Evan Birnholz’s Mini Puzzle Meta Suite: “The Haunted House” October 31, 2021

 

*Jump to very end of post for clean solution grid images*

As I begin to write this post, it’s midnight, and it’s rather dreary. 

And I’m still pondering, quite weak and… yeah you guessed it… weary. 

Over this very quaint and curious not-at-all-forgotten volume of puzzles galore. 

But it’s Birnholz, not the Raven, perched upon a bust of Pallas. Offering me a ROT13 hint rather than a sinister “Nevermore!” to give me that one final nudge I need to uncover the last piece of the puzzle:

Gur ahzore pbqr sbe gur Yvoenel vf bayl arrqrq gb uryc lbh trg gur frperg jbeq sbe gur Yvoenel. V rkcrpgrq gung gurer jbhyq or fbyiref jub jbhyq trg gur Yvoenel’f frperg jbeq jvgubhg hfvat gur pbqr, ohg vg’f gurer fb gung lbh qba’g unir gb qb n enaqbz nantenz.

Gur ahzore pbqr sbe gur Fnsr jbexf n yvggyr ovg qvssreragyl, ohg gurer’f na n-un zbzrag lbh’yy arrq gb trg orsber gur pbqr pbzrf vagb cynl.

I don’t know what it says. I’m not ready to cheat just yet. I’m soooo close. But if you’re on the last step like me, and you want a nudge, paste that message here  before reading on. Looks like a mouthful… But at least it’s Evan, and not the Raven, tapping at your window lattice. 

You know that feeling when you’ve been totally done with anything Netflix has to offer, and then out of nowhere they drop something phenomenal with no announcement? Like a new season of Black Mirror… or anything having to do with Breaking Bad… or something totally out-of-left-field that suddenly takes over your life for a week, like the deliciously just-shy-of-campy modern-spaghetti-western Squid Game? If not, congrats… you’re doing way better than me. If so, then you understand the feeling I got when I opened up this puzzle suite that Evan sent me a few days ago.

You never know when something crazy, fun, and funky is gonna drop from Evan in any given calendar year. Maybe it happens a few times. Maybe once. But you know it’s going to happen. And it’s going to be epic. You just don’t know when.

As soon as I opened the pdf for The Haunted House puzzle suite, I got Patrick Berry vibes. Because he’s the other one who drops really cool meta puzzle suites without notice. Side note: Get them for SUPER cheap here (Vicious Circle is one of the most clever and intensely satisfying solves I’ve ever encountered, and I’m all but certain Evan garnered inspiration from Berry in creating his own unique masterwork here with The Haunted House).

I’d say Evan faces a few more challenges than Patrick Berry when it comes to presentation: It has to be accessible to solvers at any level, and enjoyable, even if solvers don’t care to uncover the meta/mega meta. That is, if you’re going to aframegames, paying a few bucks, and downloading a puzzle suite in pdf format, you likely have an idea of what you’re getting yourself into. This? Nope!

Just seven… erm… eight… seemingly simple puzzles. That are so unassuming and adorable. Hell, they fit on two pages. But they’re bound to frustrate more than a few solvers. Me being one. I’m still not done.

I have a bit of confidence, however, that the chronic one-star Don’t-Mess-With-My-Normal-Crossword raters will show a bit of tact and deference for this truly amazing feat of fun, accessible, ingenious construction.

So here we go.

THEME: Halloween in seven puzzles, all leading to an eighth. At the onset we are told that we are in a “haunted house,” and that each puzzle is a “room” with its own meta answer. We also know that we are to eventually identify a monster and two sets of items that are necessary in order to defeat said monster.

ROOM 1: ENTRANCE HALL

Difficulty rating: Easy

A great way to start this suite. A little Scooby Snack of a puzzle. Here we are asked to essentially fill in our own answers without the help of numbered clues. They can go anywhere in that little grid, reminiscent of the NYT Mini. But for me, the dead giveaway was [Melancholy] and [Word after Caesar or Cobb]. Those are Monday level clues for SAD / SALAD (side note: SAD SALAD sounds like an excellent band name). And they fit quite nicely together in the 5A / 5D position. Or perhaps you determined the [Golfer’s shout] / [Martini fruit] pairing first? (FORE/OLIVE). Regardless, once you can place a set of answers, the rest fall in quite quickly.

