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Super Search Eight!

Imagine a word-search, but you've got to figure out the words, too! Meet the SUPER SEARCH!

In this hexagonal grid, there are 36 HIDDEN words (forwards, backwards, or diagonally) that fall under SIX categories. Circle the answers as you find them -- like with a traditional word-search, letters can be used in multiple words.

When you are finished, there will be 14 LETTERS that aren't used in any words, which, when written in order, will give you a FINAL CODE to enter to earn this badge!

Your SIX word categories (with SIX words each):

  • Team Sports
  • Sticky Things
  • Asian Countries
  • Pasta Varieties
  • Sesame Street Muppet Characters 
  • Major Book Awards

None of the answers are plural.

Learn more about how to solve these puzzles!

Here's a printer-friendly version! (You definitely want to print these puzzles, or stop by the library and we're happy to print them for you!)

Large hexagonal grid of letters

 

This badge has been awarded to 1030 players

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Comments

Submitted by sfo_16 on Fri, 07/28/2023 - 3:38pm

to the author of the super searches: THANK YOU!
I look forward to these all week and it's my favorite badge to complete. You should honestly make a whole book of them or a zine of them because they are SO much fun!! :~)

I'd LOVE a book of these too (but so far, no dice!)

Last December, the New York Times had one of the cover of their annual Puzzle insert (created by Will Shortz), which they called...drumroll please...A SUPER SEARCH! I enjoyed it so much, I tried to find more and couldn't find any! So I decided to try my hand at making them myself.

But it would be wonderful if more crop up somewhere. They are a puzzle in themselves to make, but it would be nice to play some too! We've contacted the NYT Puzzle Department to say that if they HAPPENED to make more, we have a whole community of folks in Ann Arbor ravenous to play them! Who knows if they'll do anything with that info, but WE CAN HOPE!!!

Thanks for playing!

I'd be happy to share my process for how I make these with you! Just email supersearchhelp@aadl.org. It may take a day or two to get a response (I've never actually written down the process), but I'll gladly share. If you're inspired to make some, be sure to send them my way, too! I'd love the chance to solve one :)

I absolutely love these! I was also hoping a book of these existed. Maybe we'll all have to write in to the NYT! Or maybe ChatGPT could be trained to make them... I've never used ChatGPT, but I may have to play around with it. Amazing job creating all of these from scratch!

Submitted by srah on Fri, 07/28/2023 - 5:26pm

For a long time we thought one of the countries was abbreviated, which seemed weird, but it turned out those same letters are in a different country! Sneaky!

Submitted by SurfGrape on Sat, 07/29/2023 - 10:57am

In much of Ann Arbor, the power was out this week. The lovely librarian at Mallet's branch printed the super search for me, and it was a great analog activity to do while waiting for the power to be restored. Thank you for that!

Submitted by kelleyc on Mon, 07/31/2023 - 12:05pm

There is one word H*** which could be either a muppet (it is preceded by Dr) or a book award...any insights?

Submitted by Meginator on Thu, 08/24/2023 - 12:55am

In case it helps other solvers, I managed to finish this completely without this being an issue, but I did come up with seven sticky words. Unfortunately, because of the way I solve these puzzles I can't backtrack sufficiently to tell which one is incidental, but if you do come up with an extra one don't count yourself out yet!

Oh! Never mind, I misspoke! I did come up with an extra word that is incorrect, as it removes one of the words from the code (which I was able to puzzle out despite it being...incomplete).

Badge Series
Super Search 2023

Badge Tags
Wordplay
Puzzle

Game
SummerGame2023

Difficulty
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Extremely Tricky 4 of out 4 difficulty

Badge Points
200

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