Puzzle #255: Horseshoe Falls

Got a Sunday-sized themed puzzle (pdf, puz, pdf solution) for you all this time around. Instead of the usual PuzzleMe, I'm trying out the new Crossword Nexus embed (fullscreen solve link here):

Indie puzzle highlights

November 10: Puzzle #6 (Ryan Mathiason, Boswords Fall Themeless League)

November 24: Meeting of the Minds (Brooke Husic and Orta Therox, Puzzmo)

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

Puzzle #6 (Ryan Mathiason)

There's a certain style of themeless puzzle that I particularly associate with Universal, but that's popular at many venues nowadays, where the focus is above all on the liveliness, as defined very specifically, of the long theme entries. A lively theme entry, in this style of puzzle, is usually a colloquial spoken phrase or an evocative two-word phrase from everyday life, made up of common words. I cite Universal specifically because they stick to specifically to this formula, to the extent that when I came across VEUVE CLICQUOT as a marquee entry in a Universal themeless a few months ago, I was genuinely shocked.

I've made a good number of themelesses in this mold myself, but I have to admit that I often feel tired of it as a solver. Sometimes it feels cookie-cutter, like the constructor is using the submission guidelines as a checklist instead of a springboard. (This is, after all, the rational thing to do to maximize your chances of getting published.) The short fill will be clean, but it won't necessary be interesting.

Just looking at the grid for this Boswords puzzle, it looks like a perfect example of the style - we've got a pinwheel configuration of pairs of 10s, each intersecting another 10 or 9, so that there are a ton of longish spots but they're spread out enough to make it relatively easy to keep their average quality high. And we've got classic lively entries like A DEAL'S A DEAL, DO ME A SOLID, CAN OPENER, PLOT TWIST, MOBILE HOME, MAPLE BACON, etc. Nonetheless, I find this puzzle simply much more engaging than a typical example of the style. Partly that's because many of these entries are paired with pitch-perfect wordplay clues, so that they're not just there to fill some sort of liveliness quota: [Friend request, perhaps?] for DO ME A SOLID, [Target of a bench press?] for PIANO PEDAL, [Turn in a library book?] for PLOT TWIST, [Function past your typical bedtime, say] for AFTERPARTY, and so on. And the excellent clues aren't limited to those prototypically lively long entries; we've also got stuff like [One way to confirm you're exactly right?] for PROTRACTOR, [Plays around?] for GOES ON TOUR, and [Fell out of love?] for SWOONED, and colorful trivia angles like [Jim's P.I. "office" on "The Rockford Files"] for MOBILE HOME and [Garden decoration originally intended to capture roving evil spirits] for BOTTLE TREE.

Meeting of the Minds (Brooke Husic and Orta Therox)

Crossword editors these days think a lot about "constructor voice," and how crosswords can be edited to exacting standards while still letting that voice shine through. I love to learn about who a constructor is and how they navigate the world via their voice. On the other hand, the crotchetier I get, the more I'm unimpressed when the extent of a constructor's voice is basically "Here are the extremely popular entertainers that I'm a fan of." So it's a breath of fresh air when a crossword gets a constructor's voice across in an eye-opening, formally compelling way - and even more so when two constructors do that in the same puzzle.

In this aptly titled puzzle, Brooke and Orta each highlights aspects of their cognitive experience of the world: Brooke's SYNESTHESIA and Orta's APHANTASIA. On the left side of the grid, POV cues generally refer to Brooke's experiences: [What I can remember very long numbers with (because of how they weight)] for EASE, [Greek vowels that feel shy] for ETAS, [Makes sounds (and colors) with a piano] for PLAYS, etc. And on the right side, they refer to Orta's experience: ["But ___ they do that?" (where "that" might be "picture an apple"] for HOW'D, [What I've wondered when I don't really attach emotions to memories like others do] for IS IT ME, etc. Those two halves are tied together by the horizontal grid spanner MUST BE NICE, [Phrase you might say about how the other half lives], which intersects both SYNESTHESIA and APHANTASIA.

What I really appreciate about this is how every element of the design feels purposeful - it's not just "Here's a bunch of stuff about us in clues scattered throughout the puzzle." This is what I meant when I said "formally compelling" earlier. The two-sided structure explicitly highlights what's implicit in the concept of constructor voice, which is that a crossword is a dialectic between a constructor and a solver and the constructor's voice generally shouldn't feel alienating to the solver - e.g. by using "you" in a clue when you really mean "I." And the clue for MUST BE NICE recognizes that the constructor-solver relationship is ideally symmetrical (in the sense that human relationships in general ought to be symmetrical) despite the seeming asymmetry in the fact that the constructor is a producer and the solver a consumer. And hey, the grid pattern is asymmetrical, but the formal structure makes it feel symmetrical (at least to me - but then again, I'm not a synesthete).

Puzzle #254: Freestyle 21

Another very cornery themeless for you (pdf, puz, pdf solution) - enjoy! Thanks to Ada for the test-solve.

Indie puzzle highlights

October 20: Pitch Perfect (Ben Zimmer, Defector)

October 21: Untitled (Ben Zimmer, Slate)

October 25: Puzzmo Mini Crossword #25 (Brooke Husic, Puzzmo)

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

Pitch Perfect (Ben Zimmer)

Themes where letters have to be added or removed at the edges of the grid are not uncommon, but it's rare for such a theme to involve every entry on the sides of the grid. That's exactly what Ben's theme, with the revealer STRIKE OUT THE SIDE, does; for every Across entry that touches the left or right side of the grid, you have to ignore the letter on the edge for the clue to make sense. So for example, 1-Across is SNAP, but the clue is [Go out for a short bit?], for NAP.

