16-wide grid today; even though it's oversized, it's still well above the usual
themeless word count, but uh, this isn't the usual themeless. You'll see.
We gridded this on-stream over on my
Twitch a while back; I let the viewers pick a seed entry from my wordlist for
the center slot, and we managed a really solid set of entries for the
stair-stack. I think the fill isn't the most solid, but it should be pretty
apparent why that is. Hopefully there aren't too many rough crossings, but
this is almost definitely gonna play on the intense side, I imagine. Hope it's
a good brain-scratcher.
[EDIT 6/22 12:08 AM] Looks like I didn't know how to spell "Jersey". The image above and the puzzle links have been updated to fix the typo in the clue for 59-Across. Do I need to make an apology video now?
Fair warning, this puzzle is gonna skew hella male. I was hoping to get some
longer answers that weren't dudes' names, but the cards were just not in my
favor this time. (I could've even had SOCIAL ACTIVISTS in this puzzle as a nice
relevant answer, but then I noticed an offensive entry and the fates were not
having it.)
That said, pretty happy with this one. Hopefully the central entry is still
relevant enough; it's a phenomenon that's made my month, and I'm sure it has
for others too. I recently gridded another themeless on my
Twitch stream, but I'm still debating whether it's passable enough to post here; chances
are it'll be the next puzzle here.
Also as a heads up, a week from today (on Thursday the 18th), I've got a
puzzle in the New York Times, so give that a shot if you can.
Lastly, I wanted to share a couple more BLM resources.
First is
the Racial Justice and Equality Game Bundle
on itch.io; for at least five dollars, you can get MORE THAN A THOUSAND
VIDEO GAMES. That's INSANE. Like "$9,000 worth of games for $5" insane.
This isn't even like those shoddy "1000-games-in-1" packages you get at
Walmart full of Bejeweled clones; a lot of these are legit games.
Honestly, let me just go to the site and list off some of the ones I've
heard great things about: A Short Hike, Night in the Woods, Celeste,
Nuclear Throne, Pikuniku, Quadrilateral Cowboy, GNOG, OneShot, Super
Hexagon, No Pineapple Left Behind, and way more. Also included are packs
of assets for game development (graphics, guides, etc.). It'd be
ridiculous not to drop $5 on this; all profits are being split 50/50
between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Community Bail
Fund. It's only available for the next 3-4 days, so if you want in, get it
soon.
Second is
another Carrd site, this one more focused on protester safety, black history, and mental
health resources. Go check that out, and share the link as well.
The Carrd I shared last time
is the one I've seen shared around the most, but I think I've only seen
this one once, which is pretty sad. Spread the word.
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!
New themeless today! This one was gridded on-stream over on Twitch; definitely a lot of fun to get feedback from other people, as usual. The spanner hit me after coming across it on Twitter, and from there I got some wonderful stacks going in the NW/SE. Hope you enjoy.
Btw, if you want a bonus puzzle, I made a funky word search that got some traction on Twitter the other day. Try it out if you'd like.
People keep telling me my crosswords are hard so I decided to make it easy on you guys and do a word search instead. Not easy enough? It should be: there's no right-to-left, up-and-down, or diagonal words. They only read left-to-right. pic.twitter.com/qhLZKRJs7e
Hey guys! I've been spending the past month or so putting together an Animal Crossing suite, and today it's finally out!
Crossing Words is a suite of five puzzles themed around Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's got four themed puzzles and finishes off with a tough themeless. Difficulties roughly correspond to Monday-Friday NYT difficulties (though Puzzles 3 and 5 are probably a bit tougher than most NYT Wednesdays/Fridays); I highly recommend solving these with friends/family to get the most out of these. I also recommend printing out the PDF and solving on paper (though .PUZ files are provided); some of these puzzles contain visual elements that don't translate to digital solving 100 percent, and I guarantee it's the best way to solve the suite.
The suite is completely free, but I've left the option to pay what you want available if you feel so inclined. This is my first experience with Gumroad, so if you have any difficulties downloading, let me know over on Twitter and we can get things worked out smoothly.
I've had a lot of fun putting the suite together (the visuals especially were fun to create), and I hope it's an enjoyable solving experience for you. Have a good time!
In case the embed down there is broken, you can go directly to the Gumroad page here.
Pretty standard themeless today. I started this puzzle off with the intention of making a grid to submit to the Times, but there were too many good options for nerdy fill that presented themselves, and I gave in. I think as a result, this puzzle has hit a happy medium between the super-niche stuff I've been putting out lately and general-audience fill. Less "you-know-it-or-you-don't" and more "unfamiliar but gettable" is the goal. Hope y'all enjoy.
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!
