Puzzle 45 - 9x9

The idea I have right now with puzzles this size is to make some clues easyish and some clues hard, but the hard ones should all be fun to uncover. I hope that this and the next several puzzles do that.

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Click "Read more" to solve online

Puzzle 44 - 9x9

I quite like the way these embedded puzzles have been working. The only change I would want is an option not to reveal incorrect letters when the grid is completely filled. But that doesn't matter so much - it's all for fun. Enjoy.

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Puzzle 43 - 9x9

Another mini with roughly the same shape as the last one. But I added an extra block, breaking up one word, because I wanted to clue 14-Across as singular, not plural.

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Puzzle 42: 9x9

Hello again. I've made some changes to the website since the last post. For one thing, I changed the Blogger theme. It's still nothing fancy, but I had to do it to get the second thing to work right, which is that I've embedded puzzles on the posts so you can solve them online. Click the "Read more" link on any post and it'll take you right there. I'll still upload an AcrossLite version, but I might stop putting up a PDF, because there's now an easy way to see the puzzles without downloading any software.

Anyway - this puzzle has some good question-mark clues.

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Puzzle 41 - 15x15 themeless

One corner here has a theme, sorta. It's three songs, from the 1970s and 80s, by artists who in my head are somewhat similar. The titles happened to stack well, is the real reason I made it. I like all the songs too. It's possible that you've heard of none of them.

After solving, here are links: Song 1, Song 2, Song 3

Also ... you might like to try another puzzle I made - with a more coherent (?) music theme - on Ria Dhull's puzzle site, gecsxwords.

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Puzzle 40 - 5x5

How's it going. This is a little mini puzzle that has a nice opposite thing going on. Unrelatedly - have you ever noticed that the word ROSY, when it appears in the downs of 15x15 puzzles, is disproportionately on the right side in the middle of the usual three sections? That might not be a real pattern but it's something I've seen.

Other news, because I'd like to brag - yesterday I set a personal best for a New York Times puzzle, at 2:44.

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Puzzle 39 - 15x15: Mind the Gap

Who doesn't love fill in the blanks? This is a puzzle full of them. Every clue here consists of one word and one blank. A few have hyphens. Some words work very well with this kind of clue. Others - do not, and it would be insane to clue them that way. I tried to limit that type in making this, but there are a few... Also there are some names, which you can't hide all that well. But I think a few names are good to have because it makes the puzzle more solvable.

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Puzzle 38 - 7x7

Okay. Last of these, I'm pretty sure. This one has a mix of hard and easy clues which in combination make the puzzle hardish. That's kind of a funny thing. The solver doesn't know how hard the clue is. Or maybe you do and it's not hard at all. Anyway this is the 20th mini puzzle of mine with high interlock and few black squares. You may have noticed the tag on them that says ring around the rosie.

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Puzzle 37 - 15x14: Sports Illustrated

Another theme! In addition to the theme answers, the grid includes two contemporary soccer players (one more famous than the other). You can look them up if you don't know them.

As for puzzle titles ... gee, I wonder. I think my last themed grid (Puzzle 31) could have been called No Funny Business. Does that work? You'll have to solve that puzzle to find out. This one's title also came after the idea. I guess it's reasonably descriptive.

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Puzzle 36 - 7x7

Hi again. Now, no words in this little puzzle stand out much, and a couple are lame verbs (which seem to have narrower cluing options). But I clued a few answers so stretchily that it seemed like it could be frustrating to solve. I think those clues actually make it more fun though. Hard but. You know. Whatever.

:)

I am still quite new at this.

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Puzzle 35 - 7x7

Another 7x7 with one black square. This is near the last of these that I'm going to make. For this one I tried to make the clues a little harder than normal (though the 3-letter answers are still clued relatively simply - otherwise it might be impossible).

Relatedly, is there a word for question-mark clues? I learned recently that in cryptic puzzles the exclamation-point clues are called &lit, meaning "also read the clue literally."

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Puzzle 34 - 7x7

Okay, so here is another fairly clean one of these - as in, all the answers are recognizable. It's got some funny qualities - a little partial answer could be nicely paired with another, and there are so many verbs. (That's a hint I guess.) Anyway, this week there will be puzzles every other day.

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Puzzle 33 - 15x15: Something Different

It's Sunday. Not long ago, I learned about on Rex Parker a type of crossword called Something Different. Oh they're so much fun. Anything goes in it, real phrases (rarely), fake phrases, partial whatevers. I solved a few then tried to make my own. But way way way too boldly - I went for a 15x15 with no black squares. It didn't work ...

Then just last week the constructor Paolo Pasco published a Something Different he had made (it was very funny). And I remembered that I wanted to. After much amusement in construction, here it is.

But I don't think I did it quite right. For one thing I still wanted it to be wide open, so there are only 12 black squares (making 54 words total). And some of the long phrases are a little too close to nonsense. Two of them, I'd say. Not great, out of only 18. Also some small words are actual nonsense, clued desperately. Unevenly difficult, I think is what all that leads to. (There's a crossing dupe but that's fine - Friday's had one too, and anyway in neither puzzle was one full entry in another one.)

Still, it's been tested, and it is solvable. The clues are as straightforward as I was able to make them.

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Puzzle 32 - 7x7

A clean puzzle here. I think I've decided that cleanliness is going to be a priority for me now. I hope I remember that. Well, I might. So, helper squares will likely appear more often. Not immediately. First I have to figure out how doing all that works.

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