Mobius Cryptic Crossword
January 1, 2025 2 Comments
A Möbius Quantum Cryptic Crossword puzzle: this is among the nerdiest, most on-brand things I’ve ever made.
tl;dr Instructions:
- Answer the cryptic clue
- Each answer is used to fill in the blank of the clue beneath it
- When you reach the bottom, take that answer and return to use it in clue 1
- Each clue now gives a different answer and continues the Möbius process!
They use a variety of classic Cryptic wordplay tricks, so keep an eye out for Anagrams, Hidden words, Homophone, Double Definition, Assemblage, Deletion, and Reversal
Because each step relies on getting the previous answer, feel free to use the hint or reveal buttons liberally — or just click ‘Reveal All’ to explore the construction without the puzzling!
Cryptic Crosswords are my favorite form of wordplay. If you’re unfamiliar, I highly recommend The New Yorker’s introduction – they give explanations and walkthroughs.
“Unlike American-style crosswords, in which clues are usually synonyms or bits of trivia, a cryptic contains clues that are small puzzles in and of themselves. Basically, a cryptic clue consists of two elements: a definition of the answer (the so-called straight part), and a wordplay element that elliptically suggests the same answer (the cryptic portion).”
Cryptics bend your brain to parse a clue in new ways. Each word might refer to a concept or might just be a collection of letters (e.g. “Error concealed by city police” is “typo” — ‘Error’ is the straight part, and the letters t-y-p-o are concealed in order across ‘city police’.)
Quantum Puzzles have two different possible answers. One of the most famous examples is a New York Times crossword in 1996 which asked “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper” and all the clues were carefully constructed to accommodate either “CLINTON ELECTED” or “BOB DOLE ELECTED”. (e.g. “Black Halloween Animal” could be either ‘Cat’ or ‘Bat’, giving the C or B needed to start spelling either name.)
For reasons (long story), I started writing my own recursive cryptic sequences, where each answer gives you part of the next clue. Taking it one step further resulted in this: a Möbius Strip Quantum Cryptic Crossword sequence.
It’s not quite Quantum the same way the NYT puzzle is, where the exact same clue can give two different answers — on Side A vs Side B, the clue has a single word changed depending on what your answer to the previous question was. But even that one word change can force you to re-parse the phrase and perhaps use a different solving technique.
To get it started, the first blank has been filled in with NERD. It seemed appropriate.
Well, given this was my first ever Möbius Quantum Cryptic Crossword puzzle — not to mention my first Quantum Cryptic Crossword puzzle, and my first Cryptic Crossword puzzle — I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad I only got a few on Side A *with hints*? Side B was manageable, though, after that. ^_^
Very cool! Thank you!
“It’s alive! It’s aliiive!”