VARIETY PUZZLE: Who's Zoomin' Who?

PDF
GOOGLE SHEET (to copy the Google Sheet, click on "File" then "Make a copy"—that should create a version of the sheet that you can edit)
SOLUTION

Variety puzzle time! This one's a Packing Crates, a puzzle type invented by Patrick Berry and seen in the WSJ, where you have to place answers in Rows and rectangular Boxes. And, after spending a year seeing people's faces in little boxes on my little screen while I go to my little classes, this type of puzzle feels especially appropriate.

Credit where credit's due: first, many thanks to Ricky for test-solving—his input really improved this puzzle over the first draft. And, if you like puzzles like these, check out the variety suite Patrick Berry just dropped. All the puzzles are great (of course), but the Packing Crates was a real standout. It's also where I got the idea to make one of these, but he doesn't need to know that

Email me if you have any questions/need help! As always, hope you enjoy!
Paolo

VARIETY PUZZLE: Rows Garden #1

PDF (harder)

PDF (regular)

JPZ file (for solving on Crossword Nexus et al)

RGZ file (for solving on iPad)

Variety puzzle time!

In a Rows Garden, there are two ways to enter entries: in Rows (clued in order of appearance within each row) and in Blooms (which are entered in each of the hexagons, going clockwise or counterclockwise, starting at any point). In the regular version, clues for Blooms are given as they appear in the grid, left to right and top to bottom. In the harder version, clues for Blooms are given in alphabetical order by clue, so you'll have to figure out where to place the Blooms. Here's a link to a WSJ puzzle that explains it better than I'm doing right now.

If you like this puzzle, check out Andrew Ries and Joon Pahk, both masters of the form. And, if you're more down for normal crosswords, there's one coming soon! [ADDED NOTE: If you're an iPad solver, an .rgz file is available now, courtesy of Andrew Ries! Many thanks, Andrew!]

[ANOTHER UPDATE: Accidentally uploaded a version where one of the Bloom clues was for a previous version of this puzzle; the PDFs and JPZ are now updated!]

Hope you enjoy,

Paolo

PUZZLE #66: Something Different

PDF
PUZ
SOLUTION to the last puzzle

Hello!

I know my last post said "I promise the next puzzle will be more straight-down-the-middle," but... this puzzle is about as non-straight-down-the-middle as you can get. My bad! Normal puzzle next time, I promise.

This week's offering is a Something Different puzzle, which is a crossword where most of the entries are made-up. For example, the answer to the clue [Like Cole Sprouse's "Riverdale" character] would lead to JUGHEADESQUE, and the answer to [Havoc wreaked by the villain of "Cats" (2019)] would be MACAVITY CALAMITY. Two things that make this puzzle non-impossible to solve: the made-up answers are generally clued straight, so they can be inferred from the clues. And, most importantly, the short words in the grid are (mostly) normal, so they can act as good toeholds.

If you like this puzzle, check out some other good Something Different puzzles here, here, and here, as well as a whole folder of them here.

Hope you enjoy!

Expect the unexpected,
-Paolo

P.S. Boswords is coming up tomorrow! Will be there virtually—there's a stacked constructor lineup, so if you're not on that already, get on that train

PUZZLE #41: Double Play (Variety puzzle + CONTEST)

PDF (harder)
PUZ (harder)
PDF (normal)
PUZ (normal)
SOLUTION to the last puzzle

Hello again! After three months of silence to the day, Grids These Days is back, and with a fresh puzzle to start the new month.

This week's puzzle is a variety crossword that I'm going to call "Double Play" (it's a modified version of squeezeboxes, seen if you scroll down on the linked page). The gimmick is pretty straightforward: each square in the grid contains either one or two letters, like in the example below:

There are two versions: normal (multi-word tags are included) and harder (no tags)—choose whichever version you're feeling. Also, this is a metapuzzle! When you're finished filling in the grid, you should be able to come up with an apt pair of songs with equal-length titles.

When you have the correct answer, send it to pascopuzzles [at] gmail [dot] com. One randomly-selected solver will win this week's prize, a free subscription to The Inkubator crosswords, a fantastic woman-edited, woman-constructed project by Laura Braunstein and Tracy Bennett (or, if you already have a subscription to the Inkubator, a gift subscription for a person of your choosing OR an extension to your subscription OR talk to me and we can make something work). Send in your answers by 11:59 p.m. ET on December 14, 2018 for a chance to win. Enjoy, and best of luck!

Feels good to be back,
Paolo

(P.S. you should follow @gridsthesedays on Twitter)