Puzzles for Adults and Children
In these diagramless crosswords, the black squares and numbers are not given in the grid and have to be determined based on the answers and how they can fit together. The completed grids look like this:
Once the grids are complete, the white squares in each grid make the shape of a letter. In order, these letters spell out the answer REPROGRAM.
This is a normal crossword, except that three of the entries (8-Across, 23-Across, and 15-Down) are unclued. The completed grid looks like this:
In clue order, the three unclued entries make the phrase FEAR TOWARD THIRTEEN. This is a clue for the answer, TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA. One extra nod to this is that the grid for this puzzle is 13×13.
This puzzle type is known alternatively as nonogram and picross. Each row or column heading tells the size in order of each of the connected stretches of black cells in that row or column. This one has a relatively straightforward solving path, beginning by using the longest clues to figure out which cells must be black, and using those cells to figure out which cells in the crossing rows must be white, continuing from there.
As suggested by the title of the puzzle, the completed grid looks like a map of a country, and a little research will reveal that this country is PANAMA.
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 word on the left can be combined phonetically with a word on the right to form a new word or phrase. For example, ALL + SEW = ALSO. The pairs are shown here:
The lines connecting the words spell out the French translation of the new, combined English word, with one letter added.
Sorting the French words alphabetically and taking the extra letters in that order gives OLIVE YEW. This is a misheard version of I LOVE YOU, which becomes JE T’AIME in French. Since the JE is given, the answer is T’AIME.
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.