The example was just something I made up because a lot of people struggled with how to play this game last time. Always open to better examples!
Here are the official answers:
Puzzle 1 Answer
Beaver
Puzzle 2 Answer
Maple
7/1
As before, I am live streaming my thought processes
Game 1
clue 1
Teeth. Body parts? Things that you brush? Body parts is too obvious. My guess is things that you brush.
clue 2
Oregon. Well, things that you brush is out. Oregon. Oregon ducks, Oregon Trail. West coast. Molars, incisors. I see no commonality. I need another clue. No answer at this time.
clue 3
Beaver? Oregon Beavers? I thought the mascot of Oregon was ducks. Maybe I am wrong. My best guess is beavers.
… rest of the clues
I’m sticking with beavers and claiming 50 points.
Game 2
clue 1
Japanese: Language. Manga, cartoons, food. This could be anything. My wild guess is sushi.
clue 2
sugar… hmmm. matcha? I like matcha. Matcha kinda goes with sugar. My guess is matcha.
clue 3
not matcha. Mountains? Mt Fuji, Mt Snow. A big pile of sugar looks like a mountain. What the hell else comes from Vermont. I’ve been there and it wasn’t too memorable. Bears? is there a Japanese bear? Wild guess is Bears.
clue 4
maples? probably maples off of VT, sugar and syrup. I don’t know about a Japanese maple, but there must be one.
remaining clues
sticking with maple and giving myself 25 points.
I claim 75 points.
ETA: University of Oregon are the Ducks. Oregon State are the Beavers. I am not a west coaster. That was not obvious to me.
This page must have stuck to the one before it or something - the Game 1 clues were mostly rubbed off so I couldn’t read them. So for that one I had to look at the solution to get what the clues were (luckily on the back they repeat the answer and all the clues).
About Game 2
The Japanese Maple is a type of tree apparently. I had to google that. I got 25 points on this one.
7/2/2021
Solve this unusual crossword, writing all answers diagonally up or down from left to right.Down Clues
- Discussion venue
- Gobbled up
- Aquatic plant
- Lab animal
- Sense of humor
Up Clues
5. “____ is me!”
6. Wildly popular online
7. Private teacher
8. Copper or nickel
9. Almond, e.g.
Not sure why the indentation between the two numbered lists is different, but whatever.
Ah, I figured it out. It’s because when you start a numbered list with 5 instead of 1 it doesn’t get recognized as a numbered list. Oh well.
Correct!
7/3/2021
Form four common five-letter words reading across. Use ten letters exactly twice, including the seven different letters given plus three others that you must determine. Since M, R, and T already appear twice, they can’t be used again. What are the words?
H _ _ _ U M _ R _ T T _ M _ R C _ _ _ K
7/4/2021 - INDEPENDENCE DAY PICNIC
Carl has cooked more than 100 but fewer than 175 hamburgers for a large Independence Day picnic, and he’s putting them on serving plates. If he puts 5 hamburgers to a plate, there will be 2 hamburgers left over. If he instead puts 9 hamburgers to a plate, there will also be 2 hamburgers left over. How many hamburgers does Carl have?
7/3 - guessing on the second word here so not sure if it is correct
HAIKU
MAROT or MORAT (haven’t heard of either, both have obscure definitions when googling them)
TUMOR
CHICK
Actually, this is more likely the answer since I have heard of all these words:
HAIKU
MERIT
TAMER
CHUCK
You got it!
7/4 - fairly easy
137 hamburgers. A multiple of 5 and 9, then add 2. 10 * 9 is too low, 20 * 9 is too many, so it has to be 15*9.
Correct!
7/5/2021 - EMBEDDED LADDER
Fill in each set of blanks with a common three-letter word to form a longer common word (except in the first and last rows, which are only three-letter words). If you do it right, your three-letter words will create a word ladder that changes by one letter, row by row. We’ve given the letter that changes in the word ladder in the first and last words, which are related to each other in some way. Can you complete the ladder?
D _ _ A P O _ _ _ P H A L _ _ _ O T E T E L E S _ _ _ E E S _ _ _ E E A V O _ _ _ O N O _ _ _ A Y S A V O _ _ _ L Y _ _ T
7/5
I don’t know how to format this correctly
Summary
DRY
apoCRYphal
COYote
telesCOPe
esCAPee
avoCADo
noWADays
avoWEDly
WET
Good enough! The 2nd to last word through me for a loop (I got the words around it and so I knew what it had to be). It’s a weird word.
7/6/2021
We’ve removed the letters Q and X from the alphabet and created a simple code by taking a 12-letter phrase with no repeated letters and writing the remaining 12 letters in alphabetical order under it. For example:
O S T R I C H P L U M E A B D F G J K N V W Y Z Letters are encoded by vertical substitution, so FLIGHT encodes as RVGIKD. The three words below are encoded using a different base phrase. Can you deduce the phrase? A S K I N G C A J O L — — — — — — — — — — — — D V F L Y Z B D P W I
7/6
Campfire song
This kind of puzzle completely eludes me…
Yeah. Even though I’d done the previous one like this, I still ended up reading the instructions a few times before it made sense.
Once I got started, though, I thought this one was easier than the previous one. The first thing I noticed
Summary
when I wrote them out in alphabetic order was “song” right at the end with no intervening letters. That gave an easy start.