PUZZLE #137: Link-Letters 4

PUZZLE #137

LINK-LETTERS 4

This puzzle contains a word suggested by Patron Chris Hendricks. He supports me at $2 a month, but since I didn't plug his Word Valley game for almost a month, I decided to offer him a request to suggest a word for one of my puzzles free of charge to make it up to him. If you want to suggest words of your own, support me on Patreon at the $20 per month level to suggest one seed word every month, or support me at $30 a month to suggest an entire puzzle type each month!

The answer to each clue on the left side of this puzzle's grid goes in the squares to the left of the first black bar, and the answers to each clue on the right goes into the squares to the right of the second black bar. Then a single letter (the "Link-Letter") goes in the square in the middle to complete a single word that reads all the way across. For example, if the two words are CON and ACT, you can put a "T" between them to get CONTACT.

Once you've filled out all eight rows, the central letters will spell out two additional words reading down. Add a letter between those two words in the red square to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: A place

And here are the clues in text format, sorted by the rows they appear in from up to down:

1) Actor Selleck / Jesse _____ (TV Police Chief played by the answer to the left of this clue)
2) 1993 computer adventure game developed by Cyan / "What", in Spanish
3) Lady shared a spaghetti kiss with him / One-dimensional figure
4) Pas' partners (assuming they're straight) / Lots of land to farm on
5) Reserves, as a hotel room / Legolas, for one
6) Toy torturer in Toy Story / Nintendo Switch fighting game with Spring Man and Ribbon Girl
7) Depeche ____ / Devoured dinner
8) Eric Stonestreet's role in Modern Family / Cheap Japanese noodles

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Drop Tower 4

Quick write-up for a quick puzzle: here are all the solvers for "Drop Tower 4" from a couple weeks ago:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Mom ****
• Debbie Benford ****

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #136: Cramped Crossword

PUZZLE #136

CRAMPED CROSSWORD

I've been watching Superhuman on Fox this summer, so imagine my surprise when I actually recognized one of the contestants on the show! Yep, a couple of weeks ago, five-time winner of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament Tyler Hinman made an appearance on this show! You can watch the full episode on FOX or on Yahoo! View (assuming you're in the United States), or watch a clip of his performance here, and his challenge involved solving five mini-crosswords by putting the letters of five 9-letter words into five different grids. This week's puzzle was obviously inspired by that, but in reverse. You'll see what I mean when you look at it...

Unscramble the letters that go in the blank spaces to get the FINAL ANSWER: A 9-letter movie

CLUES
* 2005 rom-com starring Will Smith as a "date doctor"
* Cake's covering
* Give away a movie's major twist, say
* Inspector Gadget's niece
* Like a rock
* Poisonous snake

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Crypticrostic

Before we get to the answers to my first "Crypticrostic", I've got some unfinished business to take care of: you may recall that I've plugged Chris Hendricks' Phrase Shift in the past, and now his company, HyperHippo, has got a new word game out. I promised him I'll play it and advertise it once it got released, and I just now got around to playing it last Tuesday. Unfortunately, the game was released on June 27th! Almost a month ago! Oh, well, better late than never!

Anyway, this new game is called Word Valley, and I'd best describe it as "Bookworm with a gravity physics engine". Below is a GIF of what I mean:



This game only has a little over 1,200 plays at the moment, so it needs all the help it can get! Be sure to let the developers know what kind of feedback you have and how far along you made it, too! You can play it for free at Kongregate, and I hope you enjoy playing it so much that you'll forget that only four people solved "Crypticrostic" from a couple weeks ago:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Lynn Sweeney **

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #135: Drop Tower 4

PUZZLE #135

DROP TOWER 4

When I had my test solver try out my previous "Drop Tower" puzzle, he suggested that I leave the Tower completely blank rather than having the first and last rows revealed. I kept that in mind, so now here's a new "Drop Tower" with two more clues than before!

Starting with an 8-letter word on top of the "tower", drop one letter and rearrange the rest to form a 7-letter word. Continue this process until only a 2-letter word remains. Since the tower is completely blank, use the randomly-ordered clues to figure out the words that go in each row.

Once the grid is completely filled in, look inside it for this week's FINAL ANSWER: a five-letter word that can be read going down and in a straight diagonal line.

CLUES

* 1989 hit for the B-52's (HINT: It's not "Love Shack")

* Country that contains Transylvania

* Famed Dolphins quarterback Dan

* Financial adviser Suze

* Friz Freling or Tex Avery, e.g.

* Egyptian sun god

* Kayak paddler

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Mixed Doubles 4

It's been almost two weeks since I've posted my fourth "Mixed Doubles" puzzle, so that means it's time for me to list the people who have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Lynn Sweeney ***
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom ****
• Debbie Benford ****

Now just head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #134: Crypticrostic

PUZZLE #134

CRYPTICROSTIC

Below is an Anacrostic with no spaces. Using normal Anacrostic rules, work back and forth between it and the clues to completely fill it out. However, all the clues are in cryptic crossword style, meaning that each clue has two halves: a definition of the answer and an indication of the answer's literal makeup via wordplay. Either half may come first, and finding the dividing point between them is the key to solving the clues. For a list of cryptic clue types, you can get one through this link.

