What is an “extra” puzzle?

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Extras are the delightful oddballs of the puzzle world—everything that doesn’t fit neatly into the flat, form, cryptic crossword, or cryptogram boxes. Some are true one-of-a-kind creations, but most fall into a handful of familiar (and familiarly quirky) types.

Many extras challenge you to piece together a hidden message, and their names helpfully tell you how to do it:

The first part is the reconstruction method, it could be

• A prefix like ana-
• A word like shuffled
• Or a combo like stepped verti-

The second part lets you know what you’re looking for, such as

• Quote — words of wisdom (or wit) from someone quotable
• Quip — a punchy original joke, or a quote whose author is unknown
• Clue, flat, proverb, verse, phrase — exactly what they sound like

Quote-like puzzles generally lack tagging, although capitalized words are indicated. Each of these puzzles has a title that indirectly references the content; if you do not provide a title, the editor or extras editor will help. For some puzzles, there are length constraints. E. g., for anaquote, the length must be a multiple of 3. This is easier than it might seem, because the attribution can be full name, last name, or last name plus initial. And if the quote is from fictional media of any sort, it can be attributed the character instead.

Other types of extras include “something different” squares (which generally don’t include tagging), German sausages, printer’s devilries, and even mini-extravaganzas.