PUZZLE 33: BIG DUBSKIS (themeless)

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Aesop Rock - Jumping Coffin

(This is from the new Aesop Rock album, Spirit World Field Guide, which just came out this past week; HIGHLY recommend listening to the whole thing)

Really happy with the center stack on this one; all three of the entries in that stack are ones I've been trying to get in a puzzle for a while, so it's pretty sick how it ended up working. Enjoy the puzzle!

Small change to blog posts, btw: I'll no longer be including a solution image at the bottom of the post to simplify the blog post process on my end. If you're a PDF solver, you can easily check the solution by revealing the puzzle in the PuzzleMe applet in the post. If that creates any issues, go ahead and comment to let me know; I'm happy to keep including the solution images if they're still needed.

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PUZZLE 32: I DON'T MAKE THE RULES

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

(The colored squares aren't necessary for the theme, so feel free to solve in Across Lite)

Solving Music: Hachioji-P, Giga - Gimme×Gimme

Really happy that this puzzle panned out at all, to be honest. The theme felt like it wasn't going to all tie together, but I managed to find some theme entries that fit together! Even if the theme isn't lost on you, check out the solution image on this one; you'll get to see the proper formatting and everything.

That's all today; enjoy the puzzle, y'all!

SOLUTION:

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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:

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PUZZLE 31: A ROAST! (themeless)

 

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Yung Bae - Honey

Don't have much to say on this one. I figured after whatever was on TV last night, some people might want a bit of a break, so hopefully this puzzle will do. In addition to this puzzle, I had the New York Times puzzle yesterday; if you weren't able to solve it and would like to, shoot me a message over on Twitter, and we can make it happen. I also highly recommend Paolo Pasco's USA Today from yesterday (make sure to click the calendar icon and go to the 9/29 puzzle titled "Move On"); very smooth and fun puzzle.

Also, Adam Nicolle just launched a $25 (CAD) indie subscription called luckystreak xwords+ over on his site; it's a year subscription with a total of 50 exclusive puzzles. As someone who also likes puzzles on the Gen-Z wavelength, I highly recoomend that y'all go get in on that.

That's all I've got today; hope you guys have fun with it. I'll probably be listening to the new 44D album tonight and trying not to implode. Maybe playing some Among Us as well. See y'all soon, enjoy the puzzle!

SOLUTION:

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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:

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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:

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PUZZLE 28: DOUBLE DIGITS (themeless)

[ACROSS LITE | PDF]

Solving Music: Mafumafu - Jigsaw Puzzle

(Warning: The music video for this song has some flashing images; if your eyes are sensitive to that kind of thing, this video of the song doesn't have any of that.)

As you can see up top, I'm trying out the PuzzleMe applet for these posts now! Hopefully this is way more convenient for folks who'd like to solve these puzzles in-browser. Let me know if you have any issues with the solver.

Sorry for the weird hiatus, btw; I've been busy with some other puzzle stuff, including a few collabs that should be showing up here and on others' blogs in the near future. There should be more puzzles here in general in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for them.

I wrote this puzzle exclusively so I could use 1-Across; I've been playing a ton of Project DIVA lately, and 1-Across is a neat technique that I thought would work well in a puzzle. If you're interested in Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloid music, I highly recommend Project DIVA; it's really addicting, and the newest game, Project DIVA Mega Mix, is available on Nintendo Switch.

Also! Lollapuzzoola is tomorrow; if you're gonna be participating in that, make sure to join the Crosscord server on Discord; we'll have a channel set up for Lolla talk, and we'll be playing some Jackbox games after the tournament (anyone's welcome to join in for Jackbox, even if you aren't participating in the tournament)! Hope to see you there!

SOLUTION:

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