Not a long break between puzzles this time; I had the idea for this one this morning and pretty much spent my day constructing. This was a relatively simple construction, though the theme created really interesting challenges that introduced some rare letter combos.
The theme itself may be a bit weird (at least, half of it might), but hopefully writing it as it appears in the answer will be satisfying enough. Enjoy it (or don't, I guess; it's a free country I think).
If this puzzle looks like it was made the same way the last themeless was, it's because this puzzle was made the same way the last themeless was. This time, all three entries in the stair-stack were pulled from my personal list of themeless seeds, so I'm pretty happy with that stack as a whole. This format seems to be working fairly decently while still allowing for colorful answers elsewhere in the puzzle.
I'm looking to maybe get this blog on a consistent upload schedule (once a week, probably) sometime soon, but I'll need to figure out the best time to post. I'll probably do something like get everything written up and scheduled the night before, and then manually do all my social media sharing when I wake up (I get up extremely late :P). We'll see. Enjoy the puzzle!
(also let's forget about the four-letter word crossing itself in two entries I'd like to forget I did that thank you)
VARIETY PUZZLE! I'm not sure how often these will be coming around, but I hope you guys enjoy them as a departure from the usual.
This puzzle is called Now You See It, named after the bygone game show of the same name (I recommend it; it's pretty entertaining. I think they had a reboot of it recently? Not sure how well that one did; hopefully well). It's all explained in the puzzle page, but the rules are simple; find the answer words (all reading left-to-right) in the grid. I added the leftover letters element to give it the depth it didn't need as a game show, but needs as a puzzle.
The fun of this format construction-wise is in finding words with unique overlaps (BACARDI/CARDINAL, e.g.), and words containing other words (the Norse god in Grid 2 being where it is, e.g.). It's already giving me some ideas for crossword themes.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments. Also, come join the crossword Discord server for solvers and constructors! (Probably gonna start plugging this in each post now, in lieu of a YouTube channel to ask you to like, comment, and subscribe to :/ )
This puzzle was in the works for a while; I stopped working on it after I ran into a roadblock with the fill, and I got back to it a few days ago looking through my unfinished puzzle files. I had started making it with the intention of submitting it to the NYT, but I figured 55-Across was probably too niche, so I decided to just make it for the blog. I also went easier than usual on the cluing, since this is pretty much an NYT Tuesday theme, and also because I'd like to even out the hard-to-easy ratio on the blog a little. Hope y'all enjoy.
We're back to themelesses; this one was seeded with a couple of 11-letter words from my personal wordlist (30- and 32-Across). There was a good amount of time where I thought this grid was going nowhere, but with the help of a really kickass SW corner that worked itself out and some admittedly bleh words in the north, I pulled this together in a couple nights. I think it's my favorite of the themelesses I've done to this point.
This is another one where I really got to indulge myself in lots of gaming references, and I took a few opportunities to get silly with my cluing. I think "silly" is probably the direction I'm going with my cluing voice; I'm also finding more and more with themelesses that my favorite entries and seeds are childish, and I'm definitely gonna keep running with it.
