Testing, testing

Busy times here at Cross Nerd HQ. Final exam on Monday for which I'm woefully under-prepared, a gig with a new band on Friday for which we're woefully under-prepared, and moving day on Wednesday for which... well, you get the idea. Luckily some of my old crap is still in boxes from the last time I moved. My new crap maybe I'll just throw out. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I probably won't be posting a puzzle next week. You might have noticed that these posts having been getting farther and farther from their original Tuesday morning timeslot with every passing week. Hopefully I can catch up with this short break. Actually, I'm fine with posting sometime around the middle of the week and not worrying too much about a fixed schedule, but I do worry about the quality suffering. Last week's puzzle contained a few grievous errors and I may have missed the mark a bit with the cluing. A few very fine solvers found it tougher than usual and a little lackluster so I've got to up my game.

But not this week! A few unfortunate crossings and some substandard fill in this one, I'm afraid, although I think there's some fun stuff in there too. Plus, there's a bit of a mini theme going on. I wanted to flesh it out into a full theme, but I couldn't think of two more tight answers (had one that kind of worked, though). Anyway, see what you think.

More words, crossed and otherwise, in two weeks.

Puzzle: Freestyle #33
Downloads:
PDF
PUZ

Watch Rick and Morty

...it's a darn good show, I've recently learned. Concluded binge-watching the 11-episode run while making the grid for this puzzle. Funny stuff and it starts to wade in some heavier and darker waters later in the season. Highly recommended.

Just another vowelless this week. Trying to make the clues more fair and straight-forward and the grid more diabolical and deceptive than the last as always. Inspired by all the sci-fi cartoons, I was thinking of trying out some alternate dimensions for this puzzle. However, I remembered that Erik Agard has been approaching his goal of a sub-10 solve on these (ridic!) and I'd hate to mess with his progress. So 15x15 it is. Regular symmetry because I'm lazy.

You know the drill: no Y in any answer.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next week.

UPDATE: the original files I posted had a few errors. They've since been corrected and reposted. Carry on.

Puzzle: Vowelless #10
Downloads:
PDF (no hints)
PUZ (no hints)
PDF (with lengths - easier)
PUZ (with lengths - easier)

Full Answers

Flextime

Finally got this puzzle done! Wrestled with this grid for a long time, and made some large-scale last-minute changes to the bottom half yesterday. Kind of got burnt out cluing this one and wasn't feeling as inspired as I sometimes am, so forgive me if you find it a little dry and maybe on the easy side. The pdf comes in two flavours today: large print 2 pages and small print 1 page.

Oh, and this one has nothing to do with castles or chess, just a plain old freestyle.

More words, crossed and otherwise, next week.

Puzzle: Freestyle #32
Downloads:
PUZ
PDF (one page)
PDF (two pages)