Tag: Solution

This is a relatively straightforward logic puzzle with a number of possible solving paths, one of which is given here:

Start by placing Daniel on Day 1. Additionally there must be a three-day sequence which is Snoring, Nevaeh, Chris. Since Eloise is watching the snorer, this cannot happen from days 1-3, and must happen on days 2-4 or 3-5. Briony must watch Octavia on the other day, either 2 or 5.

By process of elimination, Aldwyn must be the one to babysit Nevaeh. By the third clue, Yoshi must have been watched in the first three days, with the only options being Daniel or Eloise. The first clue tells us that Eloise must have watched Asher or Joseph, so Daniel watches Yoshi on day 1. By the first clue, the activity must be Drawing Pictures or Eating Dinner, and clue 3 narrows that to Eating Dinner. Briony and Octavia must have been Drawing Pictures, which by the second clue puts them on day 2.

The only way to satisfy the penultimate clue is to have Using the Tablet on day 4 and Joseph on day 5, leaving Asher on day 3 and Collecting Rocks on day 5.

Here is the final grid:

Day	Babysitter	Child	Activity
1	Daniel	Yoshi	Eating Dinner
2	Briony	Octavia	Drawing Pictures
3	Eloise	Asher	Snoring
4	Aldwyn	Nevaeh	Using the Tablet
5	Chris	Joseph	Collecting Rocks

The day numbers can be used to index into each of the answers, giving the bolded letters above, which spell out DROWSY CHAPERONE reading down the columns.

Each of the clues refers to a Looney Tunes character. (One of the many hints to this is the spelling of LOONEY in the penultimate clue.) In order, they are:

• PETUNIA
• LOLA BUNNY
• DAFFY DUCK
• FOGHORN LEGHORN
• WILE E. COYOTE
• SYLVESTER
• BUGS BUNNY
• PEPE LE PEW
• TASMANIAN DEVIL
• MICHIGAN J. FROG
• MARVIN THE MARTIAN
• PORKY PIG
• SPEEDY GONZALES
• TWEETY
• YOSEMITE SAM
• ELMER FUDD
• ROADRUNNER

Each clue is followed by a number. Reading the letter in that position in the character’s name gives the phrase EACH CLUE THIRD WORD. The third words of each clue, read in order, read THE ORIGINAL NAME OF THE SERIES OF COLORED SHORT FILMS THAT WAS THE COUNTERPART TO LOONEY TUNES. Originally, Warner Bros. used Looney Tunes as the name for their black-and-white shorts, and MERRIE MELODIES for their color shorts.

This puzzle is a disguised Masyu puzzle, with the pink and red circles representing the white and black circles of that logic puzzle type.

Taken directly from the Nikoli page, the rules are as follows:

1. Make a single loop with lines passing through the centers of cells, horizontally or vertically. The loop never crosses itself, branches off, or goes through the same cell twice.
2. Lines must pass through all cells with black and white circles.
3. Lines passing through white circles must pass straight through its cell, and make a right-angled turn in at least one of the cells next to the white circle.
4. Lines passing through black circles must make a right-angled turn in its cell, then it must go straight through the next cell (till the middle of the second cell) on both sides.

To start solving this puzzle, you will want to begin at the outside edges. Since the line must go straight through each white circle and then turn on at least one side, and also extend two squares in two perpendicular directions from each black circle, the first moves are forced:

At this point, the lines we already have guide our next steps The black circle in row 3, column 4 (R3C4) cannot extend two squares up or left thanks to the existing line, so it must go down and right. Similar logic can be applied to the black circles in R3C9 and R7C11, albeit only in one direction each:

The white circle in R2C5 must have a horizontal line through it by these new lines, and the white circle in R4C1 must continue up into the corner and eventually loop around to meet that same line. This means the line must turn right in R5C1 (and also R6C1). Now, if R4C2 and R5C2 connect, a small loop will be created. Since the entire loop must be one piece, the line in R4C2 must go into R4C3 and R5C3, and R5C2 must connect to R6C2:

The black circle at R8C2 no longer has room to extend upward, and must go down, which forces the line in R8C1 to continue all the way down the left side. The line at R10C2 must turn right to avoid being cut off. All of this forces the line to travel vertically through the white circle at R6C3 before turning right in R7C3, and then the black circle at R6C4 must extend right and up:

From this point, there follow a series of similar logical deductions to get to the following position, shown here with a few X’s where connections cannot be made:

If the black circle at R7C6 were to extend to the right, it would cut off any path for the white circle at R8C7, so it must go left. This forces the black circle at R10C5 to extend down and then left to avoid any ends being isolated:

This is the point where the logic gets somewhat more complex. If the lines ending at R7C9 and R8C9 connect, this forces the end at R5C11 to either connect to R6C9 or R2C7. In either case, the black circle at R3C9 is forced to extend left, cutting off the entire top-right section of the grid. Therefore, R7C9 must go left, and R8C9 must go down:

This leaves four line ends in the lower right (R9C9, R9C10, R10C7, R12C9). Since each line end must eventually be paired with another end, the line at R7C8 cannot turn down. The bottom right corner can now uniquely be solved:

Connecting R7C7 to R7C8 results in the same connectivity issues as connecting R7C9 and R8C9 earlier, so both lines must turn up, as must the line in R6C6. To avoid a small loop, the line must travel horizontally through the white circle in R4C6. Completing the connections from there gives this:

At this point, if the line extends right from the black circle at R3C9, it creates small, disconnected loops on both sides. Thus, it must go left, forcing the line at R2C7 to turn right. The final, forced steps lead to the following completed grid:

In the completed grid, the letters in the boxes which the line does not pass through, when read top-to-bottom, left-to-right, spell out the answer ALLERGIC REACTION.

