Mikalye's 20th 2016 Puzzle - Alphablocks - Ended - Solutions Posted

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Greetings all,
For the past several weeks, I have been saying that I have been working really hard to try to get together a really ambitious puzzle together for this week. Riddles, logic puzzles, a very little bit of wordplay, and as intricate a nested group of puzzles as I have ever written. I figured I needed one more week to get it done, but in testing it over the weekend, I felt that it wasn't quite ready. So, I have once again posted something else in its place. I should have posted this on Saturday to keep my streak going. Sorry about that. This last week, I probably did have time to do it if I had focused on it, but I felt the need to solve jeffhowe's Food Pyramid event and that took most of my free time this week. I intend to post this and then attack the latest Puzzle Agency puzzle.

Anyhow the large event puzzle I am working on will run for the month of June, so I will post it on 1 June.

The current puzzle runs until Tuesday 31 May and ends, as all of my others at 23:00 GMT.
The prize this week is Among The Sleep (http://store.steampowered.com/app/250620/)

This week's puzzle is called Alphablocks. In each In each of the 5x5 blocks depicted, pick one box from each column to spell the name of a category and four members of that category. Each box will be used exactly once. The image is below. Also be aware that I have used English English (as used in England) rather than American English for the spellings.

Following Chour's suggestion from last week, I have also created an ITH which will allow you to check your work as you are going along, so each line will appear as a separate question in the ITH. It also includes a fuller explanation of how these puzzles work, along with a worked example. It can be found here

Thanks and enjoy,
Mikalye

View attached image.

8 years ago*

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Mikalye

Corrections/Errata

There was an error in Q2 on the ITH. I had typed category1, category2, category3 rather than the correct answer of category1, category2, category3. I checked the View Solution carefully before I published it, but I missed the extra space after category1. I am very sorry. It has been fixed.
There was an error in the second column, third row of alphablock 3 in Q8. That has also been fixed.

Hints

For Mikalye's Second Tricksy Riddle - This is six

Solutions

Some people missed that I had provided the full chart in the SG text and had provided the ITH as an optional extra to check answers as you went along, so folks reached the end of the ITH only to be told that solving all of the ITH was not sufficient to get the giveaway, though the last step was quite straightforward.
Row 1: GOLFERS (McIlroy, Hogan, Nicklaus, Woods), OLYMPICS (Tennis, Triathlon, Wrestling, Handball), LIGHTING (Candle, Flood, Fresnel, Halogen)
Row 2:FOODS (Meats, Vegetables, Fruits, Dairy), LANDMASS (Antarctica, Australia, Americas, Eurasia), INVENTIONS (Computer, Telephone, Airplane, Jet Engine)
Row 3:MARSUPIAL (Bandicoot, Koala, Opossum, Wombat), AFRICA (Rwanda, Botswana, Malawi, Benin), BALLGAMES (Bowling, Tennis, Hockey, Cricket)
Row 4:INDIA (Jaipur, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi), G AND S OPERA (note ITH accepted either G and S Opera or GandSOpera) (Iolanthe, Mikado, Patience, Sorcerer), HYGIENE (Deodourant, Shampoo, Mouthwash, Toothpaste)
Row 5:OPERAS (Rigoletto, Lohengrin, LaTraviata, Fidelio), TICKETED (Musical, Football, Concert, Cruise), EMOTION (Jealousy, Sadness, Remorse, Ecstasy)
Row 6:LOVERS (Lord Byron, Cleopatra, Casanova, Don Juan), BUSINESS (Florist, Newsagent, Jeweler, Butcher), INSECTS (Butterfly, Bumblebee, Cricket, Weevil)
Row 7:GEMSTONE (Citrine, Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz), PROVINCE (Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec), ASTEROID (Ceres, Adonis, Astraea, Gaspra)
Row 8:PRIMATE (Orangutan, Gorilla, Siamang, Langur), AWARDS (Razzie, Pulitzer, Grammy, Edgar), MYTHOLOGY (Cyclops, Icarus, Ragnarok, Centaur)
Row 9:INTERNET (Emoticon, HTTPS, Listserv, Sitemap), KINSMEN (Granddad, Niece, Cousin, Uncle), EMPIRE (Achaemenid, British, Ottoman, Holy Roman)
Putting this all together: Take the first letters of each of the categories and it reads GOLFLIMABIGHOTELBIGPAPAMIKE or with some word breaks GOLF LIMA BIG HOTEL BIG PAPA MIKE. Recognising the Nato Phonetic Alphabet (A=Alpha, B=Bravo, C=Charlie, etc.) we get G L BIG H BIG P M. So the giveaway code is glHPm.

8 years ago*