Asteroid ҉
Solution
by Ivan Wang and Tracey Lin
Each puzzle in this round is a set of cryptic clues themed around a particular mechanic. The clues are given alphabetically by answer, and solving a subset unlocks the next puzzle in the sequence. For a list of standard mechanics, see the Puzzled Pint guide.
The capstone of this round uses unusual abbreviations. We notice that the clue is repeated with multiple layers, ad infinitum. This hints at the gimmick: recursive acronyms, which refer to themselves. A list of recursive acronyms can be found on Wikipedia.
To parse the clues, we can treat everything inside a pair of parentheses as equal to the answer itself, which resolves to a single letter. This letter is then used to form part of the final answer. For example, we can rewrite the third clue as “Hofstadter’s deity (<answer>) overdosed”, which suggests that the answer is ?OD, or GOD, with the parenthesized phrase extracting to the letter G.
Clue | Answer | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Smell of torso next to (smell of torso next to (smell of torso next to (...) Twin Peaks killer) Twin Peaks killer) Twin Peaks killer (3) | BOB | BO + [bo]B |
| Grotto-like immersive VR environment (grotto-like immersive VR environment (grotto-like immersive VR environment (...) next to blvd) next to blvd) next to blvd (4) | CAVE | C[ave] + AVE |
| Hofstadter’s deity (Hofstadter’s deity (Hofstadter’s deity (...) overdosed) overdosed) overdosed (3) | GOD | G[od] + OD, from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid |
| Before expected travel duration, (before expected travel duration, (before expected travel duration, (...) describes this puzzle) describes this puzzle) describes this puzzle (4) | META | M[eta] before ETA. This acronym comes from xkcd #917, which references the Hofstadter GOD acronym (how meta)! |