The Crosswordsearch

Question

I submitted a wordsearch and a crossword to the New York Times, but for some reason they rejected them!

I'm really disappointed, but I'm willing to improve. It sounds like my wordsearch was fine, but my friends are telling me that my crossword looks a bit off. Can you guys tell me what it's missing?

Thanks in advance.

ACROSS
1.  Setting of Adventure Time (3)
5.  Canadian record label (2)
6.  Thirty (3)
7.  ___Tentacion (3)
9.  Red ___ (Montana manufacturing company) (3)
10.  Move king twice and rook thrice (3)
11.  Bacterial pathovar that attacks rice (abbr.) (3)
12.  Real Nice hit (4)
14.  With 7, a spy (2)
15.  Australian beer brand (4)
16.  Swedish B2B software investor (3)

DOWN
1.  Hurricane Woody song (4)
2.  Zodiac animal (2)
3.  Android live TV app (4)
4.  Galvez music album (6)
5.  African language (3)
7.  Beyoncé song (2)
8.  Pub in Bangalore (4)
11.  Female indicator (2)
12.  Beekeeping helper (3)
13.  Kitchen brand (3)

(As per standard cross-search conventions, there are no two letter wo- wait there are? Ugh! Why do I keep getting so mixed up with all these things?)

I see rot13(rirelbar'f snibevgr Vgnyvna cyhzore'f anzr onpxjneqf). — S.S. Anne, May 01 '20 at 19:11

score 14 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

14

Final answer:

@Stiv found the final answer, go see his answer for an explanation! The thing you are missing in your crossword is

SYMMETRY

Crossword solution:

Now clearly there is something a bit odd about this crossword...

Every single word contains only the letters X or O. This will be import later and is a reference to noughts and crosses.

Clue explanations:

Across:

1. The land of Ooo
5. Xo
6. Thirty in Roman numerals is XXX
7. XXXTentacion
9. Red Oxx
10. O-O-O is the notation for castling in chess
11. This bacteria - not gonna try and write that out
12. Oooo is a song by real nice - Thanks @LannyStrack!
14. 00 with 7 is 007 which is James Bond, a spy
15. Castlemaine XXXX
16. Oxx VC

Down:

1. Ooxo
2. The Ox
3. Ooxo
4. The album Xxooxx
5. The Taa language is also known as the Xoo language
7. Xo
8. Xoox Brewmill is a pub in bangalore
11. The XX chromosome
12. Oxx Beekeeping
13. Oxo

Word search

All the words follow a pattern

Words:

Yellow, ejects, complex, tomato, Mario, echo, convex, wrecks, yoyo, T-Rex - and thanks to @Anthroman - apex, sew, tow and latex

Now:

All these words end in either an ‘X’ sound or an ‘O’ sound - another reference to noughts and crosses.

The remains letters say ‘Win Tic Tac Toe’ which relates to the Xs and Os in the first grid.

See Stivs answer for the final step!

edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

Community

1

answered May 01 '20 at 00:37

Beastly Gerbil

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Znlor jr unir gb hfr nyy gur K'f naq B'f. Yngrk vf tbvat qbja naq yrsg qvntbanyyl – Anthroman May 01 '20 at 01:07
Ncrk vf n jbeq ba gurer nf jryy – Anthroman May 01 '20 at 01:08
@Anthroman thanks! Not sure how I missed that lost one lol :) – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 01:09
V guvax gur guvatf gung ner jebat ner gur jbeqf gung unir gur "K" fbhaq be "B" fbhaq ng gur raq, ohg nera'g npghnyyl K'f be B'f. Yvxr frpgf (frk), jerpxf (jerk), lryybj (lryyb) – Anthroman May 01 '20 at 01:11
1

yeah, I deleted my comment for the same reason hehe. on a more serious note, I think that somehow, one might have to rot13(bireynl gur gjb tevqf; nsgre nyy, obgu bs gurz unir gur fnzr qvzrafvbaf naljnl.) – oAlt May 01 '20 at 01:18
lblb vf va gurer gbb – Anthroman May 01 '20 at 01:20
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@Anthroman was adding it as you spoke! :) interestingly the two remaining Os could be part of No and So which then fit, but as they’re two letters I’m leaving them out for now – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 01:22
1

@oAlt hmmm that could be a good suggestion. I’m not sure how that would work - a quick scan just gives nonsense – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 01:24
1

Gurer frrzf gb or jbeqcynl va gur frghc. 'Gur jbeqfrnepu "fbhaqf" svar' ersreevat gb gur qvssrerag fcryyvatf -rpgf, -rk, -rpxf fbhaqvat gur fnzr. V'z jbaqrevat vs gur pebffjbeq orvat n "ovg bss" unf fbzrguvat gb qb jvgu vgf ovanel cebcregvrf. V fhpx ng mrebf naq barf, gubhtu. – Anthroman May 01 '20 at 02:33
2

My deepest apologies, the final answer has a typo that I failed to see many times. If you get an answer that's off by a letter then that's why, meanwhile I'm working on finding a good repair (it's still perfectly possible to get the answer) (It is unlikely that I'll modify the wordsearch). – greenturtle3141 May 01 '20 at 02:58
2

UPDATE: I've decided that the path of minimum damage was to change the left column of the wordsearch and switch the Z to a C. This shouldn't change your answers too much. I believe this should work out perfectly now. – greenturtle3141 May 01 '20 at 03:19
2

