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 #11: patriotism [acrostic]

wow it's an acrostic! i've been solving a lot of these lately and they're super fun. so i decided to make one! by which i mean i had Alex Boisvert's Acrostic Generator do it for me. amazing tool and i hope more people get into these neat crossword-adjacent puzzles because of it!

if you like this (or if you don't) i highly encourage you to check out other puzzles of this ilk, including Alex Boisvert's and No-Feet McGee's (they're free despite the patreon hosting!). they both have pretty distinct voices as acrostic constructors, imo, and their puzzles are very good (they also both do crosswords!)

as always, if you solve this on stream somewhere, let me know, i'd love to watch!

.jpz (openable in XWord or Crossword Nexus) | Crossword Nexus fullscreen

or click the link below (though i recommend the fullscreen link above). enjoy!

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!