Let The Games Begin

**NOTE: There is nothing about the Olympics in this post. I just needed a title.

Once again, not much to report. It's late, and truth be told I've not been in much of a puzzle mood lately. I swear I do have some interesting musings to share regarding things cruciverbal, but it always seems that come Monday night, once I've frantically rushed to finish the puzzle before midnight, I run out of time to properly articulate them. One of these weeks when it's not so darned nice outside... Rode lots of bike this weekend, and played a nice afternoon gig as well. First show with a newish jazz quartet; went much better than expected, but I got a bit turned around in the middle of our crazy salsa rendition of "Caravan." I have very little jazz -especially latin jazz- experience, but I'm learning fast (it's all sink or swim when it comes to playing, for me. I like to get in way over my head with new musical outfits and learn as I go, faking it till I make it).

In puzzle news, I must tip my hat to Joe Krozel, whose Friday NYT set a new record for fewest black squares (17!!). You could fill any wide-open grid with junk, of course, but I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of the fill in this one. Plus, that 92.44% white grid is absolutely terrifying when you first see it as a solver. This puzzle deserves to hold the record, IMO.

Neat grid today (12x17 and asymmetrical), but no real pyrotechnics. Tried for a smooth, solid, knock-down-drag-out themeless. Lots of wide open whitespace, with reasonably clean fill at the expense of spicy entries. Started with 13- and 14-Across stacked, and filled the top from there. Originally had a symmetric grid with a wide-open middle, but I couldn't get good enough fill in the bottom stack, so I tried moving 13-Across' other half to its current vertical position on a whim, and it worked. Plus, I got to play with both the fat corner and the 3 and a half stack in the top. I have a strange fondness for themeless grids comprised predominantly or entirely of straight horizontal lines of squares, so I was happy that the top stack filled so well with that arrangement.

Oh, and 14-Across is courtesy of one of the Meta winners. Name on the solutions page.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #15
Rating: XW-G, believe it or not
Difficulty: Very difficult. This one's got teeth.

Download the PDF file here and the PUZ file here, or solve or download the Across Lite puzzle and/or software from the embedded app below.

Tuesday already?!

This summer's starting to heat up. Aside from being sweltering and humid most of the time (and storming when it's not), this next month is going to be crazy busy. Folk Fest is coming up (I volunteer there every year so I can come and go as I please, and I always end up spending the entire weekend either laying on the grass absorbing the music, working and absorbing the music, or whooping it up till all hours of the night (there's music then, too)), as is a camping trip to Good Spirit Lake (smores, bitches), and a few gigs with a few different bands (haven't been playing much this summer, aside from practices, so it'll be good to shake the booties again). As for puzzles, I'll still be posting one a week, of course, but maybe don't expect anything too adventurous for the next month. I won't let the quality suffer in favour of heavy-handed cracks at half-baked, underdeveloped ideas or ridiculous grids. I'll save those for cooler weather.

Kind of a weird puzzle today. 15x16 grid, for one, and with unconventional symmetry. I originally developed the theme to work within a more typical layout: 4 long theme answers, symmetrically placed. Theme development is by far the most time-intensive part of constructing, for me. Although filling and cluing the puzzle took only an afternoon or so once I had everything in place, I let this one percolate for a few weeks after devising the initial notion of it, and eventually I decided to add another layer to the theme (hopefully it doesn't come across as unnecessary clutter). This necessitated a left-right symmetrical grid, however, and shorter theme answers, since I couldn't find any longer entries that worked nearly as well, and couldn't find a matching 16-letter entry for the one on the bottom. Interesting, I thought, that shorter theme answers yielded a more rich theme. At just 40 theme squares this puzzle's a little on the light side by the numbers, but I think it packs a bit of a punch. Maybe you'll hate it, though? Let me know if you do!

P.S.: 49-Down: do you Americans know this song? That shit's everywhere at the moment, here in Sask.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Really Packing It In
Difficulty: Not too terribly tricky, I don't think
Rating: XW-MA

Download the PDF file here and the PUZ file here, or solve or download the Across Lite puzzle and/or software from the embedded app below.

Back to reality

NOTE: For the sake of solvers who may have missed last week's contest, the solution is on a separate page (see the tabs above). The write-up below gives nothing away about the puzzle or meta answer.

Month of Metas Wrap-up

15 solvers out of 26 submitted the correct answer to the fourth meta, but only one can win. By random selection, this week's winner is Alex Jeffrey. Alex wins the chance to request a clue and/or answer for an upcoming Cross Nerd puzzle. Congrats, Alex!

Now, what you've all been waiting for...the grand prize winner of the Cross Nerd Month of Metas contest! Believe it or not, just two solvers submitted correct answers to all four puzzles. However, only one can win, and the coin fell in favour of Brandon Hensley (the solver who submitted the ingenious Befunge implementation of the second puzzle). Brandon will win an as-yet-undecided-upon puzzle book (we're in talks) and possibly some additional swag, Regina SK souvenirs, etc. Now, I would have been chuffed to bits to have anyone at all solve all four metas, and I was chuffed to smithereens to have two perform that feat, so I felt I would be remiss to not honour the other solver. Howard Barkin of ACPT solving fame was the other solver that went 4 for 4, and for his efforts he will receive an additional weekly prize (the clue/entry selection). Congratulations Brandon and Howard!

Many thanks to all the solvers who took time out of their undoubtedly busy schedules (especially if it's a busy schedule of other puzzles) to solve and submit answers! I received an unexpected amount of interest and positive feedback about these puzzles, so I'd say this was a success, despite the few hiccups along the way. I'd like to run a few more metas at some point, but it is a fair amount of extra work and we're heading into festival/camping season here so don't expect them for a month or two. In the meantime, I'll keep preparing themed and unthemed weekly puzzles for y'all. Hope you can join me.

This Week's Puzzle

Today I have for you a 13x13 themeless. Small puzzle, and only 48 words. Cluing was refreshingly breezy and quick, but the grid put up a bit of a fight. I actually set out to make an asymmetrical grid, or at least a grid that could be completely dictated by the entries that worked the best. Started with 18- and 19-Across stacked, threw them into their current position, and started building. The top came pretty easily, and I had a great grid-spanner in 8-Down. After a ton of promising but ultimately fruitless starts in the bottom, I discovered that the symmetrical grid worked best. I'm sure there's a great bottom half somewhere in a better wordlist, but the combinations of entries and black squares that I tried gave me nothing as clean as the final product (admittedly, there are still a few rough patches). The most difficult part of making this puzzle was deciding what to use as a seed or bridge entry into the next section, since there are so many long answers that depend on one another. Practice, practice, practice.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #14

Rating: XW-MA

Difficulty: Quite difficult

Download the PDF file here and the PUZ file here, or solve or download the Across Lite puzzle and/or software from the embedded app below.

Peter Fucked Up

If you missed the update added to the meta 4/4 post earlier today, here's the Coles Notes version:

I made a small but significant oversight when constructing puzzle #4, and didn't catch it in time. So today was pretty agonizing, as I was stuck at work knowing that the puzzle was flawed (but easily fixable), yet unable to do anything about it. The upshot is that I've had all day to dwell on it and figure out the best way to handle this awkward situation. My initial reaction was to repost the puzzle with the mistake corrected, but, since a number of visitors had already solved the puzzle and submitted answers, doing that would mean that solvers are competing for the same prize but solving different puzzles. I can't have that, so I'll just have to suck it up and accept that it's a flawed meta.

However, things could be worse: a few solvers have already submitted the correct answer (and have proven that they fully comprehended why it's the correct answer), so, flawed as it is, the meta is still demonstrably solvable. Because of that fact, I'm going to leave the puzzle as is and continue on like normal, with one exception:

If, once you see the solution and the error that I made (to be posted Sunday night, after the contest closes), you truly believe that you would have gotten the answer but for the error, send me an e-mail to let me know. I'll trust you and count your solution as correct. If it messes up the proper selection of a sole winner, I'll compensate with additional prizes.
Sound reasonable? If you have a better idea to make it fair, let me know.

Month of Metas 4/4

NOTE: For the sake of solvers who may have missed last week's contest, the solution is on a separate page (see the tabs above). The write-up below gives nothing away about the puzzle or meta answer.

Week 3 Wrap-up

8 solvers (out of 27) submitted the correct answer to the third meta, but only one can win. By random selection, this week's winner is Tanya Gevaert. Tanya wins the chance to request a clue and/or answer for an upcoming Cross Nerd puzzle. Big ups, Tanya!

Miscellaneous Xword News

Cross Nerd (and every puzzle you throw at him) solver Erik Agard has constructed a series of 14 new puzzles, available free on his website, the wonderfully named "Anoa Place (where we can go)". I've only solved a couple so far, but I like what I see. You'll probably like them too: they've got tight themes, snazzy entries, and - my favourite part - delightfully playful clues. Give 'em a solve!

This Week's Puzzle

This week I have for you the final puzzle of the Month of Metas series. That said, it's likely that I will run more metas or puzzles of a meta-like nature (don't know about another contest, though). Themeless for next week, however, since we're long overdue for one of those.

As I mentioned last week, I unfortunately had to swap week 3 and week 4. Hope no one minded too much. Last week's puzzle turned out to be about as tough as I had intended when it was week 4, so that's something, but I do feel bad about weeding out so many solvers on, technically, week 3. Sorry, still working out the kinks here at the Cross Nerd.

Meta Contest Overview: There will be four metas in total, one each week. Each week, one winner will be randomly chosen from the list of solvers with the correct answer to the previous week's puzzle. They will win the opportunity to suggest an entry and/or clue for a future Cross Nerd puzzle, and will bring honour to their family and their country. At the end of the four weeks, any solvers that answered all four metas correctly will be entered into a draw to win untold riches, most likely in the form of a puzzle book or two (haven't decided yet, but seriously probably something around a $25 value).

Week 4 Instructions: This week's contest answer is a famous character of literature and film. This is week 4, but this puzzle was originally conceived as week 3, so it's a bit easier than last week, but no walk in the park. Send an e-mail with the answer in the subject line to peter.bananarchy[at symbol goes here]gmail[dot]com by 11:59pm CST on Sunday, July 15.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.


ALERT: I've discovered a small, stupid oversight I made in this puzzle, which may slightly affect the solving experience. I'll try to change it as soon as possible, but my hands are tied at the moment; at very latest, it'll be changed by supper time. You may want to wait until it's been updated.

Puzzle: The Digital Divide
Rating: XW-PG13

Download the PDF file here and the PUZ file here, or solve or download the Across Lite puzzle and/or software from the embedded app below.

Month of Metas 3/4

NOTE: For the sake of solvers who may have missed last week's contest, the solution is on a separate page (see the tabs above). The write-up below gives nothing away about the puzzle or meta answer.

Week 2 Wrap-up

So week 2 may have actually been easier than week 1 for most solvers. I'm going purely off of solvers' comments, since the numbers don't really tell me anything. The correct : incorrect ratio was slightly (but not much) higher this time, but the sample size is pretty small in both cases (it's late and I don't really feel like doing stats, so let's just assume that the difference is not significant). Also, I noticed that a number of solvers that submitted answers for week 1 did not submit for week 2, while a number of new solvers showed up after week 1, so our populations are different (and certainly not randomly sampled - last week most came from crosswordfiend, while this week most came from MGWCC). To hell with the stats, let's get to the winner:
56 solvers out of 59 submitted correct answers this week, but only one of them can win. By random selection, this week's winner is Peter Gwinn. Congrats, Peter.

A huge thanks to Matt Gaffney for directing a lot of new solvers my way. Throughout the past week I had the pleasure of chatting with a number of puzzlers whom I had never met before as their answers rolled in. Y'all come back now!

Miscellaneous Xword News

I've just joined the team of "Litzers" for the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project. The goal is to digitize every NYT puzzle since the dawn of time (February 15, 1942, in this case). Currently, every puzzle from the Shortz era (beginning in Nov of '93) is available in digital form for analysis and perusal at XWord Info, but the best we've got are PDFs for the considerable pre-Shortzian catalog. The project was started back in '99 by Barry Haldiman and fizzled out after a number of years, but has just recently been revived by David Steinberg. If you'd like to get involved, hit up the site and drop David a line.

This Week's Puzzle

So I've decided to swap around weeks 3 and 4. The main reason is that I felt I needed to revamp the week 3 puzzle this weekend, and haven't had time to finish it yet. Plus, considering it's Canada Day long weekend here, the title of this puzzle made it too appropriate to not run it. This means that you'll notice a significant increase in difficulty from the last puzzle (which seems to have been too easy for a week 2 anyway). Don't worry, though, the next one will be tricky as well; no more Mr. Nice Constructor.

Meta Contest Overview: There will be four metas in total, one each week. Each week, one winner will be randomly chosen from the list of solvers with the correct answer to the previous week's puzzle. They will win the opportunity to suggest an entry and/or clue for a future Cross Nerd puzzle, and will bring honour to their family and their country. At the end of the four weeks, any solvers that answered all four metas correctly will be entered into a draw to win untold riches, most likely in the form of a puzzle book or two (haven't decided yet, but seriously probably something around a $25 value).

Instructions: This week's contest answer is a brand of alcohol. This is week 3, but this puzzle was originally conceived as week 4, so it's a bit of a toughie. Send an e-mail with the answer in the subject line to peter.bananarchy[at symbol goes here]gmail[dot]com by 11:59pm CST on Sunday, July 8.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Take the Day Off and Get Stoned
Rating: XW-MA

Download the PDF file here and the PUZ file here, or solve or download the Across Lite puzzle and/or software from the embedded app below.