Having the entries make sense both with or without the deleted letter is de rigueur at this point, but it's easy enough to satisfy this constraint by using choppy, sectioned-off grids with lots of short entries. This puzzle doesn't take the easy way out - there are four impressively long theme entries, all crossing the revealer (!): FINE LINE(N), (G)ASTRONOMY, PATTERSON(G), and (B)RAINWASH.

Untitled (Ben Zimmer)

Ben Zimmer has been on a roll lately! I particularly enjoy what he's been doing with his Slate midis, which is unlike what anybody else is doing in any of the main midi venues: elaborately intersecting mini-themes, often based on pop cultural current events. This is his most elaborate one yet, a tribute to DIANE KEATON, whose name is stacked with INTERIORS and ANNIE HALL in the center, intersecting RENATA ADLER (who inspired Diane Keaton's role in Interiors) and JAMES TAYLOR (singer of "You've Got a Friend," which Diane Keaton called the song of her life). I don't know that I've ever even seen such a tightly themed and tightly gridded intersection of this many entries in a 15x15, let alone in an 11x11, where it fits extremely snugly. Normally I don't care much about themes that don't involve any wordplay, but the intricate gridwork here provides more than enough wordy excitement for me.

Puzzmo Mini Crossword #25 (Brooke Husic)

Over at Puzzmo, Brooke has just wrapped up a 30-day series of minis designed to teach solvers the basics of crosswords. The use of minis, as opposed to midis, is a great way to introduce concepts in bite-sized packages that are friendly for begining solvers, and Brooke does an incredible job of fitting those concepts into those packages in the most efficient way possible. In each puzzle, the lesson feels like it's encapsulated perfectly by the 5x5ish grid that serves as its vehicle.

Case in point: the lesson on rebuses from puzzle #25. In a 6x5 grid, there are two rebus squares (the ADs in BAD EGG/RADAR and ROADIE/GLADE) plus a revealer (BALLAD, to be reparsed as BALLAD). In the solved grid, the entries that are part of the lesson are highlighted in red, and here there are a mere four letters that aren't highlighted!

I've often expressed that it's very difficult to get excited about a mini - it might be seeded around a great clue, but as a whole solving experience, it's rarely aesthetically satisfying; minis are generally popular because of the online incentives towards catering to short attention spans. In this series, Brooke has really made the case for the mini as an interesting format in itself.

Puzzle #253: Megaphone

Time for another themed one (pdf, puz, pdf solution)! Dig in.

Indie puzzle highlights

September 11: Fully Freehand Fhemeless #4 (Frisco17, Good Clues for People Who Love Bad Clues)

September 18: AVCX Cryptic 9/18/25 (Liam Hughes, AVCX)

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

Fully Freehand Fhemeless #4 (Frisco17)

Lately, Frisco's been doing some wild things with freehand, asymmetrical themelesses, a type of puzzle dear to my heart. They're often built around wide-open center stacks, and this one is no exception, but I laughed out loud when I saw exactly what Frisco did with this stack: four ___ THE ___ advertising phrases (ENJOY THE GO, DO THE DEW, OUTPIZZA THE HUT, TASTE THE RAINBOW) right on top of each other. What I love is that these sorts of stacks tend to force the constructor to get creative with the crossings and surrounding fill - I don't know if Willy Wonka's YOU GET NOTHING or Ducky from The Land Before Time's YEP YEP YEP or Margaret's ARE YOU THERE GOD? were on Frisco's wordlist before, but they feel like the type of phrases that were needed to will the grid into submission and that, nevertheless, are perfectly legit entries and indeed assets. I'm not an iPhone user or a video game knower, but I imagine the same is true of BLUE BUBBLE and Clash Royale's HE HE HE HAW. Delightful zaniness all around, so much so that I can forgive a random vowelless entry (VLN for VIOLIN) and the variant spelling BEDUIN.

AVCX Cryptic 9/18/25 (Liam Hughes)

This cryptic is apparently Liam's first published puzzle anywhere, and it's certainly an auspicious start. As a cryptic setter, I tend to be obsessed with making the surfaces hang together, and based on this puzzle, Liam seems to have a similar obsession. The indicators are always perfectly chosen to fit the surface:

- "bounced" in [Personality drinking Red Bull bounced pecs, etc.] for FLEXORS
- "tossing and turning" in [Tossing and turning, may seek sleep aid] for EYE MASK
- "blocking any estrogen" in [A way to conceive: induce eggs, blocking any estrogen] for IN VITRO

There are also just a whole bunch of clues that highlight wordplay finds that tickle my brain:

- [Annoying nightcore remix] for HECTORING was literally on my list of clues to use at some point
- [Out of creamer, I can only get black coffee] for AMERICANO is a beautiful find, and it's crossing the beautifully surfaced [Filter out coffee's dregs at the bottom of each drink] for PERCOLATE
- [Italian dish made with ingredients of gelati, in different amounts] for TAGLIATELLE makes use of an extremely fortuitous letter-bank pairing of TAGLIATELLE/GELATI
- [Guest feature: T-Pain -- shit slaps, I danced] for THIS IS SPINAL TAP has a definition that, by itself, would be a top-tier themeless clue, and it's paired with a lovely anagram to boot

Puzzle #252: The World's Most Cornery Crossword

I actually have no idea what the world's most cornery crossword is. But this themeless (pdf, puz, pdf solution) is definitely cornerier than the average puzzle. Thanks to Ada for test-solving!

Constructed by Will Nediger with the crossword puzzle builder from Amuse Labs