GC SF Sp WH BV YL BT CP SA CB CC Back to puzzle

Big Top Carnival

Plinko

by Martin Reinfried, Justin Graham (initial concept and design)
Answer: STONE WEIGHT

The story is made up of many cryptic crossword style clues strung together. In the top row, the divisions must be deduced, but the arrows start roughly in the middle of the clue, which gives a hint about where they start and end. The answers follow the arrows and are inserted in the blanks further down, which also give enumerations. Those enumerations, and the flow of the story, will help to solve the clues. In lower rows, the arrows passing through provide barriers for the clues.

The top row breaks down as follows:

  • Criminal allegorist, statesman = LEGISLATOR (ALLEGORIST anagram)
  • reportedly brutal leader and prisoner = CON (KHAN homophone)
  • Ian, alit in a bad state from Rome = ITALIAN (Ian alit anagram)
  • to the heart of America, starts to create havoc, burn = TORCH (to + ameRica + C + H)
  • people in charge with ammunition and clipped verse = LEADERS (LEAD + vERSe)

The second row:

  • Home run for revolutionary press: beta = BOMB (MOB reversed + B)
  • broadcast of action around Kent non-stop = DECLARED (DEED around CLARk)
  • Frenetic Ian, right inside near duplex = BINARY (INA + R inside BY)
  • escaped, felt extraordinary = LEFT (FELT anagram)
  • grievance. Target, Ian has focus changed to oldtowns, primarily = OBJECTION (OBJECT + IAN with center changed to O)
  • Eagle, Phoenix, and more areas without constant resistance = LANDERS (LANDS around E + R)

The third row (with blanks filled):

  • Landers, a LEGISLATOR, represents East Coast city = ANNAPOLIS (ANN + A + POL + IS)
  • Threatening CON, holding hostage center of city, LEFT instruction = DIRECTION (DIRE + CON around IT reversed)
  • a BINARY one with bad ITALIAN = BIT (B + IT)
  • TORCH genuine (extremely) explosive or a price to be paid = CHARGE (CHAR + GE)
  • High and legit, exalted LEADERS name = HANDLE (H + AND + L + E)

The fourth row is a bit different, in that there are groupings used again later. Starting with the innermost groups:

  • BOMB: note DIRECTION = MINE (MI + NE)
  • LANDERS BIT down, DECLARED = ANNOUNCED (ANN + OUNCE + D)
  • OBJECTION: BOMB’s cover reversed CHARGE = BEEF (B + FEE reversed)

The next grouping, using the result of one of the innermost groupings:

  • small HANDLE giving access to MINE = SHAFT (S + HAFT)

The next grouping first combines MINE and SHAFT, yielding:

  • head over for small MINE SHAFT = PIT (TIP reversed)

The next grouping contains that entire result:

  • SEAL from ANNAPOLIS to PIT = STOP (annapoliS TO Pit)

The last two are again combined first to produce PIT STOP, and the other two answers from the innermost groupings fall down to this level, making the phrase PIT STOP ANNOUNCED BEEF. The grouping below that uses only the final three words, so:

  • STOP ANNOUNCED BEEF = WEIGHT (homophone of WAIT)

The final grouping uses the result of that:

  • PIT WEIGHT = STONE (Double definition)

Those last two answers are then combined, making the answer STONE WEIGHT

Background and Credits

Martin Reinfried writes:
Thank you to Justin Graham for fleshing out an idea of mine, testing it, and helping to come up with the general look of the puzzle.

I wrote this puzzle sort of by accident. Initially, Justin Graham was working on a different puzzle for this answer, and he was looking for help with a cryptic crossword clue that solved to the solution, Stone Weight. It occurred to me that stone was itself a weight, which prompted me to write what I called a nested cryptic crossword clue, where one section of the original clue solved to Weight and also fed down to create another clue including the word Weight that solved to Stone, combined to form Stone Weight.

Justin asked if I had ever considered making an entire clue based on the nested cryptic concept. That intrigued me, and when Justin decided he didn’t really have the bandwidth to write his original idea or write a nested cryptic puzzle on his own, I took a stab at it.

My first attempt had just one line of text that fed down through several nested cryptics to the final answer, but Justin convinced me that it would look cooler if there were multiple lines and more arrows feeding in many directions. I think his concept was to have text all over the place, even rotated and from the sides, but I came up with the concept of Plinko for Big Top Carnival, and I also liked the idea of trying to write a vaguely coherent story, so I wrote it to feed down. The rest of the clues weren’t nested per se, but it came to have enough bending and feeding arrows to look enough like a Plinko game, where Stone Weight came to represent the nature of the Plinko chip.