PUZZLE 55 (feat. Allie): OVERHERE

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: samfree - Luka Luka★Night Fever

It's a themed puzzle! This puzzle is a collab with my roommate Allie, who wanted to try out some crossword construction. It's easier than my themeless puzzles, so you guys also finally get a break from the usual brutality of niche obscurity here. Hope you enjoy!

Oh, also! People who follow me on Twitter are already aware, but Cruzzles has a mascot now! 

Very silly announcement: Cruzzles now has a mascot! This is Kimi; I make no promises to be more consistent in posting to my blog but I will try to do a little Kimi doodle whenever I do post a new puzzle :)
Will try to post a puzzle today but if not it'll be out sometime this week pic.twitter.com/4WpQL8bxBs

— Ricky Cruz (@rickycruzart) January 16, 2022

Tweet pretty much explains, but there'll be art of Kimi whenever I drop a puzzle now; here's the art for the previous puzzle, along with Allie's drawing of Kimi for this one:

It's been a while; I offer you a Cruzzle in these trying times

It's a themeless called "They Do Tables", and you can solve it over on the blog: https://t.co/yQFAKjZRw4 pic.twitter.com/fzeKtOjA3M

— Ricky Cruz (@rickycruzart) January 17, 2022

(Allie has no online presence for me to share with y'all, but any good vibes you can send their way are appreciated!)

Join Crosscord, the Discord server where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 51 (CRYPTIC): OUT OF ORDER

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Solving Music: Macross 82-99 - Cool Soda

It's another Cruzzles cryptic! This one's got a very funky theme; I normally wouldn't choose to use 3-letter words in a cryptic, but it should be pretty apparent why they're there as you solve. Not much else to say about this one; hope it's fun.

Small plug: I made a sudoku puzzle called Stitches that was solved a few days ago on Cracking the Cryptic; go check it out! (There's a solve link in the video description if you want to take a crack at it before you watch).

Enjoy the puzzle!

Join Crosscord, the Discord server where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 49 (w/ Ricky Billingsgate): YOU WOULDN'T GET THIS FROM ANY OTHER GUYS (+ Meta Contest Results!)

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Solving Music: Masta Ace - Born To Roll

Hey guys; today's a collab with Ricky Billingsgate, because this was kind of an inevitable co-construction if we're being honest. This one's been in the works for a while, so it's really nice to finally have it out there. Hopefully the title doesn't give too much away :)

Go check out Ricky's puzzle blog, and follow him over on Twitter!

And of course, it's time to share the results of the "X Games" meta contest! Results and solution are below the break.

PUZZLE 44: AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

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Solving Music: Mamiko Suzuki - Contact

Another themed puzzle; wanted to go for something easy, but my cluing naturally leans toward the hard side, so I guess this one is "medium" :P

No notes this time around; hope this is a good warmup for people participating in the ACPT this weekend, and Brooke Husic's upcoming final puzzle for the Boswords Spring Themeless League! Have fun at the tournaments, and enjoy the puzzle!

Join Crosscord, the Discord server where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 3/9: MUSICAL NUMBERS

 [ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Hachioji-P, kz - Weekender Girl

GUYS IT'S MARCH 9TH!!!!!!! IT'S MIKU DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now you might be asking, "hey Ricky, I thought Miku Day was back in August when you did that other puzzle to celebrate it. what the heck." What you don't understand is that August 31st is Hatsune Miku's birthday. Today is Miku Day, and while I would love to explain to you why today is significant, that would spoil the puzzle. So solve the puzzle. Do it.

In non-crossword news, I made a Frogger-themed Sudoku for the Cracking the Cryptic Discord's monthly puzzle prompt a couple weeks ago, and Simon solved it on the YouTube channel the other day! I'll embed the video here; if you're into sudoku, give it a watch! And I think I've mentioned it here already, but I have a couple of puzzles in the upcoming Cracking the Cryptic book, which you can order here.

Enjoy the puzzle!

Join Crosscord, the Discord server where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 35: THE BUBBLEGUM ANCESTOR PUZZLE

 [ACROSS LITE | PDF]

 

Solving Music: Geoxor - Stardust

I normally don't like to do simple themes like this one, but I have not been able to get enough of my favorite anime, Bubblegum Ancestor, lately; I just had to make a puzzle about it. If you haven't seen it, you can go check it out here and see what everybody has been raving about.

