Alison Perch author page
1 puzzle by Alison Perch
with Jeff Chen comments
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| T | A | K | E | M | E | O | U | T | D | L | I | S | T | |
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| I | N | L | E | A | G | U | E | W | O | N | ||||
| T | R | E | N | D | S | H | O | T | S | A | M | A | ||
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| E | M | U | A | R | E | A | L | P | I | E | T | A | ||
| Y | E | N | C | A | N | D | Y | B | A | R | ||||
| C | E | N | T | A | L | L | H | E | R | E | ||||
| A | N | I | M | E | M | A | K | E | M | O | N | E | Y | |
| M | O | A | B | T | I | M | I | D | L | A | T | E | ||
| M | O | T | E | E | L | I | T | E | E | C | R | U | ||
| O | K | E | D | M | O | D | E | L | S | T | O | P |
A few weeks ago, I heard from Will Shortz that this "valid entry becomes another valid entry when certain letters are removed" category is becoming overdone. As with any theme category entering its "maturity" phase, though, there's still room for growth and even innovation, and Alison achieved that today with her concept.
Given how easy it is to discover Replacement Finds with ME removed, it's not that impressive a concept by itself. At the very least, you need a wickedly clever revealer to help elevate it, and even then, you might only receive a whiff of consideration. An extra level is incredibly difficult to come up with, but having all your resultant words relate to each other is an innovative way to hit the mark.
Get it?
Because the German currency used to be the Deustche Mark?
Fine, I lost, and you WON.
I wish the resulting entries had been more consistent, as COIN is a general term, WON and YEN are general currencies, and the CENT is a fractional unit. I know, I'm asking for the impossible, but perhaps when other constructors try to build on this dual-acting concept, I'd love to see that kept in mind.
On a related note, it's a shame that TAKE ME OUT and MAKE MONEY aren't more strongly related. Again, an impossible ask for this particular implementation, but it's something for future constructors to consider.
I had some hesitations during my solve, especially since four of the themers are so short (editors rarely allow themers less than seven letters), but the overall approach is genius. It's rare for someone in the crossworld to come up with something so creative, and to see it in a debut is inspiring.