XWord Muggles Forum

Off the couch!

Thanks, Alan!

Off the couch! Thank you!

You missed me in the Tuesday a.m. list of solvers.

LindaPRmaven wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 1:47 am You missed me in the Tuesday a.m. list of solvers.

Oops, sorry. Fixed!

Just snuggling up on the couch now with a sharp pencil and a cup of coffee...

Few more solvers to add to the list (as usual, please let me know of any omissions):
Alvibu67
Anita
Anita and Steve
Darrell
Steve M
frostyjhammer
omnilynx

Here are some nudges in case anyone is still on the fence:
There are 5 wacky long acrosses, and we're looking for a 5-letter word. Probably not a coincidence.

What do cryptographers do?

Alternate title: "Where's my decoder ring?"

How might you de-code those entries?

OK, now we have 5 new words. Time to do what one often does with new words.

One of the new words matches a very short down clue.

Always late to the party, but at the party nonetheless.
Didn't need the nudges, either. Nicely done, Mr. K.

Off the couch after solving with my morning coffee! Enjoyed the meta device

Last few solvers before the reveal:
Guffman
Annabelle
Naptown Kid

The meta answer is CRACK.

As I mentioned in the intro, I don't really remember where the idea for this one came from--which probably means it came from a frustrated attempt to solve another puzzle this way.

Anyway, we have five rather goofy long across entries:

16A Malfoy's evasive maneuver? = DRACODEKE
20A Demon delighting in climate destruction? = ECODEVIL
37A Sticker for a Mexican Patsy Cline fan? = LOCODECAL
59A Mexican-themed cruise ship area? = TACODECK
63A Polo's poor grades? = MARCODEES

Given the title (and/or the image from The Adventure of the Dancing Men on Crosshare), we should be thinking about ciphers and codes. And low and behold, we can 'decode' each of these entries by literally removing the letters C-O-D-E to generate new words, as shown below.

Ok, we have five new words, time to play find the Schrödinger clues that might clue them. The first letters of those five alternate entries, when arranged in grid order, spell our answer: CRACK.

As for that nasty herring that Wendy spotted, the original grid contained REHEM, clued as "Alter, as a dress perhaps." Unbeknownst to me, that could also clue TACK, which would be problematic (especially as the TACK alternate is already the hard one to spot)! Fortunately the offending entry could be removed without completely reworking everything.

Hope everyone enjoyed, and thanks as always for the kind comments.