The puzzle presents seven diagramless puzzles combined into a single clue list. The first step is to solve the seven grids. With a few nudges from the title and flavortext, you might guess that the grids are all 7x7 and that they obey standard crossword rules: rotational symmetry, no unchecked letters, no two-letter words, etc. The solutions to the clues in their original order are:
# |
Across |
Answer |
# |
Down |
Answer |
1 |
Musical work |
OPUS |
1 |
Author of The Complete Book of Running, 1977 |
JIM FIXX |
1 |
Adam Brody vehicle of 2003–07 |
THE OC |
1 |
Application file suffix |
EXE |
1 |
Lead singer of the Blackhearts |
JETT |
1 |
Hew |
CUT |
1 |
Airport posting |
ETA |
1 |
Vehicle whose driver might ask “Where to?” |
TAXICAB |
1 |
Insertive partner during sex |
TOP |
1 |
Fluorine’s neighbor |
OXYGEN |
1 |
Kernel holder |
COB |
1 |
Cousin of a halberd |
POLEAXE |
1 |
Alternative to Gen Con |
PAX |
1 |
What you’re on if you accept bribes |
THE TAKE |
4 |
Aphorism |
MAXIM |
2 |
“At last”, in Alsace |
ENFIN |
4 |
Temperamental |
MOODY |
2 |
First college attended by Barack Obama, colloquially |
OXY |
4 |
Ultra-fancy |
DELUXE |
2 |
Levy imposed uniformly per capita |
HEAD TAX |
4 |
X and Y, on a plane |
AXES |
2 |
Score speeds |
TEMPOS |
5 |
Bump from a broadcast |
PREEMPT |
2 |
Suffix with Gator and hater |
ADE |
5 |
Memo heading |
IN RE |
2 |
Twin ___ (special relativity topic) |
PARADOX |
5 |
Trademarked benzodiazepine |
XANAX |
2 |
Wood-sorrel genus |
OXALIS |
6 |
Alternative forms of genes |
ALLELES |
3 |
Cessation of hostilities |
TRUCE |
6 |
Amount of sand you can hold in one hand |
PALMFUL |
3 |
Coloradan ski mecca |
ASPEN |
6 |
Exasperated cry |
SHEESH |
3 |
Dress down |
BERATE |
6 |
Halloween costume whose wearer might appropriately go “Rawr” |
SEXY CAT |
3 |
Higher ed, to an Aussie |
UNI |
7 |
Guy in Mare of Easttown |
PEARCE |
3 |
Particularly disastrous interception |
PICK SIX |
7 |
Sci-fi epic about obtaining unobtainium |
AVATAR |
3 |
Suffix with racket or rocket |
EER |
7 |
Shot source |
SYRINGE |
3 |
Sugar substitute found in sugar-free gummy bears |
XYLITOL |
8 |
Handheld boat propellor |
OAR |
4 |
Canasta coups |
MELDS |
8 |
Marked, as a box on a survey |
XED |
4 |
Certain bacterium |
AEROBE |
8 |
Pay stub abbr. |
YTD |
4 |
Das Kapital author |
MARX |
8 |
Whitney in the National Inventors Hall of Fame |
ELI |
4 |
“Evil Ways” band |
SANTANA |
9 |
Building |
EDIFICE |
4 |
Leader in the Second Seminole War |
OSCEOLA |
9 |
Bus. card info |
EXT |
4 |
Obsolete communications medium |
TELEX |
9 |
Edict |
LAW |
4 |
Shepard of Idiocracy |
DAX |
9 |
Green Building designer |
PEI |
5 |
Carb-heavy party snack |
CHEX MIX |
9 |
Org. in The Americans |
KGB |
5 |
Chicken ___ (varicella) |
POX |
9 |
The “R” of the pop star commonly called CRJ |
RAE |
5 |
Disney character who sings “In Summer” |
OLAF |
9 |
The Bulldogs of the SEC, or their bulldog mascot |
UGA |
5 |
Make square |
EVENUP |
10 |
Prof’s helpers |
TAS |
5 |
Spelling whizzes? |
MAGES |
10 |
Record holders? |
CD CASES |
6 |
Basil-heavy sauce |
PESTO |
10 |
The second Gershwin you think of, unless you’re being wilfully contrarian |
IRA |
6 |
Competition in which skateboarder Bob Burnquist has the most total medals (30) |
X GAMES |
10 |
Venerable sleep aid brand |
SOMINEX |
6 |
Foaming at the mouth |
RABID |
10 |
Wii U and PlayStation 4 contemporary |
XBOX ONE |
6 |
“Gimme just a ___” |
SEC |
11 |
Certain je ne sais quoi |
X FACTOR |
6 |
Putting cargo onto a ship |
LADING |
11 |
Maggie Q series |
NIKITA |
6 |
Stratego piece that can capture the Marshal |
SPY |
11 |
Nightstand light |
BEDLAMP |
7 |
1–1, e.g. |
TIE |
11 |
Not out |
AT HOME |
7 |
Bedeck |
ADORN |
11 |
Sue of the Field Museum, briefly |
T-REX |
7 |
Fill-in |
SUB |
12 |
Agate variety |
ONYX |
7 |
Romantic love, in ancient Greece |
EROS |
12 |
Bird associated with Thoth |
IBIS |
7 |
The Last O.G. network |
TBS |
12 |
Indian wear |
SARIS |
8 |
Member of the Royal Navy, slangily |
LIMEY |
13 |
Gender-neutral |
UNISEX |
8 |
Power possessed by Professor X |
ESP |
13 |
Kato played by Billy Magnussen in The People v. O.J. Simpson |
KAELIN |
8 |
Waitress composer Bareilles |
SARA |
13 |
Language for many of Miriam Makeba’s songs |
XHOSA |
10 |
Stuff inside a lava lamp |
WAX |
13 |
Mat Hoffman’s Pro ___ (video-game series similar to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater) |
