Trivial Matters

Been busy lately with a new sorta-puzzle-related project. A few friends and I will be hosting a pub trivia night, beginning this Sunday evening. If you're in the greater Regina area (extremely unlikely), come on out to The Lancaster at 19:00. Anyway, gotta get back to it, so that's all I'll say for now. Enjoy the latest freestyle; it was my submission for the final Post Puzzler themeless contest, but it wasn't picked. I'm reasonably happy with it, though, so I figured it wouldn't be nice to keep it all to myself.

More words, crossed and otherwise, whenever I feel like it.

Puzzle: Freestyle #37
Downloads:
PDF
PUZ

Move It On Over

Yikes, only one puzzle left after today!  I'm of course hoping to make it extra special, but then I don't really have any good ideas as to how I'm going to do that yet.  Plus, I'll be moving into my new apartment next weekend, so time will be tight.  Super stoked on that; I've been living in houses with roommates for the last 4+ years, so it will be nice to have my own space for a change.

Just another freestyle this week.  Quite tough, if you ask me.

Parting words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.


Puzzle: Freestyle #23
Rating: XW-PG
Difficulty: Quite tough
Downloads:
PUZ
PDF

Keeping Austin Weird

After a short but action-packed vacay in TeAustxas, I'm back in business.  Hope the double-header from a fortnight ago and the many brilliant puzzles available at the sites listed in the sidebar tided you over.  I was excited to share some stories, but:
a) it's no longer fresh in my mind,
b) the whole trip was kind of a blur while it was happening anyway, and
c) it's 2:37am local time and I have work in the morning.

In lieu of stories proper, here are some miscellaneous highlights: Napalm Death (whose drummer ran offstage to barf, and came back to play the fastest song in the set), Between the Buried and Me, wearing sandals in the mosh pit like a boss, Deerhoof, lots of free beer, feeling oddly like a millionaire riding around downtown in pedicabs, Saul Williams, sticking a dollar bill on a girl's arm with a staplegun (that was her way of busking - Austin's a weird place), travelling across the continent to meet new friends that live in my home town, Deathfix, lots of tacos, and many more.

Today's puzzle went through a number of revisions and one complete rewrite.  Had the grid about half-filled on Sunday.  I jumped on the computer Monday morning to finish it up, but opted to tackle BEQ's themeless first, which I was shocked to discover contained one of the 11-letter entries I had used in one of my stacks.  It's been used before, but it's distinctive enough that I couldn't bring myself to use it only a day after BEQ, and since changing it would have necessitated a nearly complete rewrite, I shelved the puzzle and started anew (in case you hadn't noticed, I'm not dropping the entry in this write-up so that I can use the puzzle for a future post).  

Oh, and you'll see a name you may not recognize in the byline.  That's my buddy Drew, a fellow cruciverbal enthusiast and Cross Nerd solver, who helped with the cluing (and contributed 30-Down, probably the best clue in the puzzle).

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Freestyle #22
Rating: XW-18A
Difficulty: Fairly torturous
Downloads:

PUZ
PDF

Bitch, bitch, bitch

Thanks to all who gave feedback on last week's vowelless for giving feedback on last week's vowelless.  It was my first one, and there are definitely things I'll do differently next time.  For starters, I'll try not to underestimate the difficulty of even slightly misleading clues in a vowelless puzzle.  Straightforward clues for straightforward answers in a squeaky-clean grid is where it's at, I'm learning.

As for this week's puzzle, it's yet another freestyle (read: stand-in for a theme that I couldn't think of).  Not terribly happy with this one, but mostly because of a few Natick-y crossings.  Too much paintballing and watching movies this weekend and not enough constructing, and I guess tackling a 66-word grid with less than a day before it goes live was a little too audacious.  Although I was happy with most of the individual entries, I didn't pay enough attention to some of the crossings in the grid.  For instance, the already-difficult 25-Down crosses a few difficult names, so sorry about that.  I erred on the easy side for the clues, to try and balance things out a bit.  Some fun entries in there, but I tried to keep the cluing relatively sane.  Overall, though, this puzzle lacks the consistency and structural integrity that I look for in a good freestyle grid.  I'll come up with some cool theme or other to make up for it next week, or something.