As always I try to make sure that even more obscure entries are crossed fairly, so if you for some reason haven't watched Bubblegum yet, you can still take a crack at this puzzle. Hope everyone enjoys this one, especially Ricky Billingsgate:

Ricky's puzzles aren't hard. You just need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of anime. Don't blame him just because you don't know which character used the purple Xorph cannon in Bubblegum Ancestor.
— Ricky Billingsgate (@ambivalentricky) May 27, 2020

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

GUEST PUZZLE BY QUIARA VASQUEZ: HALLOWEEN THEMELESS

 [ACROSS LITE | PDF]

 

Solving Music: Oingo Boingo - No One Lives Forever

Quiara's Notes:

It was fun pitching a crossword towards what I presume is more of a zennial audience (e.g., the 62-Across clue). I miss getting sloshed on October 31st. :v

It's been a while! Today's puzzle is by Quiara Vasquez of "making a 90s Will Shortz emote for the crossword Discord" fame; it's a really solid Halloween themeless with some really wonderful clues. Editing this puzzle was particularly enjoyable; Quiara's constructing voice is very unique and fun, and I hope to see a lot more from her soon.

I've been losing constructing steam a bit lately, but I am still working on stuff. I actually have two finished puzzles that are ready to be posted here to the blog and another couple that are close to being done, it just takes a good amount of mental energy to get these blog posts set up (getting the download links for the .puz and PDFs is a bit of a lengthy process) and I haven't been feeling that energy lately. But rest assured I will, in fact, be popping off in November. I'll have another puzzle up later this week (and it's themed!), so look forward to that.

By the way, I've had a couple of sudoku puzzles solved on Cracking the Cryptic recently! Here are the videos of the solves:

I was thinking of putting those sudoku puzzles here as a blog post at some point, so that may be coming soon; if you want to solve them now, CTC has solving links in the descriptions of the YouTube videos.

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 30 (w/ Christopher Adams): PIZZA TIME (themeless)

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: LoveLeo - HEAD OVER HEELS

(video's weird but the song is a bop just trust me)

Collab! Most of this grid is actually Chris's fill; I did the 9-stacks in the corners, and when I told Chris I was using 1-Across in the puzzle (since he had told me about his personal take on it recently), he was eager to help with it and got me out of trying to fit long entries in the center that were never gonna work. Big kudos to him for getting some nice fill in the NE/SW, as well as for his really great clues (8, 32, and 51-Down are all him).

If you haven't already seen it, Amanda Rafkin hosted a guest puzzle from yours truly over on Brain Candy last week; go give it a try (and definitely check out Amanda's puzzles too, she posts pretty often)! Also, I just got word today that I have an upcoming New York Times puzzle two weeks from now (Tuesday the 29th), so be on the lookout for that. I'll definitely share it when it gets closer to then.

Thanks again to Chris for getting this one to where it is; enjoy the puzzle!

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 29: IT'S A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: LamazeP - Love Song

IT'S HATSUNE MIKU'S BIRTHDAY JUST LET ME DO ONE TRIBUTE PUZZLE OKAY

(EDIT: DAMMIT MIKU'S BIRTHDAY IS THE 31ST!!!! people on Twitter were celebrating it so I thought it was today but that's because it's already the 31st in Japan. whatever, this blog runs on Japan time now I guess)

I made this puzzle a while back and never got to cluing it; when I realized today was Miku's birthday and I didn't have anything prepared for it I had to finish this up and post it; the fill is admittedly rough, but I hope the theme carries it.

(Oh yeah, I should probably mention that this has a similar theme to a collab puzzle that'll be on this blog at some point in the future. That puzzle actually gave me the idea for this one, so when that collab drops just keep in mind that this one is the rip-off. kthx)

Speaking of collabs, I recently did a guest puzzle over on Et Tu, Etui?, which is probably my favorite indie puzzle site rn. They do self-aware shitposty puzzles, and they're so bad that they're hilarious (example: today's puzzle has NAM clued as ["Man up!"] and ARYA clued as [___ Stark? "Yes" (dialogue in "Game of Thrones", I guess)]). It's the kind of humor I've been wanting out of puzzles for a while, and I'm so happy someone's doing it, and that I was able to guest over there.