BMX |
10 |
X |
TEN |
13 |
“Said ___ ever” |
NO ONE |
11 |
A shot in the ___ |
ARM |
13 |
Video game programmer, for short |
DEV |
11 |
The Sun King’s regnal number |
XIV |
14 |
#2 helper? |
EX-LAX |
12 |
Actor Herbert |
LOM |
14 |
Club with clubs, for short |
PGA |
12 |
Norse underworld goddess |
HEL |
14 |
Fish that, appropriately, becomes an exclamation of terror if you shift its last letter backward one space in the alphabet |
EEL |
12 |
Soul and Rio producer |
KIA |
14 |
Short holiday? |
XMAS |
12 |
Subject of the photograph “Guerrillero Heroico” |
CHE |
The seven solved grids, in apparently arbitrary order, are as follows:
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During the solve, you might note that many answers contain the letter X. In fact, there are precisely three X's in each solved grid; those are highlighted above. But what to do now? And does the ordering matter?
To answer the second question, consider the ordering of the clues. Most of the clues that share a number are given in alphabetical order by clue, but this is not true of the clues for 1-across and 1-down. As every puzzle contains a 1-across entry and a 1-down entry, there are seven of each, but they are not given in alphabetical order. Using the hint in the flavortext ("From the first letter to the last"), you can read off the first letters of the 1-across clues to spell MALAIKA and the last letters (or digits) of the 1-down clues to spell 7XWORDS. This is a pointer to the 7xwords Project, a website called "daily 7x7 puzzles by malaika & friends" (that's Malaika Handa and a whole bunch of other people who volunteered to construct one or more puzzles). The premise of the 7xwords Project is that there are 312 possible grid patterns for a 7x7 crossword following those standard grid rules, and since 312 = 52 x 6, that is exactly enough that you can get through all of them by making six puzzles a week for a full year. So each of the possible grid patterns was done on a particular date in 2021.
This means that our seven solution grids above, each of which has a different black square pattern, correspond to seven different puzzles from the 7xwords Project. You can scan through the gallery of grid patterns from the main 7xwords page and pick them out visually; the seven relevant dates are February 14, March 3, March 23, April 25, May 7, August 3, and August 31. The natural thing to do is now to compare the solution grids to those puzzles to the ones you've just solved. You can either solve the 7xwords puzzles yourself, or just click on "Reveal solution" to jump straight to the finished grid. Here are those seven grids:
February 14
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March 3
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March 23
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9 |
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April 25
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May 7
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August 3
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August 31
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As you can see, these grids are given in chronological order, and this is the order that should be applied to the seven original grids above to match them up. The letters in the 7xwords grids that correspond to the locations of the three X's in each original grid are highlighted—and actually, they're not all letters, as there are numerals in the solution to the March 23 puzzle. Taken in order, they spell out the message OCTOBER 19 INSPECT CLUES, which directs you to the October 19 puzzle from the 7xwords Project. That puzzle, constructed under the palindromic pseudonym Jesse J., has the following clues:
Across
- Menu phrase before "mode" or "plancha"
- Koala, vis-à-vis the leaves of the eucalyptus tree
- Announcer's description of a strike that's taken
- Extremely smelly fruits that are often yellow
- 7-Eleven product whose flavors include Electric Charge Freeze and Sprite Remix
- With "The", play whose earliest recorded performance was in 1611 by the King's Men for James I
- Three-letter acronym for interior linemen who pass-rush
Down
- Mixed in among, to the literati
- Toenail area
- Term for an anatomical cavity like the part of the pylorus that the stomach connects to
- Nest noise
- Arranged like sand, gravel, sugar, etc.
