)
7W Cream of the crop (5)
8W Lynyrd Skynyrd song alluded to in a Kid Rock song (16, 3 wds.)
9SE Trademark on fruit cups (8, 2 wds.)
10E “God's Not Dead” band (8)
11NE Secret meeting between lovers (5)
12SW Rebound (5)
13E ____ of Eden (4)
14E Actor Kevin of Footloose (5)
14SW They're attractive (8)
15W Hit for The Beach Boys which was originally released with no silent letters in its title (12, 3 wds.)
16NW You inherit them from your parents (5)
17E “This isn't my first ____!” (5)
18SE Sack ____ (4)
19SE The ____ Before Time (4)
20SE Skeptic (14, 2 wds.)
21SE Nothing (4)
22NE Participated in Christmas festivities, perhaps (7)
23W Child actress Shirley (6)
24W Lucy asks for it in A Charlie Brown Christmas after getting kissed by Snoopy (6)
25E Peak (4)
26SW Physicist Niels (4)
27SE Country where Murchison Falls National Park is located (6)
28NE It's equal to 100 centavos (4)
29SE They're attractive (7)
30NE Host (5)
31NE One who constantly attends social events (8)
32NE In 2016, it began on February 10 (4)
33NE A type of carpet (4)
33NE Lug with difficulty (5)
34E Gregorian ____ (5)
34E Discipline (7)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* Two more Foxgeryptics!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 107: Hex Pathfinder

WORDY WEDNESDAY #105

PENT WORDS 21 (answer)

It's been two weeks, so time to unveil the answer to this puzzle. If you still wish to solve it yourself, please go here for the normal version of the puzzle, or here for the easier version of the puzzle. Here's a list of people who solved it:
Giovanni Pagano **
M. Sean Molley **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Brian Chen *
Lance Nathan **
Punjit Sharma **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #106

SECTION SIX 10 (hint)

As of this writing, 11 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your solutions to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next week to appear on the solvers list and be recognized for your puzzle prowess. Good luck, solvers!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #107

HEX PATHFINDER

(click here for a PDF version)

In this puzzle, each answer starts in the correspondingly numbered hexagon and winds through the grid, starting in the indicated direction. When you have finished, every letter will be used in exactly two entries.

Rearrange the letters in the shaded spaces to get the final answer, a 7-letter word.

1SW Dole out (10)
1SW “Money for Nothing” band (11, 2 wds.)
2E Actor Heath of 10 Things I Hate About You (6)
3NW It might be issued against a stalker (16, 2 wds.)
4NW A keyboard key (6)
5SE Publisher of the Just Dance video games (7)
6W ____-apple rust (5)
7NE Go down (8)
8SE Sarcastic in tone (6)
9SW One who's quick on the draw, perhaps (10)
10SW Zeal (5)
11NE Golfer Els (5)
12SW Title character in a 2016 movie sequel (4)
13E They might be measured in radians (6)
14E Stone Temple Pilots song title that's a misspelling of a Unilever trademark (8)
15SE Habitat for observing certain insects (7, 2 wds.)
16W Online celebrity Walker with the misfortune of sharing his name with a cartoon he hates (4)
17SW Needles have them (4)
18NE Staff member on an Internet forum (9)
19SW Pine (5)
20SE Brian "Head" Welch's band (4)
21SE The whole ____ (everything) (9)
22SE Doing nothing (4)
23SW First name of a singer/pianist whose middle name is Hercules (5)
24NE Game where the object is to separate other players' hands (8, 2 wds.)
25E Jakob the ____ (1999 Robin Williams film) (4)
26NW Participate in a “don't blink” contest (5)
26SW It might separate two independent clauses (9)
27NW ____ fuel (6)
28SW Gretel's brother (6)
29SE Illegal act (5)
30E Foot-operated sewing machine parts (8)
31SE Just (4)
32SW The ____ of Money (5)
33NE Ancient Greek instrument (4)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's an 8-letter word for "'God's Not Dead' band"?

Until next time, yappy solving!