Enjoy the puzzle! (please)

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

GUEST PUZZLE BY WILL EISENBERG: I NEED A HERO

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Childish Gambino - Feels Like Summer

It's a guest puzzle today! Will reached out to me about a guest spot here, and I was more than happy to oblige. This one has a really nice theme with some quality fill and cluing, Will has very much embraced both the vibe of the blog and his own constructing voice. This was very fun to edit, and I look forward to the opportunity to do so again. (You can go follow Will on Twitter here.)

Will has asked me to use this space to promote the donation page for Unicorn Riot, an independent group of artists and journalists focusing on decentralized reporting. It's not an organization I'm familiar with, but I'm more than happy to share that donation link. Navigating the media space has been really rough the past couple of weeks, and one of the most important things you can do is keep yourself informed through a wide range of outlets and continually change your opinion based on what you learn.

I've been very hesitant to promote different groups/funds/etc. because I'm not competent enough to say I'm vigilant about checking which organizations are worth promoting and which are less than ideal or flat-out hurt the BLM movement. I've also been exploring my ideals about the most effective ways to create change and push the BLM cause forward. The risk of promoting to an audience a resource I'll realize a week later I shouldn't have is ever-present, and honestly scares me more than it should.

That said, I've seen the link to this Carrd site shared around by people all over lately; it's regularly updated and has links to tons of resources, including donation links to groups in all areas of the BLM fight. Among the resources is, for those who can't comfortably donate, a link to this YouTube playlist of videos whose monetization proceeds will go toward BLM-aligned organizations. I've taken the route of leaving the video open in a muted Chrome tab so the site doesn't devalue the pageview. (I've read that the process might be hindered by viewing these vids in a playlist, so check for the best way to use this resource. And don't take my word for anything. Check if these organizations meet your standards, and act accordingly.)

This is probably as much as I'll say about the current movement in any social space (continued sharing of links aside). The paragraphs above are absolutely necessary in this cycle where an audience is an extremely valuable tool to have, but I'd like this blog to primarily be a place where everyone who needs it can take a mental break and solve some puzzles. So enjoy the break.

Thanks again to Will for reaching out and providing a guest puzzle. Happy solving!

SOLUTION:

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PUZZLE 21 - LOOSE ENDS

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Kero Kero Bonito - Trampoline

Pulling a puzzle from the backlog today; this was originally made as an NYT submission a few months back, and was turned down (rightfully) for being too "cerebral" for the general audience (definitely using that word more often). When I got that feedback back, I realized that yeah, this theme's probably too tricky to try submitting for any general audience, so I slated it as a blog puzzle. You guys can take cerebral.

Since it's an older puzzle (one made for submission, at that), there's not nearly as much nerdy stuff as y'all are used to here. Thus is the way of the backlog.

Apologies for the lack of puzzle the past couple weeks; but there's a reason! I've recently been busting out puzzles for Crossing Words, an Animal Crossing-themed puzzle suite that I'm releasing later this month. The suite will have 5 puzzles, roughly corresponding with Monday-to-Friday difficulties (the final puzzle being a themeless). I'm not 100% sure how I'll be handling the release; I'd like to implement a pay-what-you-want system, that way anyone can solve the puzzles for free while still allowing for donations. No idea what services allow for that model, so we'll see. There'll be a fancy release post here on the blog when that drops, so be on the lookout for that!

Enjoy the puzzle, y'all.

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 17 - JOIN THE NAVY

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Ronald Jenkees - Rhodes Deep

I meant to post this one like a week ago, but kept putting it off. Real sorry about that. You'll probably be getting another puzzle in the next couple days; I've got a themeless I'm really happy about in the works, and I now have CrossFire at my disposal to help me finish it. Crossword Compiler has done some real good for me, but after seeing so many cool features in CrossFire that CC doesn't have, I finally bit the bullet and bought it. I'll be spending the next month or so weighing the pros and cons and seeing what appeals to me more.

This was a fun puzzle to grid; the theme came after the revealer came up in a conversation, and after finding a crown jewel themer *and* having it mirror the revealer, it was a dream come true. I hope y'all enjoy it as well. Stay safe.