Oh, and lastly, just in time for Tuesday, see "Looper" immediately if you haven't already.  It's astonishing.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Freestyle #21
Rating: XW-14A
Difficulty: Some tough words, but not too much trickery
Downloads:
PUZ
PDF

What this is ... or, the number of used car lot gorilla mascots on the sidewalk?

For the answer to clue above, read on.  For now, happy belated Columbus Day, Canadian Thanksgiving, or plain old Monday, depending on your situation.  I spent the long weekend getting fat by driving to Edmonton and Grande Cache and stuffing my face with lasagna, a couple Grandma feasts, and fast food.  No Turkey this year; I approved.

Grande Cache is about 12 hours from Regina.  Luckily, my new shipment of puzzle books arrived last week.  I picked up Bob Klahn's "The Wrath of Klahn," BEQ's diagramless book, and Frank Longo's vowelless book.  I'm especially digging the vowelless; so much so that I made my own over the weekend.  I liked working with the format a lot.  It's kind of like what I wish constructing a themeless were always like: tons of long entries, and the fun stuff can be plunked in with alacrity because there are few if any worries about the shorter crossing fill.  Since you fill in only the consonants and omit the vowels, many of the shorter entries can be expanded into several different words/phrases so you can avoid initialisms, abbreviations, and awkward partials, generally.  No longer are SDS, MSS, and RBS arcane abbrevs.  Now they're I SAID SO, MEIOSIS, and AIRBASE.  What's more, there are fewer possible entries of any given length (since we're working with fewer letters) but more acceptable entries. Also interesting is the difference in lengths between original and devoweled entries, so I tried to play this up a bit in the puzzle.  As an aside (SNSD), here are some stats: in my wordlist, the greatest difference between lengths is 13, for both TDNTMNTHNGFTNTGTTHTSWNG and PRLDTTHFTRNNFFN, and the greatest original/devoweled ratio is exactly 3, for DDDDD, RNDN, BGWG, WKPD, NMTP, and RPRP.  As a hint, the 2 long ones are songs, and DDDDD can be 2 different songs (original entries (highlight the following text to view): IT DONT MEAN A THING IF IT AINT GOT THAT SWING, PRELUDE TO THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN, I DO I DO I DO I DO I DO/DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO (an ABBA hit and a Rolling Stones hit subtitled "Heartbreaker," respectively), EERIE INDIANA (a TV show), BOOGIE WOOGIE, WOOKIEEPEDIA (a Star Wars wiki), ONOMATOPOEIA, and EUROPA EUROPA (a German film)).

This is all constructing hedonism, really, but the process wasn't entirely as smooth as I just made it out to be.  I may have gotten overzealous with a few of the sections, as a few entries are weak, and one in particular (29-Across) is almost, but not quite, made up.  It seemed legit at first and a quick Googling confirms its existence outside of this grid, but on closer inspection it doesn't really work in any conventional grammatical sense and seems restricted to a fairly specific area of kinesiology.  Sorry about that; I tried to make the surrounding clues as straightforward as possible.

One thing I noticed is that the grids in Longo's book tend to be nearly homogeneous with straightforward-sounding entries that you've heard maybe a handful of times in your life and certainly have never said yourself.  Whether that's by design or a consequence of Longo's terrifyingly open fifty-something-word grids I can't say for sure; it's likely both.  Although they may not be everyday phrases, nearly every entry makes perfectly obvious sense, once you parse the bizarre consonant strings, which is definitely helpful in a wide-open vowelless puzzle.  Whereas guys like BEQ, Peter Gordon, and Matt Jones (all of whom create great themelesses) tend to write puzzles that require you to be alternatingly erudite and hip to crack, I lump Frank Longo in with themeless mavens like Todd McClary, Brad Wilber, Doug Peterson, et al. whose grids are full of crazy entries that are nevertheless very inferrable (with the right clue, of course).  I tend to prefer the latter types of grids; when you can infer an off-the-wall entry you feel a sort of deja-vu-like familiarity with it, which produces a unique feeling of pride in one's perspicacity, IMO.  While it may be fun to uncover from the crossings, a cryptic-looking entry from an unfamiliar avenue of pop culture doesn't quite elicit the same response.

