Puzzles for Adults and Children
Each of the clues leads to an answer that is a compound word, clued in alphabetical order. When the compound words are split into their two component words, they each fit into exactly one of the given grids:
The intersection letters, taken in grid order spell out the answer TURBOCHARGE.
The only content of this metapuzzle is the phrase “The final answer to this set’s meta is“. Since it is a metapuzzle, it also uses the answers to the previous eight puzzles:
Solving this puzzle requires noticing that each of the eight puzzle answers is a scramble of one of the words in the phrase with an extra letter (or in the case of FINAL>FINIAL, no scramble has occurred, making this an easy point of recognition).
| The | final | answer | to | this | set’s | meta | is… |
| BETH | FINIAL | GNAWERS | BOT | SHIRT | ASSET | T’AIME | SIN |
| B | I | G | B | R | A | I | N |
In sentence order the extra letters spell out the metapuzzle solution, BIG BRAIN.
This word search consists entirely of variations of the name Elizabeth – both shortened versions and foreign analogues. In alphabetical order, the hidden names are:
The completed grid looks like this:
The highlighted words connect to each other to form letters, spelling out the solution, BETH.
Each Venn diagram consists of two overlapping circles, each of which consists of words which share a characteristic. Each is missing an answer word which fits in both circles, represented by a number, which also has its length given in parentheses. Each identifying number appears twice in the puzzle. In each case, it represents the same word.
The final Venn diagram in the center of the page contains the words SEA and WONDER on the left, and COT and TAN on the right. The left side are things that are commonly given in a list of seven (seven seas, seven wonders), and the right side are abbreviations for trig functions. The answer is the three-letter word which fits in both groups, namely SIN.
Each of the different shops encodes a number in a different way, clued by the title. Using the five given clues, it is possible to figure out the encoding and the cost for the final item.
Translating the numbers to letters, using A=1, b=2, etc., gives the answer, ASSET.
Each of the given images is two international maritime signal flags overlaid on each other. This picture shows the given images in the first row, and the two distinct flags in rows two and three.
Solving this puzzle requires noticing that one of the flags in each pair in order (shown in row two above) spells out the word ANSWER. The remaining flags spell out the answer FINIAL.
These sets of teeth can be paired up into tops and bottoms that fit together exactly.
Once assembled, the Morse code on the teeth can be read. Each string starts with a number. The teeth in the image above are sorted by that number. The Morse code reads 1G, 2N, 3A, 4W, 5E, 6R, 7S, and 8. In numerical order, the letters spell out the answer GNAWERS.
This puzzle gives pseudocode instructions for the little marker in the lower left corner. The program has been translated into Snap! Programming here, albeit with a couple shortcuts to avoid the “WHILE tile has not been visited before” logic. To view it properly, click on the stop button in the upper right corner, followed by the two arrows in the top middle, and finally the two footprints to the left of that. Now if you click the green flag, the program will start again, activating step-by-step.
Importantly, this implementation leaves a green dot on each tile it visits. When the program reaches its final loop, the visited tiles spell out the answer, BOT.
It is not significantly more difficult to solve this puzzle by hand, though it will take a good deal more time.
This puzzle contains overlapping images of five different types of laundry: caps, pants shirts, socks, and ties. The different clothing types are highlighted in the following sequence of images:
The flavor text references “head to foot”. Counting the number of each type of clothing in order from head to foot gives 19 caps, 8 ties, 9 shirts, 18 pants, and 20 socks. Translating each number into a letter using A=1, B=2, etc. gives the answer SHIRT.
Each of the seven puzzle answers over the last two months can be split into two parts. One of the parts is a synonym for the name of a dwarf from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The images give an order for the answers, with the pairings shown here:
The number of gems pictured with each dwarf can used as an index into the other half of the answers (i.e., the first letter of MELODIES is M). The answer to the metapuzzle is MAGICAL.