2:09 to solve for me.

And a very simple meta: if you read the letters featured in each of the numbered boxes in numerical order, you get D-O-O-R-S.

DOORS. Apropos for an Entrance Hall.

ROOM 2: LABORATORY

Difficulty rating: Easy

Already in the lab? Man! I was hoping for some hors d’oeuvres first, or a glass of champagne at the very least! We are given fewer instructions for this room, so it looks like we’re safe to assume that it’s a normal crossword. But it’s not exactly “normal”! And the fact that this room is used for “…ghastly cloning experiments” is definitely not a coincidence. In four (or eight, I suppose), instances, a letter is repeated within a single, rebus box.

They are:

STA{RR} / E{RR}S

N{AA}N / IS{AA}C 

A{TT}A / O{TT}ER

MO{SS} / AMA{SS}

And those repeated letters spell RATS! Denizens of a laboratory for sure, and without a doubt, our second Meta answer. 

This one took me twenty less seconds to solve than the first, so I assumed I was bound to be the fastest meta solver Evan had ever seen.

And then I met puzzle #3.

ROOM 3: LIBRARY

Difficulty rating: Easy / Challenging

I’ve seen this puzzle type only once before: whilst solving a WaPo. I remember I was sitting on my porch. It was hot. Perhaps I had a beer or two. Therefore, it must’ve been a day ending in -Y. If you’re reading this sentence right now, it means I haven’t found the link to my review of that puzzle yet, otherwise I would’ve included it right here (don’t click that).

Anyways, this type of puzzle seems so frickin’ easy. It’s not. Fill in the first letters to clues that are missing their first letters, fill in just those letters at the appropriate numbers, then cross your fingers and hope you can figure out where the answers to the clues belong. Sometimes they are gimmes: [Ziti or penne shapes] for example… that’s clearly… PASTA? No. No it’s not. Erm. How about [Weak, as an excuse]? Surely, Evan has retired that terrible L word that has, oddly, been a standard answer in crosswords…. so it must be… yeesh, I don’t know! let’s move on…

That’s kind of how that puzzle went for me. I was done with it before I was done with it, so the time reflected in the pic isn’t accurate. Add another 7 minutes. 12 hours later. Or something like that. Once I got GET-GO and eliminated the possibility of that clue [Beginning (hyph.)] being answered elsewhere, it fell into place.

If I had one nit for the entire puzzle suite, it would be QUASAR. Totally new to me, and not quite inferable. I suppose, in the long run, it doesn’t matter to the big-picture solve whether you know it or not. But I really don’t want any mistakes in my grid, even if they don’t matter. Without crosses at every turn, it’s a tough word for the likes of me. QUASAR sounds to me like an X-Ray gun that shoots Easy Cheese.

Anyway, answers to starred clues spell out a message that says SHUFFLE MISSING OPENING LETTERS. And if you run the alphabet, you’ll find that the letters A C E H I R V are missing from the clues. Scramble those and you’ll get ARCHIVE! Where you’re likely to find some Stephen King books in that LIBRARY.

ARCHIVE = Room 3 Meta.

*One thing is very much bothering me in the instructions for this room: Written in blood on the first page are the alphabet and the code (1, 3, 7, 4, 5, 2, 6). I assumed I would need this code to uncover the meta, but I didn’t. I just unscrambled as the instructions told me. But that code suggests seven letters and the answer is seven letters… so… I’m either missing something for this puzzle or this has something to do with the mega-meta. I don’t think Evan would include any superfluous instructions in a puzzle this complex.

ROOM 4: BASEMENT

Difficulty rating: Moderate

It’s dark down here. Too dark for the puzzle itself as some of the entries are shrouded in blackness. The black squares, that is. It’s up to you to determine which clues should be one letter longer than they initially appear, and to enter those letters in the black squares.

