Wordy Wednesday 135: Pent Words 27 & Wordy Wednesday 136: Section Six 13

WORDY WEDNESDAY #133

FOXGERYPTICS 5 (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:
Edderiofer He **
Giovanni Pagano **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks **
Eitan Cher **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
Yossi Fendel **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #134

THE INNOCUOUS TWINS (hint)

As of this writing, 10 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's a hint. Send your answers 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!

GUEST PUZZLE ON RYAN FALEY'S BLOG!

I recently wrote a guest puzzle for Ryan Faley, who went through a bout of extreme depression and ended up missing a week on his blog. If you enjoy puzzles, do check it out!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #135

PENT WORDS 27

(click here for a PDF version)

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 A men's deodorant brand / Endless
2 Brown songbird / Dismay
3 Many Sousa works / Barack Obama, astrologically
4 "Catch a Falling Star" singer Perry / James Doohan role
5 Expresses boredom, perhaps / Falcon-headed Egyptian god
6 Sure / Gordon Shumway, familiarly
7 Three-____ race / Protagonist
8 Total number of B's in the English names of the first 999,999,999 positive integers / They have fulcra
9 "If it ain't ____. . ." / South American mountain range
10 "Electric ____" (Eddy Grant song) / Anywhere but Here novelist Simpson

PENTOMINOES:
* HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* THE OTHER HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Mongoose relative with a long tail
* Common clock feature
* ____ Hunter (Christian metal band)
* Wild dog native to Asia
* Game featured in the Pixar short Geri's Game
* ____ crossing (British crosswalk)
* A noble gas
* One in possession
* Game of chance resembling bingo
* Measuring aid
* Tenth Greek letter
* "All the world's a ____. . ." (As You Like It)
* It may be vicious
* Pleasant smell
* Reeves of The Matrix
* Jules Brown's brother in Back to the Future: Part III
* Lifted
* Stratagems

WORDY WEDNESDAY #136

SECTION SIX 13

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle's grid has six rings and six sections. Each ring contains a series of words placed end to end, reading either clockwise or counterclockwise; all the words in a given ring will read in the same direction. Ring 1 (the outer ring) contains six answers that read clockwise; the starting spaces are numbered in the grid. Clues for the answers in the remaining rings are given in order, but their starting points and direction are for you to determine. The sections (separated by the heavy lines radiating from the center) will help you place the inner rings: in a given section, each ring segment contains all but one of the letters in the next segment outward. In other words, a section's outermost segment contains six letters; the next segment inward contains five of those six letters in some order; and so on, until only one of the original six letters remains.

Arrange the letters in the six starred spaces to form the final answer, a 6-letter word.

Ring 1
1 Tony of Taxi and Who's the Boss?
2 "____ Jean" (1982 Michael Jackson song)
3 Landscape alternative
4 Slumps
5 Naval clerk
6 Charles who founded a large pharmaceutical corporation

Ring 2
* Press
* Severe snowstorm
* Notorious
* Piano-like instrument with a neck
* Column of a chessboard

Ring 3
* "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" animals
* Tuck of the Robin Hood legends, for one
* German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm ____
* Animated MTV series set in Lawndale High School

Ring 4
* Unsafe
* A small orange
* Short

Ring 5
* Willie of baseball
* With The, Stravinsky ballet

Ring 6
* ____ the 13th (1980 horror flick)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* A puzzle with a seed word from patron Giovanni Pagano!
* Patron Puzzle #19, which will be delivered exclusively to Patreon supporters ($5 or more per month), is a Words Without Friends. Do you like Scrabble, but lack friends? Play this solitaire version instead. You're told where to place the letters; the challenge is finding the right words!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 134: The Innocuous Twins

WORDY WEDNESDAY #132

HEX PATHFINDER 6 (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:
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #133

FOXGERYPTICS 5 (hint)

As of this writing, 12 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers 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 #134

THE INNOCUOUS TWINS

(click here for a PDF version)

Remember that haunted hotel you visited a while back? You’ve been called for a return visit; it turns out that the second floor is haunted by two twin brothers, who appear to you in a dream as you sleep. “We had lots of intelligent things we wanted to talk about,” one of them explains to you, “but nobody ever listened to us. It drove us to depression when we were alive. Will you help us rest in peace? Give us the correct 7-letter answer to this puzzle to show us that you want to listen.”

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's a 5-letter word for "Jules Brown's brother in Back to the Future: Part III"?
* What's a 6-letter word for "Charles who founded a large pharmaceutical corporation"?

Until next time, yappy solving!

Logicsmith Exhibition 6: Shipping Pearls

I have not had a contest on my blog in a long, long time. Some of my Wordy Wednesday puzzles in the past have been contests (in fact, the system where you get 1 or 2 stars next to your name on the solvers list is a carryover from the contest format, where you could get 1 or 2 contest entries depending on whether you solved the puzzle before or after the easy version went up). However, since I created my Patreon, where people who pledge $3 or more per month get an early look at my Wordy Wednesday puzzles, it doesn't feel right to basically give an advantage to people who pay to see my puzzles earlier. The solution? This contest doesn't involve word puzzles! In fact, it involves logic puzzles, also known as those things this blog used to be focused on before I jumped the shark. However, I won't be writing the puzzles; that is your job.

You are to write a valid Masyu puzzle on a 10x10 grid. The puzzle must have exactly one valid solution. In this solution, there must be exactly 20 cells which are not entered by the loop; within those unused cells, it must be possible to fit a standard Battleships fleet (one ship of length 4, two of length 3, three of length 2, four of length 1) in accordance with the standard Battleships rules.