12A: rot13/ uggcf://jjj.qvfpbtf.pbz/Erny-Avpr-Bbbb/eryrnfr/4172161 – Lanny Strack May 01 '20 at 03:32
1

@BeastlyGerbil now that changes have been made, the words I'm sure that are left are rot13(rwrpgf naq g-erk. Ernqvat bss gur hahfrq yrggref fcryyf "Rjjj V ab gvp gnp gbr", juvpu qrsvavgryl eryngrf gb b'f naq k'f gung gur pebffjbeq naq jbeq frnepu unir orra nyyhqvat gb. Ubjrire, bgure guna gung, gur cuenfr qbrf abg frrz shyyl pburerag (znlor gung'f gur bar gung jnf bss ol bar yrggre?). Naq V qba'g xabj jurgure gb vapyhqr "ab" va gur yvfg bs jbeqf gb or frnepurq sbe.) – oAlt May 01 '20 at 03:37
1

@oAlt The phrase is close. – greenturtle3141 May 01 '20 at 03:48
1

@oAlt I have those letters exactly now, Im wondering if we need to do a tic tac toe on the crossword or something – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 08:28
@greenturtle3141 I’ve updated everything so it’s all up to date - not sure what’s next :) – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 08:34
1

Arne gur gbc yrsg, gurer'f nyfb "GBJ". Guvf yrnirf gur yrggref RJ JVA GVP GNP GBR. Znlor jr fubhyq unir frra RWRPG engure guna RWRPGF (jnf gung gur glcb?), tvivat hf FRJ JVA GVP GNP GBR. Be creuncf jr pna trg evq bs gur svefg RJ fbzrubj, yrnivat JVA GVP GNP GBR nf gur svany cuenfr? Jr pna qebc gur R ol nyybjvat ZBR va gur jbeqfrnepu, creuncf, ohg V pna'g frr ubj gb trg evq bs gung ynfg J. – teedyay May 01 '20 at 09:49
1

@teedyay I think that last suggestion for the phrase looks the most likely - but I wouldn’t be sure if that was the final phrase or another instruction – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 09:56
Ntnva, jr ner tbvat sebz gur fbhaq bs gur jbeq, abg gur fcryyvat. Fb vs jr fpengpu bss "frj" naq "gbj", vg jvyy yrnir hf va n orggre fcbg gb frr gur nafjre. ^^ – Anthroman May 01 '20 at 14:36
AH! The phrase relatively makes more sense now. – oAlt May 01 '20 at 14:51
@greenturtle3141 is rot13(Jva gvp gnp gbr) the final phrase or it is another instruction? I’m not quite sure :) – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 15:12
2

The answer is rot13(FLZZRGEL) - this image should help, where I have followed through the instruction you uncovered (you need to overlay the wordsearch). You can have this one for free :) Happy Friday! – Stiv May 01 '20 at 15:25
1

@Stiv Noooooo you need to post that! I would never have thought of that, and thats super clever you deserve credit. All I've done is a simple once you know what to do crossword and a wordsearch - you've done the tricky bit there! You deserve all the credit for that so please post! :) – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 15:44
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Okay... well, I'll post an answer for this part, but there's a lot of credit to you and the others who have been discussing this in comments... – Stiv May 01 '20 at 15:49
2

@Stiv you still were the first person to get the gimmick of this so you deserve a lot of credit too! :) – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 15:55

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered May 01 '20 at 16:11

The answer to the question of what your crossword is missing is:

SYMMETRY!

A lot of credit for solving the initial crossword and wordsearch needs to go to @BeastlyGerbil (go upvote their answer!) with helpful contributions in comments from @Anthroman, @LannyStrack, @teedyay and @oAlt. The solution details for those are listed in full in BG's answer, with the finished grids as follows:

From the wordsearch BG was then able to extract an instruction:

WIN TIC TAC TOE (as spelled by the unused squares)

(My input to the solution from here onwards...) The way to carry this through is to:

divide the solved crossword into 8 equal 3x3 tic-tac-toe grids. Notice then that each 3x3 grid contains 5 X's and O's - 3 of one and 2 of the other, as if one player is about to play their third move. In each case that third move will win the game for that player - we need to place one final X or O and win that player the game...

The result then looks like this:

All that then remains is for us to:

overlay the winning positions onto the wordsearch and read off the letters in those positions. Doing this reveals the answer SYMMETRY!

@greenturtle3141 I’m going to say accept Stivs, but I know Stiv is going to say accept mine so it’s probably down to you :P — Beastly Gerbil, May 01 '20 at 16:56
After I saw the instruction, I was looking at chains of three Xs or Os that were already in the grid, but they didn’t seem to correlate to anything. This is much nicer and clever solution! Very good puzzle! :) — Beastly Gerbil, May 01 '20 at 16:57
@BeastlyGerbil Ha, yep I think we were always going to say give it to the other! greenturtle3141: Your call - neither of us mind :) — Stiv, May 01 '20 at 18:05

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited May 01 '20 at 01:03

8

This crossword is crazy! lol

Fun, though!

edited May 01 '20 at 01:03

Beastly Gerbil

58,036
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answered May 01 '20 at 00:59

Anthroman

156
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Fixed the image for you :) – Beastly Gerbil May 01 '20 at 01:03

The Crosswordsearch

3 Answers3

Final answer:

Crossword solution:

Word search