With a little elbow grease you’ll find that the correct entry for 4A [Hammer part] isn’t LAW, but {C}LAW, of course. Here’s the set, correctly:

• {C}LAW
• LOL{A}
• OWE{N}
• {D}REAMED
• ROWE{L} *New word for me
• {E}RODE
• LOTION{S}
• {T}ARTS
• {I}SLED
• {C}URL *Tough clue [Twist on one’s head]. It refers to a lock of hair, of course. 
• {K}ATE
• DEN{S}

It should come without surprise (but definitely still be noted) that the visible entries are all still valid as crossword fill: URL, ATE, ARTS, SLED, etc. Always elegant.

It was a tad tricky to fill that one in, but the meta is very easy. You need only to read the letters “hiding in the dark” to determine that CANDLESTICKS would be of great use to help us see our way out of the basement.

ROOM 5: CRYPT

Difficulty rating: Challenging

Some solvers are gonna want to run back into that basement rather than head into the appropriately named CRYPT, as CRYPTIC puzzles still have not quite caught on in America. They’re hugely popular across the pond.

This puzzle alone can warrant an entire post, but I’ll do my best to sum up my experience as an amateur cryptic solver.

I solve these types of puzzles rarely, which is a shame because I do indeed find them insanely clever and satisfying to solve. In fact, I usually solve them when I have to, like when they are part of a puzzle suite. I get too frustrated and look up the answers too quickly when I try to solve them by themselves. For this one, I hashed it out for about 15 minutes, got about most of it, then solved the last missing answer in a minute or two the next day. The pic is where I stopped after the first session.

A brief, and not-so-great explanation of cryptic puzzles:

A clue typically has two parts to it: One part of the clue is straightforward, and the other part is typically “cryptic.” That is to say “punny,” like the ? clues in American crosswords. The thing is, it’s up to the solver to determine which part of the clue is straightforward, and which part is cryptic. For instance 14A [Company division takes a cruise, I hear] is SALES. The part I highlighted in blue is the straightforward clue. A “Company division” is certainly SALES. The next part, “takes a cruise, I hear” is cryptic. Takes a cruise is SAILS, but the “I hear” part is a hint that we are looking for a homophone. Hence, SALES.

The one missing in my almost-solution pic is pretty great. 1D [Pubs hosting the nude people, maybe]. I had ?A?H??S. And scratched my head for quite a while. Maybe the straightforward part of the clue is “maybe,” and the answer is PERHAPS, which fits, but I can’t get it to make sense in the cryptic part. Maybe the straightforward part is “Pubs,” and the answer is… BARROOM and my H is wrong (just noting now that it doesn’t fit). Or maybe it’s BARHOPS.

Nope. It’s BATHERS. The straightforward part is nude people, maybe and the cryptic part is Pubs hosting the because BATHERS has the word THE hidden in it, and it has BARS on the outside. So BARS (Pubs) is “hosting” the word THE.

I won’t lie: about half of the clues I only figured out the straightforward part and am still out-to-lunch on the cryptic part. 3A [Naked hero in broken-down bus summoned car rides] for instance is UBERS. I’m confident in that. The straightforward part of the clue is “summoned car rides.” But I have no idea at the moment what “Naked hero in broken-down bus” means. I’m gonna go back later and try to figure out the ones I don’t know. But it’s too much to go through every clue and answer in this already very-long write-up.

(update: I figured it out. The “broken-down bus” are the letters UBS in UBERS. It’s a BUS, broken-down because its letters are out of order. The “Naked hero” is the letters ER. It’s “naked” because HERO has shed its outer letters, H and O. Pretty cool, eh?)

Feel free to excoriate my weaksauce explanation of cryptics in the comments. There’s tons of exceptions, I’m sure, to the rules. Like 2D [Lite Subway choice] is LOCAL. Both sides of this one are straightforward (Lite = LO-CAL, and Subway choice is the LOCAL), though I’m not sure why “Subway” is capitalized.

Anyway, one clue, 11A, very much draws our attention to the middle column of the puzzle. [Search in the section where you’ll find the secret word: the middle column]. And the middle column reads URNS going down, which is something one is likely to find in a crypt. I love how the metas are all something associated with the rooms.

Everything about this meta is so damn tight.