Back to vowellesses.  Although this one is a themeless puzzle, I think the vowelless format offers up unique new theme opportunities.  I haven't done too much brainstorming yet, but right away I liked the idea that one entry can be two or more different phrases.  For instance, the answer to the clue in the post title could be (highlight to show): PST TTL (Post title, or Apesuit total).  That's a tricky one, but what about ["Say something, Ms. Middleton" ... or, "Be very quiet, musicians"?] for:  PPPPPP ("Pipe up, Pippa" or a hypothetical sextuple-piano score marking).  I'll work on developing a themed vowelless for a future post.  Constructors, in the interim feel free to steal and run with the idea.  I'd rather inspire someone else to do the hard work than do it myself, naturally.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Oh, if you're new to vowelless puzzles here's the skinny:

• Enter the answers as you normally would, except only write the consonants.  
• Use every white square; don't leave blanks for the vowels.
• To eliminate some ambiguity, no entry, original or vowelless, includes the letter Y.  
• Watch for common short words with one consonant.  N can be ON, IN, ONE, etc., F can be OF, and T can be OUT, TO, ATE, etc.  It's tricky at first, but it comes easier with some practice.  
• If you want some hints, the enumerations (number of letters/word in the entry) are provided in PDF format below.  Commas denote spaces between words, while hyphens denote hyphens.  
• Good luck!

Puzzle: Vowelless #1
Rating: XW-18A
Difficulty: Mostly gimme clues, but some tough entries and it's a vowelless, so pretty difficult
Downloads:
PUZ
PDF
Hint sheet (enumerations)
Full answers

Rider Pride

Sorry about the missing write-up last week (assuming anyone actually reads these).  Finished writing the puzzle at like 2am and I didn't have it in me to come up with anything to write.  I came up with the theme entries a few days earlier and shelved them, then on Sunday afternoon suddenly and inexplicably became interested in trying to make a Marching Bands puzzle.  Having never made one before, I had no idea what to expect in terms of time input, so I came up with the brilliant idea to just spend the time writing a PERL script to fill one using my wordlist.  Since I was already working with a puzzle format that I was almost entirely unfamiliar with, I guess it seemed like a good idea to try and codify the construction rules using a language I'm just learning.  Not surprisingly, the whole plan went down in flames.  It turns out that the Marching Bands format presents a challenge not encountered when writing a crossword-filling program (which I've done in the past): there's no way to know in advance how many entries will fit in each band, or where the entries begin and end in each band and row.  While certainly not intractible, this problem proved a little too difficult to solve in the very limited time I had left myself.  Actually, I got it mostly working, but there were a few bugs that I didn't have time to squash.  So, I busted out the theme answers I had prepared earlier at 6:30 Monday evening and got to work filling the grid and writing close to 100 clues.  Turned out surprisingly ok (and props to Drew Lawn for inspiring the theme when by dropping the last theme answer in conversation a while back).  I doubt I've learned my lesson for good, but this week at least I finished in a comfortable amount of time.  And expect some Marching Bands in the future, though, Gods willing.

Oh, and one more thing about last week's puzzle.  I received an e-mail about an error in one of the clues, but I sort of anticipated that I would, so I figured I'd clear it up.  8-Down read [Sting wanted his, in "Money for Nothing"], which clues MTV.  But wait, wasn't Mark Knopfler the songwriter and vocalist for Dire Straits?  In fact, and I just learned this while cluing the puzzle, Sting was a guest vocalist on "Money for Nothing."  He sang the falsetto "I want my MTV" part during the intro (notice that it sounds almost identical to the refrain from "Don't Stand So Close To Me."  This was by design).  I struggled a bit with that clue, since Mark Knopfler actually wrote that line before Sting got involved, and I anticipated that no matter which one I went with some solvers would think I had made an error.  In retrospect, I should have just taken a different approach to the clue, but I thought it was a fun bit of trivia.  Oh, and here's a good source for all of this, btw.

