If you haven’t done one of these before, don’t just jump right in! Read the instructions before you do. You’ll be very confused if you don’t realize that it’s anagrams you have to enter, not the original answers!
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Be careful here… don’t solve this grid like you normally would! The instructions are in the document or the notepad. Solve the clues, but, before you enter each entry into the grid, you have to anagram it!
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As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Tuesday!
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Alert, alert! If you’ve recently started solving here, don’t solve this like a normal crossword. You’ll be seriously messed up if you do! Instructions are in both the PDF and PUZ files…
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Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
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It’s my first post since April Fools’ Day. I didn’t do anything too wacky, wild, or crazy, but I felt like I had to do something to mix things up at least. And mix things up I literally did. I admit that it doesn’t take me as long to write the clues for these grids, because the point of the puzzle is more the anagramming than the clue-to-answer thing that’s the case with standard crosswords. I thought briefly about creating a variant of these crosswords in which you have to anagram one word in each clue to make sense of it, then anagram the answer to put in the grid. That would be really nasty of me, and I’m not so sure it wouldn’t be a little unfair in some spots. Maybe I’ll have that as an option the next time I do one of these — you can solve the regular one, or you can solve the one with an anagram in the clues as well. Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking out loud.
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Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
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Oh ho ho, another variety puzzle curveball! In this one, I started with common two-word phrases. I took two letters in each word and shifted them either both back one position or both forward one position in the alphabet, then anagrammed the results into two new words. For example, given LEAKY EARNED, you’d shift two letters forward one position in LEAKY to get LEBLY, anagramming it to get BELLY, and you’d shift two letters backward one position in EARNED to get DARNEC, anagramming that to get DANCER. Thus, the common phrase is BELLY DANCER. I contemplated creating an “easier” version, in which I’d tell you whether the pair of letters go backward or forward, but I figured that might give away too much. The one thing I did to keep it from getting too challenging is that, in each word, both letters either go back one or go forward one. Never does one letter shift backward and one letter shift forward in a single word.
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Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
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Happy Fourth to all my American solvers, and Happy Friday to everyone else! You can do lots of interesting stuff with anagrams, as you know, and as you know that I know. The reason this is called “Double Shifts” is because the principle of this puzzle is manipulating words twice. In this case, I’m taking common two-word phrases, anagramming each one of them, and replacing the anagrams with synonyms. The example I gave inside is DIVINITY SPUD: I took “dog treat”, anagrammed the words to “god” and “tater”, and changed them to their respective synonyms “divinity” and “spud”. It was harder than you think to find two-word phrases in which (a) both of the words have anagrams, and (b) the anagrams themselves each have rock-solid synonyms. The difference between the Easier and Harder versions is simple: the Easier version contains the lengths of each word in the object phrases, and the Harder version does not.
I never underestimate my solvers, and I don’t usually arrange by difficulty, but be forewarned: the last few of these are tough as nails. I will be very duly impressed with anyone who gets all of these, but I know you all are up for the challenge.
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Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
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With the amount of time I’ve spent curating a word list for this kind of grid, I don’t think you can blame me if I come back to this format from time to time. Not that you would anyway. Not that I make the clues too hard, but I have a rule that I try to follow. The more anagrams an answer entry has, the easier I make the clue. Take that as you will.
Thanks so much to all who’ve left a tip! It’s much appreciated, believe me.
Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Tuesday!
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Good to mix it up every now and then, as I say, right? You know that I like anagrams, and a lot of the variety stuff I post on here has to do with anagrams in some form. You know I never play it straight up here, though… you have to do something to the words and phrases before anagramming them. What it is, I’ll leave up to you to click the link!
Thanks so much to all who’ve left a tip! It’s much appreciated, believe me.
Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Tuesday!
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I got some positive feedback about the anagram crossword a couple of weeks ago, so I was feeling another one today. I’m thinking of making this a semiregular feature (every month, or however… not sure about the frequency), which is good, because I really enjoy making these.
Thanks so much to all who’ve left a tip! It’s much appreciated, believe me.
Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Tuesday!
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I’m on a bit of a variety puzzle kick. I don’t know if this will continue, but I came up with this idea and wanted to implement it, so here it is. As you know, I like anagrams more than a person probably should. The crux of this puzzle is that you take two words with a common letter between them, remove that common letter from one of the words, and anagram the result to make another one. You’ll see clues arranged in three columns, and the premise is that you use one word clued in column A and one clued in column B and anagram them as I just described to form one word clued in column C. To decide which version you want to try your hand at, here are what each of them entails:
Easier: The clues in column A and B and its corresponding word in column C are each in the same row. Column C clues contain the length of the object word in parentheses.
Harder: The clues in column A, B, and C are listed in random order, and the puzzle is to piece together which one from column A goes with which one in column B to make which one in column C. Column A, B, and C clues all contain the length of its object word.
Expert: Same as the Harder version, except there is no length hint for the clues in column A and B.
Thanks so much to all who’ve left a tip! It’s much appreciated, believe me.
Thanks as always to the test solvers for their input.
As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Tuesday!
By Tim Croce ||| Original freestyle crossword puzzles on Tuesdays at 6pm Eastern ||| Original puzzles (sometimes more freestyles, sometimes variety puzzles or even themed puzzles) on Fridays at 6pm Eastern
Club 72 