PUZZLE #4: Themeless 1

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SOLUTION to last week's puzzle

It's finally time for some themeless action! 70 words, 32 blocks. Here's hoping at least some of those 70 words will be fun. You can probably guess the marquee answer-- ever since I noticed it was a fifteen, I tried grid after grid in an attempt to showcase it. This is what I feel is the best of those grid attempts; in particular, I really lucked out with all the entries running together in the center here.

More Announcements!

• Glutton For Pun is releasing a five-day meta suite, and all the puzzles so far are excellent. The fifth puzzle comes out tomorrow, so now would be a great time to click through and catch up on the first four.
• Crossword tournaments! Boswords is going down on 8/6, and Lollapuzzoola on 8/19. Registration for both is still open, though Lollapuzzoola is only doing at-home registration right now. Both have stacked constructor lineups, and I'm looking forward to solving what they got. You'd do yourself a favor by checking out both of the links.

-Paolo

PUZZLE #3: Cleanup Efforts

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Solution to last week's puzzle

Welcome back! We're on week 3, and it's time to amp up the difficulty.

[MINOR SPOILERS AFTER THIS LINE]

A little background for today's puzzle: I made it right after watching the travesty that was the Manny Pacquiao/Jeff Horn fight. Watching the figure referenced at 39A led me to the revealer phrase, and a puzzle idea was born. Righteous indignation is great fuel for crossword-writing, apparently.

This puzzle lowkey inspired me to set up this site, since I loved the grid, but it was too wonky a puzzle to go to any publication. I might have been able to tweak it to make it publishable (bonus puzzle: what 15-letter phrase could be an alternate revealer for this crossword?), but I didn't want it to lose any of its Indie™ flavor. Such is the trade-off, I guess.

Hope you enjoy!

-Paolo

P.S. Excellent Chris King puzzle today, with a backstory unlike any other

PUZZLE #2: Core Training

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Solution to last week's puzzle

ERRATA: The cross-reference to "1-Down" in the 5D clue should be to 1-Across.
Also, the 40D clue should technically be something like [City with a University of Washington campus]

Hello again!

Thanks to everybody who checked in on the site last week; glad to see that I haven't yet scared everyone off with a torrent of young™ pop culture references. All in good time, of course-- hopefully, you see fit to keep dropping by. And, I'd like to extend a special thanks to everyone in Crossworld who's lent their support so far, and the people who linked to this site in some form or another; all of them are insanely good puzzle makers, and I would wholeheartedly advise that you follow those links and treat your self to their content.

Today's puzzle is another entry in the "easy puzzles with really low word counts" category. Like last week, it probably shouldn't put up too much resistance. (And, for those of you looking for puzzles with more of a bite, say no more; next week's puzzle is gonna ratchet up the difficulty a little.)

-Paolo

PUZZLE #1: "Game On!"

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Across Lite solver (for use with .puz files)

Hello! A few notes before we begin:

• I'm hoping to post a puzzle every Sunday, at noon PT. Just a warning, though: hopes of maintaining a weekly update regimen might fall apart once school starts, at which point I might switch to posting a puzzle every other week (or, worst case, on a whenever-I-feel-like-it schedule).
• The site has a Google Group, which you can join here. Provided I can get the group to work right, it should be a way to get the puzzles delivered via email.
• In terms of what kind of crosswords you'll see here: the sidebar explains the main vibe pretty well. I will add that themelesses are extremely a part of my Brand™, so expect a lot of those. Also, expect a lot of puzzles that are too weird/modern to submit to any publisher. As far as puzzle content goes: a working knowledge of Beyonce's discography and discontinued NBC sitcoms, while not required, will prove helpful on many occasions.
• Many, many thanks to the people whose influences have gone, directly or indirectly, into the making of this site. You'll find a more-or-less comprehensive roster of them to the right (under "More Puzzles"), but some people I'd like to thank in particular are: Sam Ezersky (test solver extraordinaire), erik agard, Chris King, David Steinberg, and Andrew Ries. All of them are crossword forces of nature, and you need to hit up their sites if you haven't already.
• If this posts on schedule, my brother's wedding will have been yesterday! This isn't crossword-related, but I just wanted to share that

Onto today's puzzle: 74 words, a simple theme, and a (hopefully) breezy solve. Enjoy, and feel free to email or comment below!

-Paolo

P.S. are you ready for some GRID WARS

PUZZLES COMING SOON

The first puzzle drops July 9, at 10:00 am PST.

-paolo p.