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Solution to Falling Into Place

Authors: Kevin G. Der and Roger Hanna Morash

The puzzle is presented as a game of Tetris with the following changes:

  • Each block in a tetris piece contains either a letter or a black square.
  • In addition to the standard game controls, the letters within the tetris piece can be rotated without changing the piece's orientation.
  • A crossword-style clue and a graphical representation of an answer word are shown. The length and horizontal orientation of the word is displayed. Occasionally, one or more of the letter spaces will be highlighted.

Correctly spelling the current answer word within the tetris board, bounded by either empty space, the board walls, or black squares, will advance to the next clue. Simultaneously, a vertical entry with its clue is revealed, but the answer is not given. Completing all the horizontal answer words will end the game.

The horizontal answer words are given alphabetically by clue. Dying will revert backwards one horizontal answer word. Completing a tetris will reveal the next letter in the graphical representation of the answer word to be spelled, starting at the beginning. After the game ends, the solver must realize the answer words can be used to rebuild a crossword. The answer words and their clues are shown below in final output order, with newest at the top.

Determining the vertical answers and reassembling the crossword using the highlighted squares as a guide yields the result below. Each of the standard 7 tetris pieces appears twice as black square groups. The entries from tetris must be placed in the grid according to their original orientation, i.e. horizontally or vertically. The highlighted letters (top right, middle, and bottom left) spell PRIME CLUE HEADS.

PRIME CLUE HEADS instructs the solver to look at the clues with prime numbers and read the first letters. The numbers to the clues can be obtained with standard crossword square numbering. The first letters of the prime numbered clues, when read in the standard crossword order (across clues, then down clues), spell LETTERS THAT TOUCH 2 PIECES.

Following those instructions, find those letters touching two tetris pieces in the crossword grid. Those letters, when read in order, spell SKYFALL OO AGENT, so the answer is JAMES BOND

The full solution with the resulting clues and grids is here.