puzzle #16: doubling season (with totcho)

 

hi all! this puzzle comes to you from the minds of me (as usual) and totcho, who among other things is known for being good with photoshop and being familiar enough with magic: the gathering to have incepted this puzzle in crossweird's chat. that was almost two months ago and i honestly forget exactly how it happened but i'm glad it did because i think this puzzle turned out really well!

this was totcho's second time constructing - the first being Tabula Rasa - and honestly he's a natural. tons of the good, clever, funny, etc. clues in this puzzle are from him. we refined it all together but he came up with some fantastic cluing angles. i don't know if he plans to get into puzzle construction himself but you all better keep an eye out just in case!

this puzzle is very heavily themed around magic: the gathering, a card game that's too complicated for its own good and too expensive to get into. however, you need not be familiar with it to solve the puzzle.

this puzzle is called doubling season after an iconic (and much too expensive) magic card (unofficial printing shown above), because it has double the constructors, double the themes, and probably around the same amount of fun. we hope. and thanks to slugbiker for the very helpful test solve!

lastly, it's totcho's birthday today!! what better gift could i give than to give him his crossword constructor debut right here on this blog? so if you like this puzzle, tell us! the birthday boy deserves it. i will humbly accept the praise along with him, of course.

SPOILERY MAGIC STUFF TO EXPLAIN THE THEME FOR NORMAL PEOPLE: [1] [2]

.ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

 or click the link below. enjoy!

puzzle #15: Tabula Rasa (with meatdaddy and 18 other people, kinda)

hi everyone! march has been a busy month between work and a week-long vacation but puzzles are back in a big way. today marks the release of Tabula Rasa, a project headed by meatdaddy69420, in which they gridded a puzzle and sent it out to whoever wanted to participate to write clues for it. it's been super cool to see everyone's takes on the entries (and how much overlap there is in some cases).

i'm super grateful that i'm not considered too annoying by the community at large to participate in something like this yet, and it was fun to try and write unique clues for the puzzle. normally there would be a lot more "boring" clues in my puzzle than this, but that's what's fun about a project like this: everyone is trying to stand out! it's a great way to get everyone's voice to come out in their writing which has been tons of fun to see and do.

meatdaddy says the following:

One of my favorite things about crossword puzzles is seeing the many ways that different constructors will clue a single word - for just a moment, you get to peer inside the mind of someone else and at the expense of sounding cheesy, it's a lovely, intimate moment. Not only that, but I also frequently find myself thinking "man, I wish I would have thought of that cluing angle!" and it's a testament to the diverse skill sets and talent in our lil' community. The main goal of Tabula Rasa was to pick everyone's brains by sending them a silly grid with fun fill and words with a handful of different cluing angles. I also wanted to get new constructors involved - building your own grid for the first time is not only intimidating, but can also be cost prohibitive during *gestures at world events*. I wanted this to be an approachable opportunity for new constructors to get their foot in the door, and I'm very pleased to say that I think it was successful in that. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I just hope everyone had a lot of fun doing this and I'm really grateful for everyone's enthusiasm about the project!

many of the finished puzzles will be posted on the constructors' respective blogs, and the others are posted on meatdaddy's blog here, which includes links to the blogs as well. as for mine, i can't imagine too many people will be doing this one over all the others, but if you do, let me know what you think. 

.ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

or click the link below. enjoy!

puzzle #13: hell, i could eat

not much to say about this one. i made this puzzle as a distraction from working on another puzzle, so i guess that's where i'm at now. i have, like, 4 puzzles up in the air currently, which is funny because 2 weeks ago i had about half of one.

thanks so much to Ariel for the test solve! as always, if you solve it, like it, love it, hate it, stream it, let me know! i'd love to hear your thoughts and/or watch the solve.

.ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

or click the link below. enjoy! 

puzzle #12: themeless #1

oh my god. i cannot believe this crossword is seeing the light of day. i came up with the seed entries for this one (hint: they're the massive ones) back in... october, i think. i spent a few days trying to make a grid that fills well, got nowhere, and repeated that a few times. one time i got an insanely ugly grid with way too many black squares that filled kind of poorly and was rightfully told by many in the crosscord server that i should rework it. but last night i decided to sit down with it again and somehow came up with this, which i think looks pretty good and filled... fine. either way i think we ended up with something pretty good!

thanks to Alex Boisvert for the test solve, and to everyone in the community who gave me such strong FOMO that i decided to go back into the mines to hammer this one out.  

.ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

or click the link below. as always, if you solve this on stream somewhere, let me know via discord or twitter, i'd love to watch! happy solving!

puzzle #10: cryptic #1

completely incidentally, i decided to do something special for my tenth puzzle! i've been interested in cryptics for a long time (longer than i've been interested in american crosswords, frankly) but they never really stuck. i've been getting more into them lately though and i just had to make one after thinking up one particular clue in this one. 

writing cryptic clues is a lot harder than writing normal ones but it's so much more fun and rewarding, i found. i'm super excited to make more of these. in the meantime, if you have any feedback, positive or negative, about this one, let me know! it's my first one so it's probably a little rough but i hope i did okay.

.ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

or click the link below. as always, if you solve this on stream somewhere, let me know! enjoy!

puzzle #9: they ring, ring, ringin'

alright yooo what's up! just when i thought "i'm completely out of ideas for puzzles", this one came to me in the shower and i rushed to my computer sopping wet to make it. i fried my PC and my downstairs neighbors are complaining about water dripping from the ceiling, but this puzzle is so good it's worth it.

thanks to Ajay for test solving! and as always, please ping me on twitter or discord if you solve this on stream somewhere, i want to watch!

 .ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

 or click the link below. enjoy!

puzzle #8: midi #2

hiiiii! it's been a bit, and i've been feeling like i haven't been making enough puzzles. so tonight i decided to make one! i've been pretty busy with my minecraft series on youtube, which isn't something i expect too many crossword people to care about, but i had a solid backlog recorded and figured there was no better time to churn out a crossword.

maybe it was the break that did it but i made this in just a couple hours, which is pretty insane for me. does practice make you improve or something? crazy. anyway, enjoy. and if you stream this puzzle ping me on discord or twitter! i want to watch!

.ipuz | .puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

or click the link below!

puzzle #7: states of affairs

i am SO GLAD to get this puzzle out there. i came up with the theme a couple weeks ago, had to totally scrap it halfway through when i realized 3 of my 4 themers ended with "tion(s)" and it was ugly, came up with new ones, wrestled with the fill more than usual, and landed on this. i hope it was worth it!

thanks very much to Frisco for test solving. enjoy!! 

.puz | .pdf | puzzleme fullscreen

or click below!

puzzle #6: mini #2

hi, have a mini! i'm still working on a big puzzle but i think it's finally coming together. my mom is in town for the next couple of weeks and is staying with me but i want to get it done very soon!

i threw this one together in about an hour, which is very fast for me! i'm insanely happy with how it turned out. once i figure out a stable hosting solution i'll start putting pdfs and puz links in these posts, and i plan to go back and do it for my existing puzzles. i'll probably just end up hosting them on my own site, which might not be the most stable but at least i'll know if it goes down. anyway, enjoy!

puzzle #5: hamming it up

back with another puzzle! this theme was in the works for a couple weeks while i struggled to come up with enough entries that worked together. i think it ended up pretty well, though i don't think it's groundbreaking (in fact, i'd be incredibly surprised if this theme weren't done before, but i didn't check so as to not feel obligated to scrap the puzzle entirely).

big thanks to quiara vasquez for test solving, and big apologies for accidentally sending her a slightly unfinished puzzle.

puzzle #4: hey! listen!

fair warning: this puzzle isn't intended for general audiences! i think it's still doable if you aren't in the target demo, but if you don't confidently understand what the title means, you might have a hard time.

regardless, i needed to make this puzzle as soon as i realized the theme worked out. hopefully at least one person out there appreciates it as much as i know i would if i were solving it. 

big thanks to quiara vasquez and jake eakle for test solving this one! applet after the jump, enjoy!

puzzle #3: midi #1

 I PROMISE THIS IS BETTER THAN MY OTHER ONES!!!

this is the first puzzle i'm significantly happy with. there isn't any fill in here i'm unsure about, i went through and kept editing it until i was happy with it. it took hours, but that's how it goes i guess. i'll get faster as i get better, i'm sure.

no theme or anything, just a little midi. applet after the jump.

puzzle #2: mini #1

hey again! i decided on a whim last night to whip up a 5x5 and i think it went much better than that first try. i'm reading a lot more construction guides and resources than i had before trying to make a puzzle the first time so i'm hoping i'll get way better as i get more practice. hopefully sooner rather than later, there were some stinkers in that first one.

no real theme for this one but it'll quickly become clear where the idea came from, i think. applet after the jump. 

puzzle #1: god, godder, goddess

i recently started reading a book about the greek myths, having been frustrated for years that i don't know anything about it. it's very cool! i'm not finished the book yet but i had to put it down to make this puzzle as soon as i got the idea for it.

this is my first crossword puzzle! i'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and 42-across is the entire reason it exists. it came together amazingly after that (by which i mean it's amazing that it came together at all).

thanks very much Ajay and personman on crosscord for test solving! applet after the jump.