PUZZLE #499: Touchword 2

PUZZLE #499

TOUCHWORD 2

This puzzle (suggested by Patron Grant Fikes) contains a word or phrase suggested by Patron M. Sean Molley. Support me on Patreon at $15 or more per month to suggest one word or phrase for me to put into a puzzle every month!

In a normal crossword, words cross each other; in this puzzle, they simply touch. More specifically, all answers read across each numbered row (ranging from two to three answers per row), and every letter touches, along an edge, at least one identical letter above or below it. Since the top and bottom rows also loop around and connect with each other, they're considered touching as well.

Once everything is filled out, read out the highlighted diagonal line for the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a strategy video game

1) It makes teeth less yellow

    Headache medicine whose name was originally trademarked by Bayer

2) _____ cookie (Chinese restaurant staple not invented in China)

    Speak hoarsely

    Pink-haired singer from AI: The Somnium Files (or an eye's colored part)

3) 1040, for one

    Incredible or imaginary

    Peels a pomegranate

4) Pearl-producing bivalve seen in several episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants

    Tornado warning sound

    Like baseball bases that all have runners on them

5) Turner _____ Movies (cable network airing films from the '30s and '40s)

    Removed Jell-O from a star-shaped hole, perhaps (anagram of MUDDLE ON)

6) Feathery neckwear for drag queens

    Household appliance that sucks, literally

    Unable to see, like the Marvel superhero Daredevil

7) Latin American hero Simón

    Speaking indistinctly

8) Indonesian island located to the east of East Java

    On-campus quarters

    Joseph and the _____ Technicolor Dreamcoat (Broadway musical)

9) Bullfighter

    Costco Connection, Cosmopolitan, or Car and Driver

10) "Heavy" rock genre for Manowar and GWAR

      Nonexistent oasis in the desert, usually

      One of the letters in "VP"

11) Shoot another take for a movie

      A Flock of Seagulls hit subtitled "(So Far Away)": 2 wds.

      Boot out of an apartment

12) Mandrill who famously lifts up baby Simba at the beginning of The Lion King

      Grassy South American plain

      Count calories

13) Drug such as the second answer in row 1

      More perplexing

14) _____ & Ferb (long-running Disney Channel series)

      Grammy-winning trumpeter Alpert

      Stinky stench

15) Complain, complain, complain

      A reborn phoenix rises from these

      The fifth element

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 even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) 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 link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/122oWzTLQZJU9SDWcQPaBxXMk4MN0yAWH/view?usp=sharing