This is a 2-player, competitive hybrid of crossword puzzles and the game "Battleship" (see description at end).
Instead of a blank grid in which to hide your ships, both you and your opponent get crossword puzzles. (American-style, not "cryptic".) The puzzles should have similar layouts and similar difficulties. Each of you hides your five ships inside your crossword puzzle. Each player gets a copy of the opponent's crossword puzzle and its clues, and these are what you use to attack your opponent.
You take turns attacking each other by calling out a proposed solution to a clue in the puzzle. For example, "9-Across: ERASURE."
If the area covered by that word contains a ship _and_ the word is correct, the opponent announces "Hit." If the word was correct but there is no ship there, opponent will say "Correct". If you get the word wrong, he will just say "miss", and you won't know if there is a ship there or not.
The first player to sink all the opponent's ships is the winner.
The strategy for this game will be intense. You must choose where to hide your ships based on which clues you think are hardest for your opponent to guess.
Do you attack your opponent's easy clues first, even though you think there's no ship there, hoping those clues will help you with the harder words? Or do you go right for the jackpot?
Do you aim at long words first, or short ones? Long words are more likely to contain a ship, but it will be harder to pinpoint the ship's location.
======== (For those who don't know, in Battleship, two players have 10 x 10 grids in which they hide 5 rectangular "ships". Each player in turn attacks one coordinate square in the opponent's grid; say, by calling out "E-4", and the opponent informs him if it's a "hit" or a "miss". The first player to "sink" all the opponent's ships is the winner.)-- phundug, Dec 11 2003 American vs. British style crosswords http://thinks.com/faq/crosswords/q18.htm [krelnik, Oct 05 2004] 1 across: something capital emerges from the end of a friendship following a struggle. (10)-- pertinax, Jan 30 2007 The idea explicitly says "not cryptic". But that one's pretty obvious, given the context. Here's one that should be equally obvious: Early caveman's edged weapon is source of amusement (9)
Anyway, I want to play this. [+]-- notexactly, Jun 21 2019 You're right; I've changed it to make it slightly harder for the next person.-- pertinax, Jun 21 2019 //(American-style, not "cryptic".)//
I would argue that "The name of Chloe Kardashian's second poodle's butler" is just as cryptic as anything found in the Guardian.-- FlyingToaster, Jun 22 2019 Especially because if there's someone by the name of "Chloe Kardashian" (with a C), she's not a celebrity.-- notexactly, Jun 22 2019 random, halfbakery