- Rutherford or Gallo
- Starts again from all zeroes
Once again, look at the first and last letters of these clues—but this time instead of just first letters of across clues and last letters of down clues, look at the first and last letter (or really, the first and last alphanumeric character) of each clue for the answer MAKE A NEW 7X WITH MIT AT ONE ACROSS. That is the final answer to the puzzle.
Authors' Notes
In March, Andrew E. floated the idea of basing a puzzle on 7xwords, both because it was a significant new development in the puzzle world in 2021 (at least on the crossword scene) and because it was a data-rich, beautifully structured and visually pleasing site. The overall framework of the puzzle was decided on very quickly: it should be diagramlesses, so that solvers would have to figure out the grid patterns for themselves, and it should be a bunch of them thrown together in one clue list, because a 7x7 diagramless isn't substantive enough for a Hunt puzzle. Seven seemed like the obvious number of grids to combine. We loved the fact that the site uniquely associates valid 7x7 grid patterns with specific puzzles on specific dates, so we could extract from the corresponding puzzles. But then we decided to put off the actual constructing of the puzzle until later in the year when there would be more 7xwords grids to choose from.
Flash-forward to late summer, when we picked the idea back up, and it occurred to us quite belatedly that the final step of the puzzle would pack a lot more punch if we hid the answer in a public 7xwords puzzle. Alas, literally every remaining date had been claimed; so much for waiting. Nevertheless, we started to put ideas together about how extraction would work, and which unclaimed answer might be apt for this puzzle, and meanwhile joon added his name to the 7xwords constructor waitlist. In the last week of August, we decided it would be a good fit for the creative tasks in the New You City round, to encourage more people to try constructing a crossword. We also settled on more or less the extraction mechanism from the 7xwords grids that ended up in the final version of the puzzle (picking out two or three letters per grid, probably with X's).
Then on September 1, Malaika emailed joon back to offer him the October 19 spot on the calendar. That was a pretty ambitious grid, but we figured it wouldn't be that hard to hide the answer in the clues, as people hopefully wouldn't go scouring the puzzle knowing there was a meta to be solved. But then actually we were worried that they would if they saw my byline, so we were leaning towards using a pseudonym. (While we were discussing the idea on our team Discord, the status of the October 19 puzzle on 7xwords change to "claimed by joon" and remained that way for a few days. I wonder if anybody noticed it?) In scouring the rest of the puzzle data for the year, we benefited from serendipity: there was a puzzle from March with the numerals 1 and 9 in the grid (the March 23 grid you see above), so that we could extract 19 from that without having to spell it out as NINETEEN. Once we decided on a message, joon, Andrew E. and Andy K. each constructed 2-3 of the mini-grids, with minor tweaks to avoid duplicating each other's short X words. (We did allow one grid to contain AXE and another AXES by cluing the latter as the plural of AXIS.)
We ended up taking full advantage of the flexibility afforded by New You City feeder answers to be worded whichever way made sense for the creative task that they assigned, and settled upon the length-28 answer MAKE A NEW 7X WITH MIT AT ONE ACROSS hidden at the starts and ends of the October 19 puzzle's 14 clues. The only one that impinged on the answers in the grid was the one whose clue had to start with 7 and end with X, and thus SLURPEE became the only seed entry in the grid.
In internal testsolving, we noted the curious effect that testsolving groups that were not previously aware of the 7xwords Project found the final extraction much more quickly than groups that were, because they were forced to look at the starts and ends of clues to even find MALAIKA and 7XWORDS in the first place. Groups that short-circuited that step by realizing "this puzzle is a bunch of 7x7 crosswords => 7xwords" never noticed the acrostic, and struggled to find the extraction even when told to INSPECT CLUES. That did give us some confidence that none of the regular 7xwords solvers would accidentally solve a hunt puzzle three months before hunt. (To our knowledge, nobody did, but if that's not true, we would love to hear about it!)
Also, we never let Malaika herself in on the joke, because we weren't sure if she would be hunting and didn't want to spoil her if she was. joon did make very casual inquiries about whether the puzzles on the site would stay up after 2021 ended, though, and was reassured that they would. We're all quite glad they are (and not just because it would have broken this puzzle otherwise!).