Daily Brain Puzzlers Calendar

The Sandbox Games
925

7/15/2021
Complete this grid so that 12 of the 16 cells contain a letter. Use two copies of each of the letters A, B, C, D, E, F. Three letters are already entered. Fill in the other nine to satisfy the two rules below. Can you finish the grid?

  1. Identical letters may not occupy the same row, column, or diagonal.
  2. Consecutive letters of the alphabet may not be in adjacent cells, not even diagonally.
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926

" On your deathbed you will receive total consciousness"

So I got that going for me… which is nice.

927

7/15

Summary

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928

no wonder I couldn’t do it, I tried to make words

929

Correct!

930

7/16/2021 - FEARLESS
The letters F-E-A-R have been dropped from the words and phrases below, with all spaces removed. The letters F-E-A-R were extracted in left-to-right order, although not necessarily consecutively. What are these words and phrases?

  1. R E R I G R T O
  2. S A G U D
  3. I R C R C K E
  4. R E I N D S U G
  5. I R L A M
  6. A C E O H T S
  7. A T R W D
  8. L A M K E T
931

7/16

Summary
  1. REFRIGERATOR
  2. SAFEGUARD
  3. FIRECRACKER
  4. REFINED SUGAR
  5. FIRE ALARM
  6. ACE OF HEARTS
  7. AFTERWARD
  8. FLEA MARKET
932

Correct! Most of these were easy enough to get at first glance. For whatever reason I couldn’t figure out #6.

933

7/17/2021 - GRIDLOCK
Place the eight letters into the grid to form eight 3-letter words: three going across, three going down, and two on the long diagonals from top to bottom. The ninth letter has been placed to get you started.

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7/18/2021 - GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES
On a good day, Frida rides on her bike to work at 9 miles per hour and it takes her 20 minutes. On a bad day, Frida takes 30 minutes to ride to work along the same route. How fast does Frida ride on a bad day?

934
7/18

9/60 mi/min * 20 min = 3 mi

3mi/.5hr = 6 mi/hr

935
7/17

RID
YOU
END

Got it on my second try, starting with 1 down. Ironically, my first try started with 2 across and I guessed the right word. I just got stuck from there.

936

I also started with 2 across since I could only see 1 word that could start with Y. I had cells A1 and C3 flipped though, which worked until you went to place C3.

937

Correct!

938

How’d you go through this? The placement of blanks makes total sense (after I saw what you did). Did you assume that from the start?

939

Here was my thought process.

7/15

First I noticed that the only letter that could be placed in the bottom right square (D4) was an F.
Then I noticed that the only cells that could contain a B would be A2 or B2, since the only places you could have C’s were A3/A4 and C1/D1.
Then I realized that if a B was in A2 or B2, a C couldn’t be in A3, so it had to be in A4. That meant the other C had to be in C1 (diagonal rule), which meant to B had to be in A2.
I also saw that one E had to go in A3/A4, so placing the C in A4 meant I could place the E in A3.
That left just an E and F to place, and there were only two squares they could be placed without violating any of the rules.
Note that this makes it sound like I solved it really fast - I didn’t. I stared at it for a while and kept forgetting the diagonal rule.

940

Last year I saw this video, which helped me form my strategy for any puzzle of this type. I basically go through each letter/cell and try and figure out what’s possible/allowed. This is a very entertaining video if you haven’t seen it yet, and I was actually able to copy his strategy and do a few “Miracle” Sudoku’s myself afterward.

941

No, I didn’t assume that from the start but when I saw my final answer I realized that made sense.

Summary

I started by figuring out that C only had two possibilities to place the pair of letters. From there I realized there was only one possibility for the second B based on the options for C, and then the rest of the letters fell into place pretty easily.

942

Yeah, I tried starting there, but I thought it could be a blank, too. I’d kind of thought that would be the key area to solve and got stuck there, but your B/C analysis seems much more key.

943

Yeah, I kind of forgot about the blanks while I was solving it :flushed:

944

Last one for today? We are getting close to getting caught up, so maybe I won’t do an entire week each day anymore.

7/19/2021 - FOLLOW THE LEADER
The three words in each row can precede the same word to form three common phrases or compound words. Those four answer words can then each precede another word to form four additional common phrases or compound words. Can you get the final word?

  1. prime, spare, Adam’s _______
  2. shell, star, tropical ________
  3. stained, magnifying, spy _______
  4. saw, roe, Pearl S. ________
    Final word: _________