ROOM 6: KITCHEN

Difficulty rating: Moderate

This one is pretty easy to figure out, especially after the diabolical CRYPT puzzle! Here, we have anagrams as entries for some of the clues instead of the answers. It’s appropriate because one is likely to “mix” things in the kitchen. And they’re all anagrams of foods! Perfect!

• [“Lemon” fish dish] isn’t SOLE, it’s LOSE.
• [___ butter (Jif or Skippy spread)] isn’t PEANUT, it’s ANTE UP. 
• [Still-life fruits] isn’t PEARS, it’s REAPS.
• [Black or green pizza toppings] isn’t OLIVES, it’s VOILES. (not sure what VOILES is)
• [Sandwich fish] isn’t TUNA, it’s AUNT. 

And if you look at the first letters, of the anagrams, it’s LARVA in the kitchen.

Yuk.

ROOM 7: BEDROOM

Difficulty rating: Easy

There’s a ghost in the bedroom. Or perhaps five of them. Here, the solver is tasked with filling in entries that appear to be one letter too long, and where a black square should be, there’s a white square in its place. Quite the opposite concept than that cozy BASEMENT puzzle.

So, from the GET-GO in 1A we have [___ and haw]. Monday level easy-peasy clue for HEM. But the puzzle is asking for four letters. Erm…. Let’s look at 1D [Project for a beaver]. Another Monday level clue for DAM. So logic dictates that we skip over the first box altogether and enter HEM and DAM in the following three. The tricky part of this puzzle is determining which boxes remain “blank,” but the ghosts reveal themselves rather quickly, largely due to the easy nature of the clues.

In true Birnholzian fashion, the “missing” letters, if filled in with another letter, will yield a very valid crossword entry:

• ?DAM / ?HEM = ADAM /AHEM
• A?OL / HO?E = AWOL / HOWE
• DR?T / LAV? = DRAT / LAVA
• AS?S / ROO? = ASKS / ROOK
• N?AT / MOP? = NEAT / MOPE

Check out our five ghosts. If you were in this bedroom, would you be able to sleep? Me neither. I’d be AWAKE the entire night.

And going into the final room, our seven meta answers thus far are

DOORS

RATS

ARCHIVE

CANDLESTICKS

URNS

LARVA

AWAKE

Looks like DRACULA awaits us in the final room. Let’s go slay him.

Now it’s time to enter the FINAL PUZZLE: THE SAFE.

Difficulty rating: Moderately Challenging… needs elbow grease and persistence.

I am familiar with this puzzle type. I don’t do them often, but I find them very enjoyable because of the synergy that happens between the ROWS and the PIECES. Still, this one took me the longest to solve by far.

It’s much harder when some clues in the ROWS have many possible answers. For instance, ROW A: Register contents – Could be CASH, could be ONES, could be CHANGE… could be anything really!

Canine woe – TICKS? FLEAS? (The fact that the word TICKS can be found as part of another word somewhere else in this puzzle really messed me up for a bit)

What you depend on is a gimme, and hopefully there’s at least one in each row. In this one it’s Fishy bagel topping, which is without a doubt LOX and can easily be entered into the last three boxes in that row. And in the PIECES, if you correctly guessed Corn CHEX, you can enter that piece of the puzzle in, giving you –CHE as the last three letters in ROW B. And so goes the synergy of the puzzle, where the ROWS help you get the PIECES and the PIECES help you get the ROWS. I did enjoy the CONAN O’BRIEN clue [Late-night host broadcast in “Skelevision in 2006 for Halloween (2 wds.)]. I very much remember that broadcast. Hilarious.

Anyway, it’s not that this grid is hard, but it is time consuming. For me anyway. But if you stick it out there’s a clear as day message hidden in the circled letters:

CHANGE X IN EACH ROOM TO ANOTHER LETTER

Wait… X in each room? Does X stand for “a random variable”? I toyed with that thought for a hot second before noticing that there is exactly one X in each of the seven puzzles.

ROOM 1: FAXED / AXING , where the X can be changed to a C to make valid crossword fill! FACED / ACING

ROOM 2: AJAX / LATEX = AJAR / LATER

ROOM 3: BOXED / X-MEN = BOOED / OMEN

ROOM 4: ALEX / TEXTING = ALES / TESTING

ROOM 5: LINUX / MIXER = LINUS / MISER

ROOM 6: FLEX / FOX = FLEE / FOE

ROOM 7: APEX / NEXT = APES / NEST

Ready for mind to be blown?

