That’s a wrap for season 3! Congratulations to all puzzle solvers and especially those who topped the leader board! This season ended with ***DRUM ROLL PLEASE***
davidsteinandfriends in first place followed by Circles All the Way Down in second and Cardinality in third!
Mark your calendars for Season 4, coming February 6th, 2019!
Calling all puzzlers! Do you want to help with season 4 of mission street puzzles? Fill out our volunteer application to let us know! You can also let us know how you felt about season 3 with our feedback survey!
And the correct answer to the “Lakeside Music” puzzle was…
MONKEY NEST COFFEE! Monkey Nest Coffee, an environmentally and socially conscious coffee shop, offers fun primate-themed drinks, like the Spicy Monkey Mocha (with cinnamon and cayenne pepper), the Four Ton Gorilla (four espresso shots), and the Monkey’s Uncle (with peanut butter and banana). This coffee shop also features international food offerings, live music, and a warm atmosphere.
Perhaps the most daunting puzzle of the season at first glance with 37 crossword clues separated into 7 categories based on the color of a Tetris-like piece beside each clue. A couple clues are already solved for us. From these, we can gather two useful pieces of information. First, the Tetris-like pieces indicate how many letters are in the answer for each clue. Secondly, we learn that the answer may be jumbled within the each piece. The best place to start on this puzzle is by solving the crossword clues. However, one will notice that many clues look a bit strange. Words like “Buchanan” and “Inks” appear and seem out of place with the rest of the clue. Even the second example provided to us has the word “Austin” which seems to provide nothing to the actual clue for the word. We’ll circle these strange names and words for now and come back to them later.
Some crossword clues are fairly simple while others are a bit more challenging, but one should get most of the following answers (given in the same order as the clues in the puzzle):
BAR, LOSE, AIR, HEAR, CURE, ROB, BARN, ASK, DOUSE, LARS, BE, OUTER, ROSE, HAW, OBSCURED, CHEW, TIRE, BAN, STAIR, BUD, SNUB, BAIT, RAKE, CUB, RAGE, BORED, STAB, ORE, GRR, HUH, WHEW, BITS, GEARS, BED, BOLERO, RAGS, RIOT
By grouping together all words that share a color, we notice that several common letters appear. In fact, no group has more than 9 different letters used among the answers. Also, a bit of counting may cause some to realize that the “Colorado River” grid can be split perfectly into seven 3×3 squares, one for each color group. Either of these realizations should prompt us to begin fitting the Tetris-like pieces together into 3×3 squares while keeping in mind that some letters may be used more than once and we may not need to place a letter in slot of each 3×3 square. It turns out that this can be done for nearly every group. The exception is the pink group which will have one letter protruding above its 3×3 square. The results can be seen in the image below.
Now we need to place the assembled color groups into the “Colorado River” grid. But we do not yet know the order to place them. Turning our attention back to the strange words and names that we circled earlier, we notice that there are two circled items in each color group. If we search several of these terms, one may find that these words are names of lakes and dams on the Colorado River which runs through Austin. There is one lake, and one dam per color group. Ordering these from furthest north on the river to furthest south gives:
Green (Lake Buchanan and Buchanan Dam), Purple (Inks Lake and Inks Dam), Pink (Lake LBJ and Wirtz Dam), Red (Lake Marble Falls and Max Starcke Dam), Yellow (Lake Travis and Mansfield Dam), Blue (Lake Austin and Tom Miller Dam), Grey (Lady Bird Lake and Longhorn Dam)
Now we can order the colored 3×3 sections in the “Colorado River” grid. Doing this gives the following image:
Reading down the columns gives three more crossword clues. These are:
CURIOUS GEORGE OR ABU
WHERE BIRDS ARE BORN
WHAT STARBUCKS SELLS
The answers to these three clues gives the final location for this puzzle: MONKEY NEST COFFEE
This week’s first-place Fastest Solver was davidsteinandfriends, followed by teams Circles All the Way Down in second and Please Clap in third! Nice work, everyone!
Note: Monkey Nest Coffee is not affiliated with Mission Street Puzzles in any way.