In news not about me, Neville Fogarty's Friday puzzle was ___ing outstanding.  Hats off, Neville.  Humbling to see this caliber of stuff being put out by other young indies.

Plain-Jane 15x15 freestyle this week.  I'm happy that I was able to fill this grid reasonably cleanly, but I feel it's lacking in the sparkle department.  Maybe crossing my two seed entries in a difficult spot was ill-advised.  24-Down is a plug for Cross Nerd OG Parker Lewis, who selected the entry as his Month of Metas prize.  If you've found your way here, you're most likely a crossword junkie and have probably heard of it.  If not, take note.  I was inspired to put 35-Across in there while watching the riveting Riders-Lions game on Saturday night.  I worked a few summers as a groundskeeper with 35-Across, and his brother Chris, who's now a slotback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, was one of my frequent homework partners in 1st-year Engineering at the U of R.  He was on the Riders' roster for their '07 Grey Cup win, which was the same year that his brother played with the Stanley Cup-winning Ducks.  These sorts of things mean a lot in a city the size of Regina.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Freestyle #20
Rating: XW-14A
Difficulty: Tough

 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.

Puzzizzle

My man Parker Lewis has been working with the folks over at Puzzazz on a brand spanking new app for crossword lovers, through which you can solve puzzles from 29 different collections by 17 different constructors. Serious constructors, too: BEQ, Vic Fleming, Parker Lewis, Michael Wiesenberg, T Campbell, David Steinberg, Ian Livengood, Wayne Robert Williams, and Carla Frechette & Marya Doery, as well as cryptics by Mike Selinker, Todd Rew, Brian Greer (from The Guardian), and Wayne Robert Williams. Take a peep at what they've got. Also, if you're a constructor that's been itching to get some of your work into a published collection, hit 'em up for that too.

On to the puzzles. From the feedback I got, it sounds like people dug the weird puzzle last week. Glad to hear it; expect more. This week, though, I have for you a plain ol' freestyle (well, it's 12x17, but nothing special otherwise). Had to rush to fill the grid again this week, though amazingly not due to procrastination. I started a completely different grid with one of the seeds in this one and sunk a solid chunk of time trying to fill it. May have been too ambitious of a grid, though, because in the end there were far too many compromises in the fill for my liking. Scrapped it and whipped this one up in a rush this afternoon. A couple rough spots, but overall it's an improvement. Played it safe with the clues and tried to skew easy, but there may still be a natick-y square or two. Let me know what you think. Oh, and I'm starting to prefer "Freestyle" to "Themeless," so I'm making the switch.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Freestyle #19
Rating: XW-14A
Difficulty: On the easier side, for a themeless

**Update: Looks like the PDF download was broken this morning.  Not sure why, but it should be fixed now.

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.

 

Strictly Business

Just a 72/30 themeless today, with nothing too fancy in there. This week I was further behind on puzzle making than I've ever been. Didn't really start this one until Monday morning, but it didn't put up too much of a fight, thankfully. A couple hours on the grid, and maybe 5 or 6 for cluing (I'm a slow cluer, mostly because I get easily distracted when I start researching the entries). There are, of course, a few knots that I could've massaged out with a little more time, but I'm not unhappy with how it turned out. I worry that solvers may be stumped by a few Natick-y crossings, but I've tried to make everything as inferrable as possible.

Oh, and the clue and answer at 1-Across were provided by Peter Gwinn, one of the Month of Metas winners.

Lastly, I'm excited about a new indie puzzle series that drops on Wednesday, but I won't say anymore (mostly because I don't know much more) before it does.
***UPDATE: It is here and it is glorious. Congrats to Erik Agard on becoming the latest in the welcome wave of self-publishing indie constructors.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #18
Rating: XW-14A
Difficulty: Moderate, for a themeless

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.

Those Cultured Moose Javians

I like sleep a lot, but I rarely get enough of it during the week. So, on Friday, I fell asleep reading A Feast for Crows (that would have never happened if I was still on A Storm of Swords. That shit was gripping to the point of addiction, but the story's kind of in a slump now. Fellow Throne-philes, tell me it picks up again!) after work and woke up at midnight. Since I wasn't about to go out at that point and didn't feel like going back to sleep, I stayed up the whole night filling this week's grid. That was fortunate, really, because I don't know when I would have done it had I gone out carousing on Friday like I intended. The rest of the weekend was jampacked. Show with my band Ink Road on Saturday out at the beach, along with our BFFs Indigo Joseph and Fur Eel (indie rock fans, check 'em out. Barring implosions and/or "creative differences", both bands are poised to take over the world, and deservedly so. Indigo Joseph play intelligent and zany indie rock, while Fur Eel keep it tight and funky with grade-A chops. Where that young whippersnapper Travis Reshaur learned to play bass with such taste and maturity I'll never know). Camped out at the beach after a fair amount of whooping-it-up, nursed a hangover all morning, and then caught the matinee performance of Pirates of Penzance in Moose Jaw, of all places. It was extremely well done, and I've still got the "Modern Major-General" song stuck in my head. Capped off the weekend with a couple sets of tennis with my buddy Donnie. We're pretty evenly matched (i.e. he's almost as lousy as I am. Sorry Donnie), so it's always a good hit.

Oh, and thanks again to Erik Agard for the interview and guest puzzle last week.

On to today's puzzle. I seem to recall promising a themed puzzle for this week, but, to be honest, I've had a bit of writer's block lately. I'm having trouble coming up with solid and innovative theme ideas, and, once Friday rolled around and I still had nothing, I got to work on a themeless. Of course, any of the tried-and-true workhorse themes would do in a pinch, but my goal with this series is continual improvement. If I'm going to do a themed puzzle, I want it to be more original and clever than the last. If you'll permit me to toot my own horn for a minute, I think I've whipped up some neat themes here and I want the next one to be even better. While falling back on a themeless may seem like kind of a cop out, I also want the themelesses/freestyles to improve, so don't go thinking I've been slacking. It's a 15x15, believe it or not (17 themelesses and this is the first 15x15), with only 66 words (my first sub-70!). There are a few questionable entries, but nothing too dodgy and overall I'm pretty darn happy with the fill. Wish I could have avoided the "helper" squares and squeezed one or two of the meta contest-winners' entries in this one (god knows I tried), but neither were happening. Oh, and this motherfucker is tough, and a little saucy too boot. Don't say I didn't warn you.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #17
Rating: XW-18A
Difficulty: Brutal

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.

It's OK to Pick Your Nose if it's Sunburned and Peeling

Spent the entire long weekend (for some reason, yesterday was "Saskatchewan Day," so we all had the day off) up at Good Spirit Lake with my best mates. Weather was perfect: sunny and hot for the most part, but it rained just enough for me to dust off my old boy scout skillz and whip up a shelter out of a few tarps, some twine, and the trees. I love camping, but it's one of those things that I never think to just go and do, so I only end up doing it when it's planned as an event like this. The best part about camping is that, although you may not do that much in a day, all of your routine tasks takes a lot longer than you're used to and they feel like huge accomplishments. Preparing an edible meal and cleaning up afterward, brewing coffee, shaving and freshening up, getting in and out of bed, etc. They all get their moment in the sun when you're camping; for that one weekend they're not merely requisite chores to be grudgingly performed, they're all of a sudden sources of struggle, challenge, achievement, and personal satisfaction. If you're up and active with a breakfast in your belly and caffeine in your brain by 10am, it's already been a successful day.

Whilst kicking it by the fire, I also had the pleasure of double- and triple-teaming a good number of Martin Ashwood-Smith's Triple Stack Crosswords with a few of my puzzling buddies, which same buddies also inspired and offered a few ideas for the clues on my puzzle for this week. Give it up one time for Drew Lawn, Steven Buchan, and Keegan Downie, everybody.

Can't wait to sleep in my own bed again, so I gotta go.

More words, crossed and otherwise, along with a guest puzzle, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #16

Rating: XW-PG13

Difficulty: Sorta difficult, but not as tough as last week

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.

