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TUESDAY PUZZLE — The board game Clue was invented in the 1940s and was intended chiefly as a wartime distraction for Britons experiencing air-raid blackouts. Since then, however, it has developed significant cultural influence: A 1985 film of the same name is a cult classic; tropes of gameplay are the subject of contemporary satire; flashes of the board’s campy dinner-party theatrics have appeared in more recent films such as “Knives Out” and its sequel, “Glass Onion.”

It might be said that today’s crossword, constructed by Michèle Govier, contains its own nod to the game. The stakes of this puzzle, by contrast, are thankfully benign, but solving it makes for delightful detective work. We should dive in posthaste, though — I’m so eager to explain the grid that I already have “flames, flames on the side of my face.”

Today’s Theme

Looking at the grid, solvers may note that each vertical cluster of circled letters seems to zig and zag ever so slightly. At 62-Across, we’re told that these circles represent a certain expression meaning “Space to maneuver.” I recommend cracking a few entries elsewhere in the grid before returning to this clue since the circled terms we’re looking for are spread among so many entries, both Down and Across.

In the bottom left corner, the circles spell PANTRY. Toward the bottom right corner, we answer a handful of clues to get ATTIC. At this point, I became fairly confident that the second word in the revealer was ROOM. And what do these strings of circles do? They WIGGLE. Ha! See if you can uncover the remaining WIGGLE ROOMs (62A) on your own: There’s a PARLOR, LOUNGE and STUDY left to find.

Tricky Clues

10A. In clues like this one — “Self-care?” — always mind the question mark. It tends to indicate a different interpretation from the one that’s most obvious. Here, the clue refers to a state of caring purely about oneself — i.e., EGO.

31A. Longtime members of the gig economy may be less accustomed to seeing the abbreviation that means “Since Jan. 1, on pay stubs”: Y.T.D. is short for “year to date.”

42A. “Musical speeds,” more often than not, take the Italian plural form in puzzles. They are TEMPI here, as opposed to tempos.

46A. Don’t get thrown off by the digital lexicon suggested by “Auto setting.” This clue is simply asking for a place with cars. It’s a STREET.

68A. Only with the help of crossing entries did I manage to make sense of “This + vertical line = dollar sign.” A vertical line strikes the letter ESS to form the $ symbol.

3D. At some point, every new solver learns the unspoken Law of Crosswordese, which dictates that the constructor may add suffixes like “-er” or “-ed” to just about any word. “One doing impersonations” apes, and is therefore an APER.

7D. The “Romanian currency” is the LEU, though the country has contemplated adopting the euro.

21D. “‘Still ahead …’ and ‘Coming up next …’” are examples of TEASES “in broadcast lingo,” often heard between news segments.

Constructor Notes

Hello, I am excited to have my second puzzle in The New York Times. This one is pure silliness, but I really liked the wiggle motion of the circled letters.

It was a little trickier than expected to construct, given that, to avoid duplication, I could not use the many — many! — rooms with the word “room” in them. So I had to dig a little deeper into the category (playing Clue as a kid helped).

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