PUZZLE #202: Nonplussed 2

PUZZLE #202

NONPLUSSED 2

Happy two-days-before-Halloween! Last year, I didn't really do anything suitable for the season on this blog, but not this time! Not only is the FINAL ANSWER appropriately horror-themed, but it's from a puzzle that's metaphorically rising from its grave, as it hasn't been seen for over three years! Since it's been so long since this original type of puzzle appeared, read on for a refresher on how to solve it!

The answers in this puzzle are entered in two ways: the fifteen numbered rows have one or two answers that read left to right (even the two rows that only have one letter in it), and the plusses have five-letter answers that read left to right beginning in the top row (exactly like how they're entered in Pent Words). The clues for the plusses are split up into two groups: white plusses and gray plusses. Answers to those clues should be placed in their respectively-colored plus, though you have to use the Rows' answers to find out where each plus answer is located.

There are two unclued rows in this puzzle; combine them to get this week's FINAL ANSWER: the name of a horror video game

ROWS
1) Second-most common article, after "the"
2) Furniture store that serves Swedish meatballs
3) English, in Spanish
4) THE FIRST HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
5) Pink mushroom girl playable in Mario Tennis Aces
    Hawaiian neckwear
6) Symmetrical necktie knot
    _____ Kombat X (gory fighting game)
7) Dubstep musician who did "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites"
    Lazily
8) Actress Rhea who played Aunt Hilda on Sabrina the Teenage Witch
    Blue, furry, and brainy X-Men character
9) Lightsaber-weilding heroes
    Hot spots of the Earth
10) Utah city that's about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City
      Destructive Battlebots robot named after a rock marking a grave
11) Queen of rap
      Guitar boosters
12) THE SECOND HALF OF THE FINAL ANSWER
13) Alternative rock group whose only hit (so far) is "Come With Me Now"
14) As well
15) ___-Gage (ill-fated phone/handheld game console hybrid from the 2000s)

WHITE PLUSSES
* "Invisible" singer Clay
* Eyeball cells that allow color vision
* Word following "control" or "neat"
* Literally hotheaded villain from Disney's Hercules
* European country where Pinocchio is set
* Father of Superman played by Marlon Brando: Hyph.
* Titanic or Lusitania, e.g.
* Someone who pens praiseful poems
* Original Match Game and Price is Right announcer Johnny
* The "O" in N2O
* Orca captured and sold to SeaWorld in 1965
* Get _____ ('60s spy spoof show)
* A glint in one's eye

GRAY PLUSSES
* That plastic thingy on the end of shoelaces
* Hasbro toy that involves pulling and twisting: Hyph.
* Dreaded dentistry tool
* Catcher of congers
* The Princess Bride character who says “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
* Perseveres
* Veg-O-_____ (infomercial product that slices and dices)
* Garlic-crushing utensil
* Frighten the pants off of
* PlayStation 1 game about a pink-haired kid fighting pigs (Answer hidden in TOM BAKER)
* Island nation east of Fiji
* Mel who co-wrote "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)"

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, 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: Pent Words 12: Fusion

"Birdbrained harpy from Monster Musume" = PAPI

You're probably wondering why this post opened with a drawing I made of the answer to one of the clues from "Pent Words 12: Fusion" from a couple weeks ago. Well, before I started this blog, I posted pictures on DeviantArt, but I haven't been active over there in years. So because I felt like getting back to drawing after 200 of these puzzles, I've decided to use those dormant artistic skills for a puzzle which will be posted right here in eight days (if you support me on Patreon for at least $2, however, you can view it early). After finishing that puzzle, I came up with an idea to make a new drawing every week based off of one of the clues from each week's puzzles (where applicable). More details can be found in this journal entry that I posted to DeviantArt, but I bet you'd rather know who solved my 200th puzzle, so here's the nine people who did so:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Dan Simonds **
• Eric Maddy ****
• Debbie Benford ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Lynn Sweeney **

Now head below the break for the answers as well as a congratulatory solver comment!

PUZZLE #201: Crypticrostic 3

PUZZLE #201

CRYPTICROSTIC 3

This next puzzle is a Crypticrostic, a type of puzzle that has been notorious for being extremely difficult (after all, only four people managed to solve the first one of these). As usual, I first sent this one to my test-solver, Joseph DeVincentis, and while he did indeed solve it, he noted that it was even harder than usual and gave me a couple ideas of easing the pain, so to speak. One of them was slightly altering a couple clues, and the other one... well, read the directions and find out!

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, but to make things easier, both halves have been divided by a gray vertical bar. For a list of cryptic clue types, you can get one through these links.

Once you're done, the Anacrostic will reveal a cryptic clue that will lead you to the FINAL ANSWER: A title with the pattern of [9, 4]

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
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

Beheading very thin | American, for one [7]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   08 45 20 34 04 29 16

Friends | belonging to Kate's sitcom partner [6]
   __ __ __ __ __ __
   06 43 33 48 11 50

Old Roman racer's | spirit protecting a really funny fellow [10]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   10 47 22 17 28 51 24 37 42 01

Cowering | catcher going in a circle [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   46 30 25 09 53 35 41 03

Shoot inside of an involved | Spanish dance [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   36 13 52 07 32 05 19 40

Heading forward, bring back Robert E. Lee's | antenna [6]
   __ __ __ __ __ __
   14 27 31 38 21 44

Brood | claimed it ate fragment [8]
   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
   26 49 12 39 23 18 15 02

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: Cramped Crossword 2

It's been almost two weeks since "Cramped Crossword 2" was posted on this blog, and eight people since then have correctly solved it, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Dan Simonds ****
• Mom ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Debbie Benford ****

Now head below the break for the answers as well as some solvers' comments!

PUZZLE #200: Pent Words 12: Fusion

PUZZLE #200

PENT WORDS 12: FUSION

It's my milestone 200th puzzle, so it's time for me to do something special! One hundred puzzles ago, I did a new twist on "Pent Words" by combining it with my signature creation, "Squeezed in the Middle". This time, I'm going to do a different type of combining regarding "Pent Words", so read on to see what that means!

For this puzzle, you must divide the grid into pentominoes (they’re kinda like Tetris pieces, except they’re areas made up of five squares each) and put a letter in each cell. The rows, reading from left to right, will contain the words hinted at by the ACROSS clues. The letters in the pentominoes, reading left to right beginning with the top row, will form the words hinted at by the PENTOMINOES clues; these clues are presented in no particular order. (In the example above, the rows spell out CHINS, PARTY, and ANKLE, and the pentominoes spell out the words CHINA, STYLE, and PRANK.) Use the across answers to figure out where the pentominoes go.

Two of the pentominoes have fused together to make one big ten-square shape. The FINAL ANSWER is the 10-letter compound word made by the two fused pentominoes.

ACROSS (Two answers per row)
1) Dili, East _____
    Scan, like a credit card
2) Poem full of praise
    Supplant
3) Type of bar where cowboys brawl in many Western movies
    Architectural style used by the Empire State Building
4) Spicy New Orleans cuisine
    Clay creature from Jewish folklore
5) Any day now
    Greg's partner in the title of a '90s sitcom
6) 2008 anime movie about a goldfish who wants to be human
    Vacant, as an apartment available to rent
7) "Shocking" Super Mario 64 enemies named after electrical units
    Handy and beneficial
8) Definitely intend to
    Nephew of Donald Duck who wears a green shirt
9) Marvin K. _____ Will You Please Go Now! (Dr. Seuss book)
    Birdbrained harpy from Monster Musume (or the Spanish word for "Daddy")
10) Original America's Funniest Home Videos host Bob
      Like snug-fitting skinny jeans

PENTOMINOES (Five letters per answer)
* BOTH HALVES OF THE FINAL ANSWER
* Nickname of the pilot who famously landed his plane on the Hudson River
* Get educated
* Puccini opera about an opera singer
* Second-highest digit in a normal sudoku puzzle
* Gaston's sidekick from Beauty and the Beast: 2 wds.
* August: _____ County (Meryl Streep movie)
* Code creator Samuel
* Moxie or pizzazz
* Hippie's two-finger gesture
* The Real Adventures of _____ Quest ('90s action-adventure cartoon)
* Bulb from Holland
* Last name of either Nick from Zootopia or Oscar the playwright
* _____ in the Dark (the first 3D survival horror video game)
* Ms. Mayonnaise from Nickelodeon's Doug
* Absolutely perfect
* Perdita's "husband" from 101 Dalmatians
* Uncontrollable twitch
* ,

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, 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: Coined Phrases 3

My 200th puzzle is tomorrow, so I'll try to make this quick. Eight people solved "Coined Phrases 3" from two weeks ago, and they're all in this list:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Chris Hendricks ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom *
• Dan Simonds **
• Eric Maddy ****
• Lynn Sweeney **

Now head below the break for the answers as well as some solvers' comments!

PUZZLE #199: Cramped Crossword 2

PUZZLE #199

CRAMPED CROSSWORD 2

Solve the mini-crossword, then unscramble the letters that go in the blank spaces to get the FINAL ANSWER: A 9-letter pop song title

CLUES
* Breaks planks using karate, say
* Brightest star in Cygnus
* Johnny Depp's role in The Lone Ranger (2013)
* Need for _____ (racing game series)
* Part of a bookcase
* Transform

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: Compound Crosswords 3

It's been almost two weeks since "Compound Crosswords 3" was posted on this blog, and once again, ten people have correctly gotten the FINAL ANSWER, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Chris Hendricks ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Tyler Hinman ****
• Mom ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Dan Simonds ****
• Michael Avanessian ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #198: Coined Phrases 3

PUZZLE #198

COINED PHRASES 3

There is a set of five coins, all of which have one letter on each of their two faces. Each letter appears only once throughout the set, and no two coins share the same letter. Random flips of all the coins have produced six 5-letters words hinted at by the numbered clues. Once all six answers have been solved, use logic and deductive reasoning to figure out the letters that are printed on each coin. Finally, rearrange the coins so that both sides spell out two more 5-letter words that combine to make a two-word phrase.

This week's FINAL ANSWER is the name of a movie OR an album.

1) Centers of apples and pineapples
2) Genre for KC and the Sunshine Band
3) What Card Sharks contestants should yell when faced with an ace or king
4) My Cousin Vinny star Joe
5) Metal Gear _____ 3: Snake Eater (PlayStation 2 game)
6) Fast-talking salesman's lengthy pitch

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, 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!