Enigmatic

Jump to: Clue Solutions

THE PUZZLE — Last summer, I started learning how to solve cryptics while seeking a non-digital activity to do while I recovered from a concussion (arguably, maybe not the best time to start). Although I am a regular Minute Cryptic enjoyer and have done quite a few of the New Yorker cryptics, I would definitely consider myself a Cryptic Crossword Novice. After a few months of getting exposure to different wordplay indicators and being the victim of tricks that cryptic constructors like to play on their solvers, I felt like it was finally time to try my hand at this puzzle format.

This was way harder than I expected, but also way more fun. Writing cryptic clues is like writing crossword clues on steroids, and involves all of my favorite types of wordplay creativity. I am not completely satisfied with some of the clues, so they may get changed over the next couple of weeks. Overall, though, for a cryptic debut, I'm pretty happy with some of the wordplay I snuck in there, and the variety of different techniques I tried to employ!

Although cryptics are interesting and fun without a theme, I wanted a theme to guide my thinking for this little 5 by 5. I chose programming languages, because I am a nerd and I thought it would be fun. And I was right: I thoroughly enjoyed clueing to this theme. The puzzle name "Enigmatic" is a nod to the Enigma machine :)

Clue Solutions

Unlike my other crosswords, where many clues are self-explanatory, I will use this space to explain the solutions to each of the 6 clues.

1A. "Creation of dirty core inside bash shell (5)"
 Answer: BIRTH
 Definition: "Creation"
 Wordplay: Take the "core" of "dirty", D(IRT)Y, and place it inside of the "shell" of "bash", B(AS)H, to get BIRTH.

4A. "Functional approach to OCaml short-circuit (2,3)"
 Answer: OF USE
 Definition: "Functional"
 Wordplay: Take the "approach" to "OCaml", O, and a synonym for "short-circuit", which is FUSE.

5A. "Old forms of assembly starting with development in early technical systems (5)"
 Answer: DIETS
 Definition: "Old forms of assembly"
 Wordplay: Take the "starting" letter of "Development In Early Technical Systems" to get DIETS.

1D. "Use C++ after remapping bool family (5)"
 Answer: BLOOD
 Definition: "Family"
 Wordplay: C++ could be thought of as incrementing C by one, which gives us D. Place this D "after" we "remap" (anagram) BOOL, to get BLOOD.

 As an aside: C++ = D is a bit cheeky because it's not typical cryptic wordplay, but I thought it was fun and made enough sense to include...

2D. "Path to Go routine without import name headers (5)"
 Answer: ROUTE
 Definition: "Path to go"
 Wordplay: We want "routine" without the "headers" of "Import Name". which is ROUTE.

3D. "Linked list beginnings going from array starts to what cache ultimately observes (5)"
 Answer: HEEDS
 Definition: "Observes"
 Wordplay: We start with "Linked list beginnings", which are HEADS. We then go from "array starts", or the letter A, to "cache ultimately", the letter E, a letter swap which leaves us with HEEDS.

Constructor Notes

Since I am the constructor as well as Wordplay 2.0's only columnist, this section will be short.

Cryptics are cool and the wordplay involved is cheeky in the best way, but they are so hard to write. On my last crossword's wordplay column, I talked about struggling with tuning clue difficulty—that problem has 100xed for me in this new domain. Would love to know what you think on the solvability of the clues here!