As the title says, this isn’t a crossword. Or at least, it’s only half crossword. All the across clues are straight crossword entries, but they don’t fill each line of the grid. All the down clues solve to numbers, and indicate the runs of black cells in that column, nonogram/paint-by-numbers style (this is also indicated by the three “This puzzle” clues). The remaining cells in each column form valid crossword entries (okay, some of them are one letter, but sshhh) that are not clued.
| Rows |
|---|
| Prioritize, in an ER · FedEx competitor · Pa’s wife | TRIAGE · UPS · MA |
| “___ Misbehavin’” · Region below the Sahara · Morning | AINT · SAHEL · AM |
| This puzzle (pt. 1) · ___ be it · Profess · This puzzle (pt. 2) | NO · SO · AVER · NO |
| Hand tool or horror movie · Twinkle · Second element | SAW · GLEAM · HE |
| Word after bible or corn · It’s divided into eras · Prefix for late | BELT · EON · OB |
| Timid · Common ice cream flavor | SHY · VANILLA |
| Alternative to... · ...an analog stick · The ___ is cast | D · PAD · DIE |
| Prestigious sci-fi award | HUGO |
| Consumed | ATE |
| Main character in Death Note | L |
| Tied, perhaps | ALL |
| Regretted · “___ are Number One” | RUED · WE |
| Perturb or provoke · This puzzle (pt. 3) | AGITATE · GRAM |
| FDA, FCC, or FAA, for instance · Camels’ watering hole | REGULATOR · OASIS |
| Three-part Buddhist scripture · Third dimension | TRIPITAKA · DEPTH |
| Columns |
|---|
| Nazgûl, for instance (The Nine) | 9 |
| Occupants of 13-Down (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences) | 12 |
| Sutherland series (Kiefer, specifically) | 24 |
| Nelson, in sports (cricket, specifically) | 111 |
| Who to call in an emergency, in much of the world | 112 |
| Erstwhile Lotus software | 123 |
| Erstwhile Nintendo hardware | 64 |
| ← | 8 |
| ___ up | 7 |
| Theme of an early meta in Mystery Hunt 2015 (Machine Room) | 9 |
| This Saturday (January 16, US style) | 116 |
| 2009 stimulus act, officially (Public Law 111-5) | 1115 |
| Longtime tallest building in Cambridge (Green Building) | 54 |
| ___ square | 4 |
| Fincher film (Se7en) | 7 |
Filled in, the grid depicts a bed and the numeral 3, indicating that the puzzle’s answer is the three-letter word BED.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
|---|
| 1 |
T | R | I | A | G | E | | U | P | S | | | | M | A |
|---|
| 2 |
A | I | N | T | | | | S | A | H | E | L | | A | M |
|---|
| 3 |
N | O | | | S | O | | A | V | E | R | | | N | O |
|---|
| 4 |
| | | S | A | W | | G | L | E | A | M | | H | E |
|---|
| 5 |
| B | E | L | T | | | E | O | N | | | | O | B |
|---|
| 6 |
| S | H | Y | | | | | V | A | N | I | L | L | A |
|---|
| 7 |
| D | | | P | A | D | | | | | D | I | E | |
|---|
| 8 |
| | | H | U | G | O | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| 9 |
| | | A | T | E | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| 10 |
| L | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| 11 |
| A | L | L | | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|
| 12 |
| R | U | E | D | | | | | | | | W | E | |
|---|
| 13 |
A | G | I | T | A | T | E | | | | G | R | A | M | |
|---|
| 14 |
R | E | G | U | L | A | T | O | R | | O | A | S | I | S |
|---|
| 15 |
T | R | I | P | I | T | A | K | A | | D | E | P | T | H |
|---|
Author’s Notes
It turns out that it’s hard but feasible to draw a pixel art bed that also makes a reasonable nonogram and a reasonable crossword. I briefly tried having the letters form the bed and the black squares form the background, but avoiding too many 1-letter or 15-letter across entries meant the bed came out rather blobby and hard to identify. Testsolvers suggested it would be more like a nonogram if the across and down clues referenced the same squares, which may also have worked. My original idea was vague about extraction — it could have been the standard mechanism of an unclued across entry — but the editors came back with an answer that could be drawn out on a grid.
The NO/NO/GRAM clues were included to perhaps help break into those corners of the grid rather than to give away the mechanic, as I figured it would be hard to get that far in the puzzle without realizing what the down entries are. There are a few clues I cut, including “You might make croissants with it” for 14-Down: the French word for oven is four, a fact which was used in a previous Mystery Hunt metameta.
Combining a crossword and a nonogram has been done before, although I hadn’t personally seen it in any hunt I’d been in. In fact, though, while I had the idea for this puzzle months earlier, shortly after it was written and testsolved the April 2020 CMU hunt featured a puzzle called Nonogram Crossword.