You had to find the crosses (X’s) and examine the crosses (junctions where the entries meet) in order to get the word CROSSES. Useful things to have when staring down DRACULA.

That’s… I mean… I don’t have the words. I don’t think my mind has been so pleasantly blown by a concept in a puzzle as thoroughly as this.

But, alas, we ain’t done.

And here’s where I’m stuck.

The rest of the directions for THE SAFE tell us that …the name of item Set 1 (CROSSES) along with the safe combination (5, 2, 6, 7, 3, 1) in tandem with its missing number (4?) are the keys to unlocking item Set 2. 

I interpret this to mean that we are to look at box number 4 (the crossing) in each of the puzzles in the order of the safe combo. But that gives B S S M G L, which is meaningless.

Oh wait. Let’s try this… maybe it’s saying we need to look at crosses 5 , 2, 6, 7, 3, and 1 in… puzzle 4? That’s A R W L … okay that ain’t working either. And what of that library code? Should I look at cross 5 in puzzle 1? That’s S. Cross 2 in puzzle 3? That’s Z. That’s not gonna go anywhere either.

For the sake of ending this write-up (going on like 4 hours of typing and thinking and formatting) I’m swallowing my pride and translating the ROT13 nudge from the top of the post:

The number code for the Library is only needed to help you get the secret word for the Library. I expected that there would be solvers who would get the Library’s secret word without using the code, but it’s there so that you don’t have to do a random anagram.

The number code for the Safe works a little bit differently, but there’s an a-ha moment you’ll need to get before the code comes into play.

Ok. Damn that library code. It sent me down a wicked rabbit hole.

I’m sorta/kinda live-blogging at this point, and Evan was kind enough to send me another ROT13 hint.

Here it is:

Erzrzore guvf fragrapr sebz gur vagebqhpgvba ng gur irel ortvaavat bs gur Unhagrq Ubhfr: “Ubj lbh qvfpbire gur frperg jbeqf jvyy punatr sebz ebbz gb ebbz, ohg ubyq ba gb gurz, nf gurl jvyy pbzr va unaql sbe gur rvtugu naq svany chmmyr (gur Fnsr).”

I’m giving myself another 20 minutes before I copy and paste it in here and call it a day.

Back soon.

Oh I think I got it.

You know what bothered me that I can’t believe I failed to mention? The fact that CANDLESTICKS is an entry in the last puzzle when it’s already the meta solution for Puzzle 4. That’s one helluva dupe! That might be what we’re looking for, however.

Oh my. Oh dear me.

CANDLESTICKS IS NOT THE ONLY DUPE IN THAT LAST PUZZLE. 

Look closely. If my puzzle weren’t contaminated by highlighter I probably woulda seen it sooner. Running downward in that last puzzle are the other 6 meta answers. Holy crud. LARVA in column 2, ARCHIVE in column 6, URNS in 7, RATS in 8, AWAKE in 11, and DOORS in 12. And look where they cross.

CANDLESTICKS.    A E S T K S. I’m quickly anagramming that to STAKES, which I had suspected would be the last word. And I’m sure the code 5, 2, 6, 7, 3, 1 is telling us the order in which to examine the letters.

• Room 5 was URNS and the cross was at S.
• Room 2 was RATS and the cross was at T. 
• Room 6 was LARVA and the cross was at A. 
• Room 7 was AWAKE and the cross was at K.
• Room 3 was ARCHIVE and the cross was at E.
• Room 1 was DOORS and the cross was at S. 

This was simply mind-blowing. Layer upon layer upon layer upon layer… and it kept going. What a beautiful piece of art, this suite. I can’t imagine a tighter puzzle.

(and just like that, someone has already dinged it with a 1 star rating. No rationale in the comments of course. That’s just plain ignorant and rude imho.)

Still a tad miffed at that Library clue… I can’t figure out how we were to ascertain a certain order for the missing letters in order to use the code properly, and it really threw me off. But that’s a me issue :)

Pretty solution grids below courtesy of Evan Birnholz: