@TheNoah is trying to make cryptic crossnumbers a thing. This is my contribution. Note: for clues where the numbers are used for wordplay in the entry, I opted to mark the # of letters in the English word rather than the # of characters in the spelling with the number (e.g. SK8R would be (6) "skater" rather than (4)).
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1A: 45[th US pres] + caRd (at 3) + PM 4A: (LIVE)* [before] 1 (I) 5A: double definition (DIG IT / DIGIT) 1D: 4H + EA[ch] + D[ay]; forehead slap meaning “Duh!/Obvious!” 2D: 8 (12-4) in RING 3D: M[a]Y (lose A) + 1 (single) + (half) ST[ar]; “My 1st”/“My First” often used in products for children (“My First Trampoline”, “My First Chemistry Set”, etc.)
All the clues work! I hope you get featured. Also thanks for the shoutout. We’ve been trying to iron out the rules for combining the two puzzle-types on discord. Math-problem wordplay is going to be tough to standardize without a google doc or something of rules.
I got most of it. I was sure 1A was 453PM the name of some EP I’d never heard bc 2D started with 3 (4 out of 12 =4/12), but 12-4=8 makes logical sense too, and I really should’ve considered an 8ING word for how long I’ve been staring at the lists of words containing number-sounds.
Some thoughts on the puzzle genre. The ambiguous possible meanings of math clues makes it potentially harder than a normal cryptic, but maybe that’s just part of the fun of solving just the ambiguity in a tougher normal cryptic :). Like a clue starting with “Driving a 4X4 … “ could mean 4 times 4 =16, 4 times ten (Roman numeral) times 4=160, 4104, or something else and we just don’t stack multiple math operations together.
I’m so proud to have gotten 3 of the 6 correct. Definitely worth a feature. My one thought for making the cryptic crossnumbers more accessible is to highlight the squares with numbers in them. That may just be the novice in me however. Excited to see where people take this subgenre!
4A: (LIVE)* [before] 1 (I)
5A: double definition (DIG IT / DIGIT)
1D: 4H + EA[ch] + D[ay]; forehead slap meaning “Duh!/Obvious!”
2D: 8 (12-4) in RING
3D: M[a]Y (lose A) + 1 (single) + (half) ST[ar]; “My 1st”/“My First” often used in products for children (“My First Trampoline”, “My First Chemistry Set”, etc.)