Pac-Man meta and supermeta solutions

by Chris Luhrs

The 32 dot puzzles in this round act as a field of data on which the metapuzzles draw for their answer extractions.


Pinky

The puzzle answers for Pinky are:

MEAT AND POTATOES
SACRED AND PROFANE
KING AND QUEEN
FISH AND GAME

Each of these four answers clue a pair of dot puzzle answers. Each pair of dot puzzle answers has a single bigram in common, as follows:

MEAT AND POTATOES   FROG LEGS and CURLY FRIES           FR
SACRED AND PROFANE  EUCHARIST and FUCK                  UC
KING AND QUEEN      PTOLEMY and VICTORIA                TO
FISH AND GAME       SEA BASS and THE SETTLERS OF CATAN  SE

These shared bigrams spell FRUCTOSE, the solution to the metapuzzle.


Blinky

The puzzle answers for Blinky are:

WAR CRIME
EUBACTERIA
SOCIAL CLASS
TRANSPORT

Each of these clues one dot answer:

WATER TORTURE
ESCHERICHIA
SOCCER MOMS
TURBOJET

The first letters of both the Blinky answers and the clued dot answers spell WEST; the last letters of both spell EAST.

If we go "west" of the four clued dot answers on the map, we find the dot answers CUBA, IAN FLEMING, THE SETTLERS OF CATAN, and YELLOW. The first letters of these spell CITY.

"East" of the four clued dot answers on the map are YELLOW, TAHITI, FOOLS GOLD, and MANATEE. The last letters of these spell WIDE.

Therefore the metapuzzle answer is CITYWIDE.


Clyde

The puzzle answers for Clyde are:

EASTERN SEABOARD
SOUTHERN CUISINE
NORTHEAST CONFERENCE
WEST INDIES

Each of these puzzle answers contains a direction; each also clues two dot answers:

EASTERN SEABOARD: VIRGINIA, NEW JERSEY
SOUTHERN CUISINE: GRITS, HUSH PUPPIES
NORTHEAST CONFERENCE: BLUE DEVILS, BOBCATS
WEST INDIES: CUBA, TOBAGO

Each of these eight dot puzzle answers can now have two directions associated with it: the direction in the dot puzzle that clued it, and the direction of its position on the map relative to the nearest ghost. Sort the dot answers by length and read off the pairs of directions as semaphore. (Doing so is clued by the fact that the Pac-Man silhouettes on Clyde's round page spell SEMAPHORE in semaphore.)

CUBA		W  / S		B
GRITS		S  / NE		E
TOBAGO		W  / N		P
BOBCATS		NE / NW		U
VIRGINIA	E  / SE		Z
NEWJERSEY	E  / SE		Z
BLUEDEVILS	NE / SW		L
HUSHPUPPIES	S  / NE		E

This spells out BEPUZZLE, the answer to the metapuzzle.


Inky

The puzzle answers for Inky are:

SOCIOPATH
PROSTITUTE
PEACE TREATY
LIPID

Each of these clues one dot answer, namely:

DEXTER
ROXANNE
AIX LA CHAPELLE
WAX

The first letters of these dot answers spell DRAW, and the third letter of each of them is X. If you DRAW an X from the locations of these dot puzzles on the map, the two legs of the X will intersect at a dot puzzle whose answer is BIG WHEEL. BIG WHEEL is therefore the answer to the metapuzzle.


Fruits

There are eight dot puzzles whose answers aren't directly clued by any of the ghost puzzle answers. These puzzles all have titles that clue one of the Pac-Man "fruits":

cherries        Jubilee         GREENLAND
strawberry      Shortcake       FOOLSGOLD
orange          Clockwork       YELLOW
apple           American Pie    IANFLEMING
melon           Carnegie        TAHITI
Galaxian ship   Space Invaders  BIGWHEEL
bell            Change Ringing  MANATEE
key             Unlocked        SOCRATES

The diagonal of these eight dot answers sorted in order by fruits spells GOLF TEES, the fruit metapuzzle answer.


Supermeta

Each ghost is associated with one of the four outer loops of the grid; the fruits are associated with the inner loop of the grid. Thus, for each of the five meta answers there is a loop of eight points in which it can be written. There is only one way to write the metapuzzle answers in the grid so that the fruit meta answer matches the ghost meta answers in the spots where it intersects with them and all the meta answers read in the same direction (clockwise, as it happens):

FRU ITY
E C C W
SOTEEDI
  F S
ZZLOGWH
U E I E
PEB BLE

The top and bottom rows of the grid now read FRUITY PEBBLE, which is the supermeta solution.