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.

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.

Hot Cross Words

So it's been too nice here to stay cooped up inside slaving over a hot crossword. Shame, really, because I've got a lot of neat theme ideas cooking, but haven't had time to whip 'em up. I go into red alert mode when Thursday or Friday rolls around and I still don't have a fully fleshed out theme idea, and in those cases I'll usually end up digging out a seed entry or two from spice rack and tossing together a themeless. They're not necessarily easier to make, but they're safer. I always worry with new themes that I haven't let them simmer long enough and that I might be overlooking some deal-breaking detail or have missed an opportunity to add another layer of elegance. Plus, I'm guessing that at least part of the reason you solvers keep coming back is because I try to keep things interesting around here, so instead of resorting to a recycled theme I've prepared you a 17x17 themeless this week. Watch for upcoming themed puzzles if that's your thing - I've got some gooders in the works, as well as perhaps a meta contest. Stay tuned.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #13
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.

Size Matters Not

In case you haven't noticed, I'm all about the themeless puzzles of unconvential size. In fact, though I've constructed a few, I've yet to run a 15x15 themeless on this site. While I will concede that themes may best be tightened and rendered elegant under certain constraints and adherence to tradition, I feel that themeless grids should be made to fit the entries, as the entries are their raison d'etre. Of course, in general, the placement of black squares in themelesses of any size, conventional or not, is determined at least somewhat by the entries. My point, though, is that with so many great potential entries with 16+ letters (big entries need lovin too), why limit yourself? The only real issue I can see with this is that maybe either the allotted print area or the solving software will not allow for oblong and/or large grids. The print argument I can understand, but it's becoming less and less of an issue as more and more electronic-only puzzle markets are popping up. As for the solving software argument, to my knowledge if you're using any of the common solving programs then you don't have to worry (until you get to ludicrous dimensions like T Campbell's Ubercross C-Spot. As an aside, I had the pleasure of meeting him at the ACPT and having an interesting discussion about the challenges of constructing such a monster. That bitch has NO repeated words!).

I guess maybe if you're a speed solver you want puzzle formats to be consistent so that you can meaningfully compare times. Then again, themelesses run the gamut from around 72 to 52 words anyway (which is a huge difference if you're just considering the number of clues to parse), and solving a puzzle with 3 triple-stacks is quite different from solving a clover-leaf-style grid with mostly 6-7 letter entries, even if their word counts are identical. Plus, the speed demons will still solve each one in 5 minutes and the universe will be at peace. In a similar vein, since the typical metrics of block and word count kind of go out the window when dealing with grids of strange dimensions, editors would have to come up with new limits for acceptable grids. That's the nice thing about this site, though: I don't have an editor (which admittedly sucks sometimes), and I can construct whatever I want. I don't really have any extra time to prepare submissions for major markets, but having this sort of freedom does make up for it. By the same token, I've played around a bit with asymmetrical themelesses. Again, it's nice to have the freedom to be able to make the grid accommodate the seed entries you want, but on the other hand, as any artist will tell you, working with fewer constraints requires more creativity. I have a hard enough time deciding on the best possible fill as it is, so in the interests of actually completing a puzzle every week I tend to favour having symmetry constrain my entries somewhat. Plus, I do actually value grids that are pleasing to the eye (which mine rarely are, but anyway...), and though asymmetrical grids can obviously be nice to look at (recall Liz Gorski's Guggenheim gem from 2009), a good asymmetrical grid therefore still imposes constraints.

Today's themeless is, true to form, a 19x13. Had a few 19-letter entries laying around that needed a home (although I ended up scrapping most of them and finding new ones during the construction process), and 13 was a nice height that didn't force the layout too much (smaller puzzles are actually tougher sometimes, since forbidding 3-letter entries and grid partitioning really limits your black square placement as the grid shrinks), but also kept the number of clues I had to write at a manageable number. I would have liked to have a couple fewer black squares and short answers (there are a bunch of 9s and a handful of 6-8s, but there are 40 4-letter entries!), but at the same time I'm sure the fill wouldn't have turned out so clean were that the case. It's not outstanding as it is, but there's nothing too atrocious in there. I was happy that at least one of the four corner stacks has a CAP quotient (Crosswordese, abbrevs., and partials - thanks to pannonica for that) of exactly zero. Enjoy!