Each of the given clues has had one or two transformations applied to each word in the clue. Applying these same transformations to the answer to that clue yields the name of a nut.

VENOMOUS SERPENT KILLING MEERKAT RELATIVE (Replace last three letters with previous three) = MONGOOSE → MONGONGO

GRAIN ALSO KNOWN AS MAIZE (Add A before each word) = CORN → ACORN

ARBOREAL MARSUPIAL KNOWN FOR EATING EUCALYPTUS (Remove third letter) = KOALA → KOLA

MUSICAL PARTNER OF SULLIVAN (First letters shifted backwards in the alphabet by one) = GILBERT → FILBERT

ETHEREAL BLOOD OF THE GODS (Replace H with K; add H and Y around each word) = ICHOR → HICKORY

LOVABLE FURRY BLUE MUPPET (Add MAN to beginning; remove final letter) = GROVER → MANGROVE

CARTER VICE PRESIDENT (Remove final letter; move previous two letters to front of word) = MONDALE → ALMOND

BREAKFAST FOOD OR TORUS (Shift first letters backwards in the alphabet by one; duplicate first two letters) DONUT → COCONUT

SANDY PLACE BY SOME SEAS (Replace each word with a homophone) = BEACH → BEECH

COINS AND BILLS (Add EW to the end of the word) = CASH → CASHEW

BLACK AND WHITE STRIPED AFRICAN HERBIVORE (Move first two letters to the end of the word; replace E with IL) = ZEBRA → BRAZIL

The next step is the use the numbers given to index into the names of the nuts. (1 is the first letter; 2 the second, etc.) This spells out the solution GOOFY GOOBER.

The grid can be filled in with each set of words. The EZ words each contain the letters E and Z in that order. That knowledge will help resolve some ambiguities in possible answers.

The letters from the “Not so EZ” words that are in the same position as the E and Z in the “EZ” words spell out the answer BRAIN SURGEON, a person who does not perform rocket science, but does have another idiomatically complicated job.

Each of the given clues leads to a Spoonerism, a sort of wordplay named for Reverend Spooner, in which the starting sounds of two (or more) words are swapped. The clues at the bottom refer to the original phrases. In order, the Spoonerism and phrases are:

• Late Whist – Wait List
• Ire Farm – FireArm
• Fight a Liar – Light a Fire
• Ends Sin – Sends In
• Toffee Cable – Coffee Table
• Olden Gauge – Golden Age
• Umber Nate – Number Eight
• Clue of Tubs – Two of Clubs
• Humming Comb – Coming Home
• Other Mirth – Mother Earth
• Wonder Otter – UnderWater
• Noon Might – Moon Knight
• Earning the midnight Boil – Burning the midnight Oil
• Run Size – Sun Rise

The first letters of the Spoonerisms spell out LIFETOUCH OWNER. The photography company is now a subsidiary of SHUTTERFLY. This answer must also be Spoonerized, leading to the final answer of FLUTTERSHY.

This puzzle starts as a basic crossword. Solvers will be able to find seventeen different bird names hidden in the puzzle. They will also find a few horizontal phrases which confirm this (and wish them a Happy New Year). The completed grid looks like this:

Observant solvers will notice that each bird name crosses other bird names on at most two letters. These intersections connect these birds in a single chain from EAGLE to SWAN. Recording the connecting letters (EAGLE/TANAGER is A, TANAGER/STARLING is N, etc.) gives the phrase ANSWER ANGRY BIRDS. The answer is ANGRY BIRDS.

The most obvious themes in this puzzle are A Christmas Carol and pirates. Besides appearing in the flavor text, there are six clues explicitly referring to each theme. They are:

• 8-A) Dickens’ first ghost
• 24-A) Like a certain dodger in another Dickens story
• 35-A) Snake, like one left to guard pirate treasure
• 36-A) Common wood in a pirate ship
• 76-A) Counterpart of northing on a pirate map
• 83-A) Any of several characters in Treasure Island
• 1-D) Captain Flint’s ship, and others of the same name
• 8-D) Pirates might sing about fifteen of them
• 23-D) Irregular gait, such as Tiny Tim’s
• 36-D) The Ghost of Christmas ____
• 63-D) Mr. Scrooge
• 85-D) “Tiny” Cratchit child

Highlighting these answers in the completed reveals that there are six locations where a pirate answer and a Christmas Carol answer cross:

Reading the intersections of these pairs of answers from top to bottom reveals the answer MUPPET. Solvers are reminded of the existence of both The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island.

Each of the clues leads to a four-letter answer which is an anagram of three other answers (Some clues have been shortened to fit better here):

LINE (A queue)	NEIL (First man on moon)	LIEN (Legal hold)	(The answer to this puzzle)
SORE (Achy)	ORES (Bauxite and galena)	ROSE (Flower)	EROS (God of love)
TUBS (Bath places)	BUTS (Companion of ifs and ands)	STUB (Injure a toe)	BUST (Boom opposite)
SPOT (Dog name)	POTS (Sinks a snooker ball)	POST (Washington newspaper)	STOP (Word on a red sign)
RAPT (Fascinated)	PART (Not whole)	TRAP (Snare)	TARP (Waterproof cover)
SNIP (Cut with scissors)	PINS (Wrestling bout enders)	SPIN (Turn rapidly)	NIPS (What Jack Frost does)
LIAR (Deceiver)	LAIR (Den)	RAIL (Mode of transport)	LIRA (The Euro replaced it)
META (Facebook company)	TAME (Not wild)	MATE (Ship officer)	TEAM (Squad)

The answer to the puzzle must be an unknown word that is an anagram of LINE, NEIL, and LIEN. The only reasonably common word which matches this criteria is NILE.