crossword 3:14
meta 0ish minutes
meta 0ish minutes
hello and welcome to episode #527 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Scoresheet”. after a fine guest constructor month, matt is back in the saddle for this week 1 puzzle. i tried to do this puzzle without the instructions, and … yes. it was easy. the long answers in the grid are all questions:
- {Request for identification} WHO WAS THAT?
- {Archaic “Ain’t ya?”} ART THOU NOT? a bit contrived, but sure.
- {Words shouted after knocking} ANYONE HOME?
- {Certainty level check} ARE YOU SURE?
and that’s not all. there are a whole bunch of other questions:
- {“At which hour?”} WHEN?
- {Plea to Mom or Dad} CAN WE?
- {Polite request for permission} MAY I?
- {“All set?”} READY?
- {“Using which method?”} HOW?
- {Cabbie’s opener} WHERE TO?
- {“And the reason for this would be…?”} WHY?
- {“Understood?”} GOT IT?
- {“I need an answer now!”} YES OR NO?
- {“Understood?”} CLEAR?
- {“Huh?”} WHAT?
- {Lurch’s catchphrase} YOU RANG?
- {“Isn’t it the truth?”} RIGHT?
- {“Coming along for the ride on this one?”} YOU IN?
- {Texter’s version of “Izzatso?”} O RLY? i like this one. you could clue it as the paris-adjacent airport ORLY, but this is both more fun and a key part of the theme.
- {With 9-Down, Guadalajara greeting} COMO / ESTAS?
counting these up, we get a grand total of twenty questions, which both fits the title (“score” = 20) and is a phrase that might well be a meta answer. and indeed, the instructions this week ask for a game, so here we are.
this was a fun theme. i’ve seen a couple of other puzzles themed around twenty questions, including one memorable one by patrick blindauer in either the old new york sun or fireball which included twenty tricky ? clues and a big question mark formed by the black squares in the grid. but this was a good way to roll for a week 1.
safe travels and happy puzzling to everybody headed to npl con in wisconsin this week!
Thanks, Joon — 558 right answers this week.
How many solvers sent in “Clue”?
Here’s my question: How did Matt manage to fit 105 theme squares in a 15×15 grid (more than half of all letters in the puzzle) and *still* keep it really smooth overall? Don’t try this at home, constructors, unless you have superpowers.
At first count I had 16 Questions which made no sense but then when I finally got it I mistyped and sent in 21 Questions which could perhaps be a new game. But Mr. Gaffney gave me the benefit of the doubt, for which I thank him.
There actually is a lesser-known 21 Questions game.
The Wikipedia article on this game has some pretty interesting trivia in it.
I had to back-solve a couple of the questions (CLEAR and GOTIT, both clued with “Understood?”) because I initially passed over them as answers to the question, rather than as alternate versions of the question. For some reason, I had no trouble with RIGHT? [“Isn’t that the truth?], probably because I grew up with people who said, “Right?” as a form of agreement. But anyhow, when I was up to 18 of the questions in the grid I knew it had to be Twenty Questions and I just had to find the next two. That’s how I got there.
I’ll say that I went down a major rathole early this weekend. Five of the questions in the grid are the famous 5Ws — WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, plus HOW (for six, aka the “6Ws”). I immediately thought of Clue (did anyone submit that?), but realized it really only has who, where and how. So I went searching for a murder mystery game that used all these terms, and was surprised how many such board games are out there, plus there is the Murder Mystery Game Party concept. However, I never found in any of those games the requirement that all “6Ws” be answered.
More on 5Ws in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws
And of the many murder mystery games I looked at, I thought “Ravensburger Scotland Yard – Family Game” looked like the best. It is more affordable than many others, and playing time is reasonable (30 minutes), and it sounds like a really terrific family game.
https://www.amazon.com/Ravensburger-Scotland-Yard-Family-Game/dp/B00C3SFFEI?SubscriptionId=AKIAINYWQL7SPW7D7JCA&tag=aboutcom02thespruce-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00C3SFFEI&ascsubtag=4164420%7Cgoogle.com%7C%7C%7C40%7C1%7C
Or via bitly: https://amzn.to/2N6eg7j
Week 1 Fail!
Got lazy, didn’t finish puzzle and sent in ‘Clue’. it does have a scoresheet too.
Maybe next time I give week 1 the respect it deserves.
Absurdly impressive construction.
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