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #11
Rating: XW-PG
Download the PDF and PUZ files here, or solve or download the Across Lite puzzle and/or software from the Java app below.

Infer a Treat

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with cluing. When I have the time and am feeling sharp I love it - I love free-associating, discovering interesting uses and contexts for familiar words, researching arcane trivia, and generally getting creative. On the other hand, when I've got an impending deadline and/or I'm not feeling all that inspired, a list of 70+ empty lines is a dreadful sight. At times like that, it can just seem like a real slog (mind you, even when I'm in the mood to clue I usually only get through about 30 or 40 in one sitting). Designing a grid is different - although I may proceed one corner or section at a time, I always have a sense that it's a single, unified thing that I'm working on, and my progress is always immediately apparent. Cluing, though, is just one word after another, each one entirely independent of the others (excluding theme entries, of course, but I usually work out how I'm going to clue them before even designing the grid), and at times it seems to never end.

In an effort to become better and more consistent at it, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the art of cluing lately. And there is an art to it. Elegant grids tend to get all the credit, but to me an eclectic, playful, and evocative set of clues is just as beautiful. Plus, since the same words pop up all the time in grids, it can require real creativity and artistry to take a word places its never been before in search of that new clue for ERA or ENO. Looking at the big picture, a set of clues seems more balanced and refined when it covers many disparate subject areas, uses many types of wordplay (alliteration, puns, etc), and is comprised of clues of varying lengths and forms. To top it all off, the cluing is a major factor in the difficulty of a puzzle, and it can even be employed to control the solver's flow around the puzzle, to ensure that longer answers, theme answers, and revealers or punchlines are not discovered too soon. A far cry from simply looking up definitions in the dictionary, no? At the end of the day, though, even if you ignore all of this you can't ignore one simple fact: the grid is just the solution; the clues make it a puzzle. Which is another reason why I've taken an interest in the finer points of cluing. My grids may have a few fun answers but they're nothing to write home about. However, if I can dress them up with great clues, they might have a chance at being great puzzles. Plus, there are so many constraints on grids that it can be frustrating to not be able to put everything I'd like in there. With clues, though, there really aren't any constraints (so long as they're fair), so I can let my voice come through and hopefully make the puzzle into something unique and different. More than ever before I'm taking note of what makes good clues work, what sort of clues I like, and how my clues have fallen short. For instance, I've noticed that I'm very fond of the Peter Gordon-style "she blinded me with science" trivia misdirection clue. These are clues that seem to ask you for an unreasonably obscure piece of trivia but in fact require you to identify one or two operative terms and use them and a few crossings to infer a fairly well-known answer. For example, getting a 3-letter answer for "He built Threepio" doesn't really require deep knowledge of "Star Wars" lore, but rather that you know that both Threepio and ANI are informal names for characters in the "Star Wars" universe. Plus, you learn something along the way. Now, I've really latched on to this style, and you'll see a number of clues like this in today's puzzle. In fact, I've been so stoked on "inferrence over knowledge" type clues that I've put a few long marquee answers in there that you'll likely have never heard of, but I think you'll have fun piecing together from the clues.

Speaking of today's puzzle, it's a 14x15 themeless. Nothing noteworthy on the construction front (69/32 in a 14x15 probably corresponds to a 70 or 72 word 15x15 puzzle, which is generally the upper limit in an American-style themeless, and there are unfortunately 20 3-letter answers in there. Plus, I cheated and made the grid 14 blocks wide to accommodate the long answers), but I definitely had fun with the cluing. It's a bit tougher than usual, but I am thinking of making "tough themeless/moderate themed" the rule around here, a la BEQ. Hopefully (btw, this is now a perfectly legit usage of "hopefully") you like it.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next Tuesday.

Puzzle: Themeless #10 (not really a mini-themeless, but I've continued the numbering scheme)
Rating: XW-14A

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