Once you're done, the Anacrostic will reveal a cryptic clue that will lead you to the FINAL ANSWER: A 10-letter name.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Mr. Kingsley, electricity suits fundraising events [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   49 29 18 45 22 61 13 56

Comes across 70's dance music lyric that's unfinished [9]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   48 02 34 57 23 37 30 08 41

Weary old flame damages used hat [9]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   50 31 14 55 42 05 26 38 60

Bare fury spoiled the shortest month [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   43 58 20 53 07 17 24 40

Italian city's endless history is found in barricade [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   09 39 04 46 21 59 32 15

Cartoon cat's kid upended stadium [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   63 06 10 51 36 25 16 01

Rapper who voiced Gangstalicious in The Boondocks is most nearly fed up [3, 3]
   __ __ __ __ __ __
   28 11 35 19 54 44

Hopeful one-off has a source for gold [7]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   03 52 12 27 62 33 47

If you want to request a version of this puzzle with spaces included in the Anacrostic, you can always email me and ask for one, though it'll cost you one of your four "hint stars" I've given to each solver.

Anyways, once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Pieces of Nine: Much Harder Edition

Remember how I had eight solvers for my "Section Six 4" puzzle? Well, the puzzle following that, Grant Fikes' "Pieces of Nine: Much Harder Edition", must've lived up to its title, as that number halved. See for yourself:

• Eric Maddy ***
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom ****

If you want to know the answers, just head below the break for that as well as a couple solver comments.

PUZZLE #133: Mixed Doubles 4

PUZZLE #133

MIXED DOUBLES 4

If you're one of my Patrons on Patreon, you'd probably know that a Crypticrostic was originally scheduled for this week. However, after making this Mixed Doubles puzzle, I've decided to post that instead, since tomorrow is Independence Day here in America, and one of the clues involves that holiday, so I'd figured it'd be more appropriate. So look for my Crypticrostic next week on this blog, and let's get to the directions for this week's puzzle!

Each answer word in this crossword variation has two clues leading to it, using different meanings of the word. The clues are separated into Across and Down, but are otherwise ordered randomly. When you find two Across clues or two Down clues that seem to have the same answer, add up their clue numbers to determine the place in the grid where the answer should be entered. For example, if the clue for 1-Across and the clue for 16-Across both have the same answer, the answer would go in the box labeled 17 (1+16). To make things harder, tags such as "Hyph." and "2 wds." have been omitted.

There is one extra clue in both lists of Across and Down clues. This week's FINAL ANSWER is the answer to both of the extra clues, which you can get by rearranging the letters in the grid's pink squares.

ACROSS
1) Relative range of an instrument
2) 2012 Presidential drama starring Daniel Day-Lewis in his third Oscar-winning role
3) The "R" in MTV's TRL
4) Venomous viper
5) Wanda's husband in The Fairly Oddparents
6) The Treasure State's capital
7) Rambunctious tyke
8) Alt-rock band who did the theme song to The Adventures of Pete & Pete
9) Continental car company
10) Inquiry
11) Furniture spray made by S.C. Johnson
12) Someone who does sums
13) ABC drama featuring Olivia Pope
14) Carnival attraction with warped mirrors
15) Actress Bonham Carter
16) Messy kids' game show hosted by J.D. Roth
17) Cashier's cashbox
18) Solemn promise
19) The brightest star in the Little Dipper
20) Watergate or Whitewater, e.g.
21) Women's magazine, for short

DOWN
1) Unemphasized, like a syllable
2) L.A. basketball team once based in San Diego
3) Popeye's girlfriend
4) So-so
5) Martini garnish
6) PlayStation 3 game where you play as Cole MacGrath and use his electric superpowers for good or evil
7) Tool that makes drawing circles a lot easier
8) Magnetic navigational instrument
9) Bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers
10) Small producer of a big bang on July 4th
11) Not under any burden
12) Unpopped popcorn pieces
13) Annual county festival
14) Thousand-year period
15) Shred cheese
16) Small nuggets of truth
17) Backstreet Boys album containing "I Want It That Way"
18) Notorious
19) Aggravate, like an annoying voice
20) Tool for trimming toenails
21) Bulldog's bane

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or get a hint from me in exchange for a "hint star", more details for that are on the sidebar to the right) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a version you can print out!

ANSWERS: Section Six 4

It's been almost two weeks since I've posted "Section Six 4", and I was kinda surprised that eight people have solved it since then. Take a look:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Lynn Sweeney **
• Chris Hendricks ****
• Mom: 0 stars (she stinks at scrambling, and had no idea what she was doing throughout this puzzle)
• Debbie Benford ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Alex Milton ****

Now head below the break for the answers!