PUZZLE #483
MOVING STAIRCASES 14
The two staircase-shaped halves of a “Moving Staircases” puzzle are designed to
be pushed together in two different ways, horizontally and vertically. A
horizontal push creates shorter words (“Shorts”), while a vertical push creates
longer words (“Longs”). The example above shows a completed grid and the grids
that result from pushing it both ways. The lists of clues given for the Shorts
and Longs are not in order; it’s up to you to determine where the answers go by
working back and forth between the two lists.Once you’ve completely filled out the grid, the FINAL ANSWER (a two-word
phrase or the name of a film from the early 2010s) will be hidden inside it; one of the words
is hidden horizontally (is it a Short or a Long? that’s up to you to find out!), while the other is
hidden vertically.
SHORTS• _____ and the Red Baron (Atari 2600 game based on the Peanuts comic)• Car add-on such as heated seats• Little lollipop• “Minute Waltz” composer Frédéric• Remove dried-on paint, perhaps• Reprimand• Xanadu actress Newton-John
LONGS
• 17th century platform shoe (anagram of ONE CHIP)• British billiards game with fifteen red balls• Do surgery, say• Full of fighting spirit, like the nephew of Scooby-Doo• One of just two landlocked countries in South America (Paraguay is the other one)• Vacuum cleaner’s force
Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I’m more likely to check the second one) and I’ll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you’ll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week’s puzzle, if you haven’t already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!