This page contains spoilers from the 2-Tone Game. If you haven't already played the game, you might want to do so before continuing reading this page.
Meta is a meta-puzzle, a puzzle that re-uses elements from previous puzzles. I have mixed feelings about meta-puzzles. I can take them or leave them alone.
On the other hand, I dislike weak endings.
For the first playtest, the game didn't have a metapuzzle. I wasn't sure that I even wanted a metapuzzle.
So the first batch of playtesters solved a bunch of puzzles, and at the end... they ran out of puzzles. Nothing special, no hint that they were coming up to the end, no finish.
A metapuzzle would be a fine finish. But... how to create a metapuzzle? I was going to run my final playtests over the course of two consecutive weekends. I would toss out two or three puzzles along the way. Each time I tossed out a puzzle, I'd have to re-work the Meta, right?
I could have a possibly-elegant Meta that might prevent me from using playtesting feedback. Or I could have a looser, less-constrained Meta, less elegant.
I ended up with a Meta puzzle that wasn't as elegant as what you're probably used to. It didn't use the answers of previous puzzles; too many of those puzzles had constrained answers. If I needed a puzzle whose answer was HIGGS but I had to discard the nonogram puzzle... I might not have another puzzle that could have HIGGS as an answer.
I used the solving methods of previous puzzles, but not the answers. Other, more elegant meta-puzzles have used both.
I think it turned out OK.
I forget how I even came up with it. I guess it was because I'd been tickled that one of the puzzles had a ZULU in it, and the rest just flowed from there.