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 13 - DROPPING BOMBS

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Vaudeville Revival - Without Your Knowing

 

Sunday size puzzles are back, y'all. This puzzle happened because I realized the wordplay in 113-Across was possible, and it was so cursed I needed to curse all of you with it. Glad I found a revealer to tie it all together. Since I went into this knowing I wasn't submitting this anywhere, I decided to really niche up the theme answers, which paid off really well imo. I kinda rushed the fill in some places, so there are some rough patches, but I'm ultimately happy with being able to pull together a 21x in twoish days, given that I have 21x puzzles sitting in my puzzle folder that are killing me to finish. Kinda wish my luck for the blog puzzles would carry over to my regular venue submissions, but eh.

Btw, the solving music today is by Vaudeville Revival, the band of a friend of mine. Go check out their album "Free Dirt" on Spotify; it's pretty good stuff.

SOLUTION:

Join the crossword Discord Server, where we talk about puzzle solving and construction!

PUZZLE 12 - HEWWO! (themeless)

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Bridal Party - Fruitless

Putting a title on this one was considerably difficult since for once in my life I decided to not do a themeless with any big entries in the center. I ended up referencing one of my favorite entries in this puzzle, even if it is a short one. I really wish that entry was viable in mainstream crosswords, but editors would never allow it. Cowards.

The seeds for this one were 44 and 47-Across; 44 in particular was one I really wanted to include. I will always associate it with this bit from Snapcube's Real-Time Fandub of the PS4 Spider-Man game (spoilers for PS4 Spider-Man and obviously this puzzle at that link). All of the Real-Time Fandubs are fantastic, and I highly recommend them.

Enjoy the puzzle!

SOLUTION:

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VARIETY PUZZLE 2 - SNAKE PIT #1

[PDF]

Solving Music: Professor Kliq - Mouth Money

Apologies for the lack of puzzles lately; I've been jumping around making a few puzzles for submitting, and a large chunk of my time recently went toward preparing a group cosplay to wear to the Sonic movie (movie was pretty dang good, btw). I've been kinda burned out on crosswords the past week or so, but I wanted to make sure this hiatus didn't last forever, so I worked up a new style of variety puzzle.

I hope the rules aren't too confusing on this one; the concept is pretty simple, but very hard to put into words. While the solve is probably a pretty fast one, this is definitely a format I want to explore more; lots of fun phrases can be used as snakes, and the missing-letters phrase ties things together pretty well. Hope you enjoy it!

SOLUTION:

Join us in the Crossword Server on Discord, where we talk about crossword solving and construction!

PUZZLE 6 - THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS (themeless)

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

SOLVING MUSIC: Yuma Yamaguchi feat. Haru - Mewton

Here's an impulse crossword I made last month; you may have seen me live-construct this on Twitter already (puzzle spoilers at that link). As with the last puzzle, this one was made when I realized at 4AM that 39-Across is 15 letters; the rest is history. If all the gaming stuff in the last puzzle turned you away, this puzzle doesn't have nearly as much, so it may be more palatable. Enjoy the puzzle, and happy holidays!

SOLUTION:

PUZZLE 3 - I'VE HEARD IT BOTH WAYS

[ACROSS LITE | PDF] 

SOLVING MUSIC: Moon Duo - Lost Heads

21x grids won't come too often around here, but I thought I'd post one for the first week. This is my first attempt at a Sunday size grid, and while it got turned down, I'm still really happy with it. I'm pretty happy with the theme, and that I was able to get three themers to cross in the center. Hope y'all enjoy.

SOLUTION:

PUZZLE 2 - WHAT DOES FRED SAY (themeless)

[ACROSS LITE | PDF] 

SOLVING MUSIC: Chaos Chaos - My Hands

[Quick update: I'm still planning on posting a puzzle only every week or so, but I wanted to have a few puzzles up starting out. We'll have three puzzles up this week: yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's. Let's hope this doesn't throw my backlog down the drain!]

Here's a themeless I wrote a while back; this was my first attempt at a triple-stack of fifteens, and you can pretty much tell that from the black square pattern. That pattern is entirely due to 20-Down, which, as the only word in my wordlist that fits the crossing triple-stack letters, forced a black square pattern pretty much immediately. In hindsight, the move was to just redo the triple stack, but eh, this was my first attempt, so y'know. Have fun!

SOLUTION: