Indie puzzle highlights

May 30: Themeless "Off the Wall" (Ben Tolkin, Nautilus Puzzles)

June 1: Community Oriented (vidhya aravind and carly they themsen, A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle)

June 5: Nothing suspicious going on here! (jqzx, Puzzmo)

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Themeless "Off the Wall" (Ben Tolkin)

"Off the Wall" is aptly chosen - there's such an eclectic mix of goofy stuff in this themeless grid. DEYASSIFIES (clued as [Makes plain?]), SHAQTIN' A FOOL, THIS IS SPARTA, RECESSION POP, GOSH DARN IT (and, indeed, GOOFIER). I love this kind of grid shape with criss-crossing long entries, where the marquee stuff isn't confined to stacks. They're very hard to fill, and this is an object lesson in why it can be worthwhile to have a couple of entries like AGCY and SHA and AFTS in the short fill if it enables such a delightful solving experience overall.

Community Oriented (vidhya aravind and carly they themsen)

In case you missed it, you should check out A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle, a pack of puzzles by trans and nonbinary constructors in support of transgender charities. This puzzle was my favorite of the bunch, with some striking grid art that somehow still caught me by surprise when I got to the revealer, T4T ([Dating initialism reflected in the shapes in this grid]). And indeed, three chunks of black squares cascading down the grid are shaped like a T, a 4, and another T. I love it when there's an unexpected numeral in a revealer! The rest of the grid is packed with trans-related clues and entries, from HYPERVISIBILITY and WACHOWSKI to IT'S A GIRL, clued as ["Surprise" for some trans adults hosting their own gender reveal parties]. Particularly elegant is the stack of 5s in the top right: LABEL, clued as [Identify, in a way some queer people avoid], ARIEL, clued as [Disney character who famously underwent a transition giving her a major vocal change], and BOOKS, clued as ["Nevada" by Imogen Binnie and "The Death of Vivek Oji" by Akwaeke Emezi, for two].

There's also just an assorted range of delights to be found throughout the puzzle, like the linguistically fascinating BAKA - ["Fool" in Japanese (literally "horse-deer," describing a guy who would confuse the two] - which I don't think I've seen in a puzzle before. Or the original clues for common entries, like [Part of the psyche grounded in reality, or a sense of smugness that isn't] for EGO.

Nothing suspicious going on here! (jqzx)

I've seen a lot of themelesses with 4x10 stacks lately - it's a form I particularly associate with Adrian Johnson, who's made some excellent ones. Having constructed a couple myself now, I really get the appeal: they look eye-popping in a grid, but they're surprisingly tractable to construct cleanly (helped, possibly, by the fact that the average quality of 4s tends to be higher than that of 3s). When you're making a symmetrical themeless grid, though, making one 4x10 stack means that you have to make another one on the other side of the grid, so sometimes you get one stellar stack and one that's not quite so good.

A key part of Puzzmo's editorial ethos, though, is that there are no strict requirements for grid dimensions or symmetry, which helps make sure that every grid is the right size and layout for its purpose, whether it's themed or themeless. So there's nothing stopping a Puzzmo constructor from making one beautiful 4x10 stack and extending the grid just as much as necessary to make the themeless work. That's just what jqzx has done here, with a stack of BASIC CABLE/ART THERAPY/SCREEN TIME/HEADMASTER, where all the crossings are unimpeachable - the least good, if I had to pick was NOSTRA, but I even enjoyed that one, clued as it is with reference to Carlos Fuentes's masterpiece, Terra Nostra. The best crossings are the pair of FALSE STARTS and TAKES THE BAIT, which in turn cross the mini stack of UNDERBAKED and TOMFOOLERY. Just fantastic gridwork. And it feels very atypical of Puzzmo to me, since so few of their puzzles are wide-open themelesses - but in a more important sense, it's very typical of Puzzmo in its efficient use of grid space and design.

Puzzle #244: The Uprights

Back again with a tricksy puzzle (pdf, puz, pdf solution) - happy solving!

Constructed by Will Nediger using PuzzleMe's cross word maker

Indie puzzle highlights

April 23: Hooked on Phonics (Ryan Patrick Smith, Real Puzzling Stuff)

May 5: Untitled (Christina Iverson, Boswords)

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Hooked on Phonics (Ryan Patrick Smith)

Puzzles with theme gimmicks that affect every single clue are rare, and for good reason. Much of the time, the gimmick doesn't add much to the solving experience, so it makes the clue syntax more awkward with no good payoff. (I'm thinking, for example, about those puzzles where the theme is related to the letter S somehow and then every clue also starts with a S. It's like, okay, but to what end?) On the other hand, there are the gimmicks that are integral to the solving experience, like Mike Shenk's puzzle 5 from last year's ACPT, in which the letter C had to be removed from clues for them to make sense. These gimmicks are generally so specific that it'd be nigh impossible (and probably undesirable, anyway) for them to apply to every clue.

"Hooked on Phonics" hits the sweet spot, though. In this puzzle, every clue must be spoken out loud to make sense. The four longest Across entries are thematic: PLAY IT BY EAR clued as [Deftly negotiate a new peace], TALK IT OUT clued as [Approach for descent], READ ALOUD clued as [Utter pros], and LISTEN CLOSE clued as [Frays commanding attention]. These are all excellent, with [Utter pros] in particular reading very naturally. But then Ryan applies the same gimmick to every single clue. My favorite was [Target of attacks in the lead-up to the American Revolution], where "attacks" is really "a tax" and the answer is TEA. But there are numerous delightful finds in every section - [Literary figure known for wailing madly] for AHAB, [Growths beneath tulips] for GOATEES, [It's key when speaking French] for WHO, the list goes on. What makes it work is the fact that every clue is its own unique mini-puzzle, so the gimmick doesn't wear thin over the course of the solve.

 Untitled (Christina Iverson)

Few things are more consistent than the Boswords themeless leagues, where the puzzles are reliably excellent. But there's usually a puzzle or two each season that stands out above the rest for me. This season, it was Christina's finals puzzle. In the post-solve interview, Christina mentioned that she aimed to go light on the trivia to make a puzzle that worked nicely at all three difficulty levels. I was a bit surprised by that comment, since GEODESY, LIAR'S DICE, RONCO, PHOBOS, PAD SEE EW, and TOTORO, among others, are know-it-or-you-don't. Not that I was bothered by this - those entries span a wide range of different topics, and they're distributed throughout the grid in a way that makes the puzzle still accessible for those who are stumped by a few of them. But it's true that the puzzle is also chock full of broadly familiar entries that can be clued in myriads of ways, perfect for a Boswords puzzle: BASEBALL, ASTRONAUT, CHOP SHOP, STOVETOPS, EMERALD, SYRINGE, CHARADE, etc. I only solved the Stormy clues, but there were some doozies - [Some budget cuts] for CHUCK ROASTS was the highlight for me (and the seed, evidently), but I also loved [Ride in the 1970s-'80s, e.g.] for ASTRONAUT, [Singer of "Respect," at times] for SPELLER, and [Level in a stadium?] for A GAME (an entry that's particularly hard to clue trickily).

Puzzle #243: They Stagger the Entries (with Ada Nicolle)

Ada and I were bonding over Severance on a co-working call and we came up with this theme (pdf, puz, pdf solution), which we had to immediately turn into a puzzle. Don't worry, there are no Severance spoilers herein, and it should be enjoyable even if you've never seen a minute of the show. (Source: our test-solver Frisco, who loved it and who has never seen Severance.)

Ada, in addition to being my amazing co-editor at Crossword Club, is an editor for A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle, a puzzle pack supporting transgender charities that comes out in June. Please check it out!

Made by Ada Nicolle and Will Nediger using PuzzleMe's online cross word builder

Puzzle #242: 3 Through 5, Too

Some theme content in this one (pdf, puz, pdf solution), but I think it'll play more like a themeless (hopefully in a fun way). Happy solving!

 

Created by Will Nediger with the online crossword builder from Amuse Labs

Indie puzzle highlights

December 31: "In a Sarlacc Pit, but Emotionally" (August Miller, lost for xwords)

March 20: Pet Theory (Ben Wilson, zerofiftyone)

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"In a Sarlacc Pit, but Emotionally" (August Miller)

It's true, December 31 was a long time ago. But I'd been sleeping on August Miller's blog until a couple of recent AVCX puzzles and a profile in Daily Crossword Links inspired me to work through the recent backlog. Not only am I very late to covering this one, Quiara Vasquez's new Substack has already covered it, and that Substack promises to do basically the same thing as my highlight roundups, except much more comprehensively and with much better writing.

Still, I liked this puzzle a lot and therefore I'm going to talk about it! One thing I like about it is that, like many of August's puzzles, this one features triple stacks of 15s, which are way less popular than they used to be because they tend to involve significant sacrifices in fill quality (or at least they did in their heyday). August's triple stacks are consistently good, both in terms of the 15s themselves and in the short fill crossing them. But in this puzzle, I particularly want to highlight two entries: DORITOS ROULETTE and EMO KYLO REN. These are both phrases that will be totally unknown to a lot of solvers, and it's worth taking a look at how August chose to clue them. EMO KYLO REN is at least partly self-explanatory: it's a version of Kylo Ren who's emo. But with no context, that's still going to be pretty baffling to solvers who aren't already familiar. Cannily, August clues it as [Who tweeted "i get all my winter clothes from Hoth Topic"], which not only shouts out a great pun, but concisely tells the baffled solver that EMO KYLO REN is a parody Twitter account, without having to explicitly spell it out. Contrast that with the clue for STONED APE THEORY in another of August's puzzles that I recently solved: [Disputed hypothesis that ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms helped to catalyze the deevlopment of art and language among early humans]. That's a great entry that I've being hoping to use as a 15 for a while, but it's also totally opaque to someone who's not already familiar. So opaque that a glancing clue like the EMO KYLO REN clue wouldn't land; you've really gotta go straightforward with this one.

DORITOS ROULETTE, finally, is less transparent than EMO KYLO REN in a vacuum. But it's certainly one of the very few obvious potential meanings for the phrase, so the clue doesn't actually have to be so explicit at all. [Gamble with chips?] is a perfect piece of wordplay, but it's also perfect as a disambiguator of the meaning of DORITOS ROULETTE: it confirms that, yes, it probably means Russian roulette with dangerously spicy Doritos instead of bullets. (I mean, I guess it could also be a game of actual roulette with Doritos instead of balls, but... how would that even work?)

Pet Theory (Ben Wilson)

A lot of crosswords I've highlighted on here over the years have been Schrodinger puzzles, in which certain squares have multiple correct entries that work with the crossing entries. After all, Schrodingers are a staple of the hard crossword niche, and it's always impressive when they're pulled off well, without clues that feel too stretchy. So it's funny that my favorite recent Schrodinger puzzle isn't actually a Schrodinger puzzle (or should I say, both is and isn't a Schrodinger puzzle). Instead, it's got a mini-theme with SCHRODINGER'S CAT as an entry; the other entry is BOX-AND-WHISKER PLOT.

When I finished solving, I thought "Cute! Two science-y theme answers that are related to cats" and moved on with my life. But later in the shower I realized that, of course, the connection is much tighter: the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment involves a cat in a box, so Schrodinger's scheme could literally be described as a box-and-whisker plot. That's a beautiful reinterpretation of the phrase, remarkably affecting the meanings of both "box" and "whisker" (and even, metaphorically, "plot"). Cap it off with a perfect title and you've got the platonic ideal of a mini-theme.

Indie puzzle highlights

February 21: Seeking Joy (Rebecca Goldstein, AVCX+)

March 1: Let Me Be Perfectly Queer ... (Rafa Musa, These Puzzles Fund Abortion 5)

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Seeking Joy (Rebecca Goldstein)

Rebecca is one of the few true triple threats in puzzledom, in the top tier of constructors in theming, gridding, and cluing. I always think of her primarily as a great constructor of themed puzzles, so the fact that she can also construct themelesses like this one really cements her as one of the most versatile constructors around. The grid pattern here is very smartly designed, featuring an interlacing of long slots interspersed with regions of short fill that make the marquee entries easier to fill around without compromising the grid's overall flow. And those long slots are really well used, with entries like BOSS BATTLE, SHABBAT SHALOM, LET'S DIG IN, SHANGRI-LA, and NERDSPLAIN. The cluing shines, too: [Sock drawer?] for PUNCHABLE FACE is an all-timer, but there are clever clues around every corner, including [Activity with more than just a couple of participants?] for THREESOME, [Gas lighting?] for AURORAS, [Over head?] for UBER, [Supreme court figure, maybe] for ALL-STAR, and [Box checking activity?] for PAP SMEAR.

Let Me Be Perfectly Queer ... (Rafa Musa)

Now that These Puzzles Fund Abortion is in its fifth year, I have to imagine it's hard for the editors to produce a full slate of puzzles with relevant themes. They've been incorporating more cryptics and variety puzzles, lately, which helps (including a stellar variety puzzle by Sid Sivakumar which I'm not highlighting here only because I already highlighted one of Sid's variety puzzles very recently), but of course another route is to include themelesses. Personally, when I write for TPFA, I always pitch themed puzzles, because there's an art to writing a "themeless" for this sort of puzzle pack. I put "themeless" in scare quotes because it really has to have a significant amount of marquee content that feels topical, so from a construction point of view, it's not entirely unlike making a themed puzzle. There's a balancing act between including enough topical content, and making sure that it doesn't feel forced and that it still plays like a themeless.

In this puzzle, Rafa threads that needle adeptly. There are the obvious marquee answers (TRANS JOY, GAY SEX, TRIAMORY, SAPPHO, SHANTAY, SHE/THEY), plus shorter stuff like HRT and other queer-related clues like THREE for [Number of colors in the bisexual pride flag], REAL ME for [Post-coming out self, maybe], and [School periods in which I was stressed about being clumsy and unathletic and not at all about who was using what changing room] for PE CLASSES. None of these feel shoehorned in, nor do the reproduce rights content like [Feeling upon learning Roe v. Wade was overturned] for IRE, [Place to host someone seeking reproductive healthcare] for SPARE ROOM, or RESISTS for [Fights for reproductive rights in an unfavorable political climate, for example]. It's a perfect themeless for TPFA, but it's also just a delightful themeless in its own right; I particularly like the pairing of AESTHETE and HAS TASTE (which share a letter bank!).