IMPORTANT: You are not writing a Masyu Battleships puzzle. The puzzle must be solvable as a normal Masyu puzzle, without knowledge that the unused cells will form a Battleships solution.

Count the number of black circles and the number of white circles in your puzzle. Let M be the number of occurrences of the more frequent color, and L be the number of occurrences of the less frequent color. (M and L will be equal if there is an equal number of black circles and white circles.) Your goal is to minimize the value 100M+L. (For example, if your puzzle has 8 black circles and 14 white circles, your score is 1408.)

Submit your puzzle to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next 4 weeks (before December 18, 2016). You may enter multiple times; only your lowest score counts. Whoever submits a valid puzzle with the lowest score wins. I will feature the lowest-scoring valid entry from every entrant on this blog, so even if you don't win, your puzzle-writing abilities will be showcased on my blog. Ties will be broken by random.org.

The winner will receive a copy of an upcoming Grandmaster Puzzles e-book featuring my puzzles, which is scheduled to be released some time before the end of the year. If, for some unforeseen reason, the e-book isn't released by then, the winner will be offered a replacement prize.

Good luck!

Wordy Wednesday 133: Foxgeryptics 5

WORDY WEDNESDAY #131

ANACROSSWORD 9 (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 **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Eitan Cher *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #132

HEX PATHFINDER 6 (hint)

As of this writing, 7 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers 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 #133

FOXGERYPTICS 5

(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. . .

* A very innocuous puzzle with no words in it. . . .

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 132: Hex Pathfinder 6

WORDY WEDNESDAY #130

PENT WORDS 26 (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 **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Chris Hendricks *
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #131

ANACROSSWORD 9 (hint)

As of this writing, 8 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers 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!

REDHEAD64'S OBSCURE PUZZLE BLOG!

Reader Ryan Faley would like to direct your attention to his blog, where he has now posted his 100th puzzle! His blog is inspired by my own, and quite personally, I enjoy his offerings. I hope you do, too. :)

WORDY WEDNESDAY #132

HEX PATHFINDER 6

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron M. Sean Molley.
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 Incorrect relative positioning, as of vertebrae (12)
2SE Its first user was William Howard Taft (10, 2 wds.)
3SW Haley Joel of The Sixth Sense (6)
4NW Picked (5)
5SW Author of a 1970 guide to Shakespeare (11, 2 wds.)
6NW Actress Dickinson of Police Woman (5)
7SE Craft a plan, as a chess player might (10)
8E Grounds keeper? (12, 2 wds.)
9NE Ted Cassidy role (5)
10NE Clarify with an example (10)
11SW Probable eternal bachelorette (8)
12SW Young child (6)
13W House-building material, perhaps (11)
14W Its flag has five stars (5)
15NW Loss (6)
16NW Only animated Disney film with a running time in excess of two hours (8)
17W Surname of the family from The Incredibles (4)
18W Great Sphinx’s city (4)
19E ____ calculator (the TI-80, for example) (8)
20SW Follow the ____ (6)
21SE Emblem depicting Christ as a lamb (8, 2 wds.)
22W Ploy (4)
23NE Younger brother of Christopher Hitchens (5)
23W White carrot relatives (8)
24SW Character associated with forty thieves (7, 2 wds.)
25W ____ tiger (6)
26SE Midnight rider Paul (6)
27SW Infuriate (5)
28SE Photographer’s need (6)
29SE ____ Las Vegas (1964 Elvis film) (4)
30W Gruesome (7)
31E “Terrible” figure of 16th century Russia (4)
32E Popular pet rodent (6)

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* Another batch of Foxgeryptics!

Until next time, yappy solving!

Wordy Wednesday 131: Anacrossword 9

WORDY WEDNESDAY #129

FRAMELINKS 5 (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 *
Edderiofer He **
Jack Bross **
Adam Weaver **
Anthony Bailey **
Bryce Herdt **
Ryan Faley **
Sam Levitin **
yyw **

WORDY WEDNESDAY #130

PENT WORDS 26 (hint)

As of this writing, 8 people have solved last week's puzzle. Haven't solved it yet? Here's an easier version. Send your answers 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!

LOGICAL LEAPS AND LANDINGS

One of my patrons, Pavel Curtis, is running a Kickstarter campaign to get the first two years of his Adalogical Ænigmas series published as a book. As of this writing, he has raised over $6,000, reaching his stretch goal to commission fellow puzzle writers to create a bonus series called the Ænigmatic Addenda. I was one of the puzzle writers approached for this purpose, and have been assigned to the $7,000 stretch goal. If you like logic puzzles (and obviously you do, because you're browsing this blog, of all places), consider supporting this project!

WORDY WEDNESDAY #131

ANACROSSWORD 9

(click here for a PDF version)

This puzzle contains a word suggested by patron Jack Bross.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ___ ___ ___ ___ 
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103
___ ___ ___
104 105 106
Hundred ____ Wood (A. A. Milne setting)
Immature
Certain symbol on a music staff
City of the Cowboys
When supper is served
Repeat
Body parts looked at by podiatrists
Certain honkers
Richard of Pretty Woman
Skinny
Cause of annoying physical discomfort
Portly's father in The Wind in the Willows
Having to do with the matter at hand
Piece of paper
Xiaolin ____ (cartoon whose Shen Gong Wu include the Orb of Tornami)
Prepare for a test
Digital offering of many newspapers?
Advocate of voting rights for women
Lacking slack
Yukon or Nunavut, for example
Prong
____: Legacy (2010 sci-fi sequel)
With The, 2016 video game where the player interacts with mazes on an island

COMING NEXT WEEK. . .

* What's an 8-letter word for "Only animated Disney film with a running time in excess of two hours"?

Until next time, yappy solving!