I may have some new readers after yesterday's Boswords stream, where I solved (well, mostly solved!) Joon Pahk's phenomenal final puzzle- if that's you, welcome!
I mentioned on the stream how much I love the indie puzzle space, so I want to highlight a few of my favorite blogs here:- 7xwords (Malaika Handa) features a new 7x7 grid every day except Mondays, covering all possible grids over the course of the year. A great mix of stuff, with a ton of contributors. Malaika's Jan 13 puzzle is a must-see!
- QVXwordz (Quiara Vasquez) is a fantastic source of tough themelesses. They're funny and satisfying, and I always learn something new. The clue & answer for 36A on the Jan 27 puzzle might be my favorite of the year so far.
- xwords by a ladee (Brooke Husic) - Brooke's wordplay/misdirection game is absolute fire, and the aha moments are just lovely (and often hilarious - see her Jan 30 demi themeless for several examples).
- Happy Little Puzzles (Matthew Stock) - Matthew's cluing voice is just great, his range is absolutely wild, and he's constantly dropping new collabs. I truly don't know how he has time to make this many puzzles that are this good. His Jan 22 themeless with Pao Roy is a recent standout.
Alright, we do have a puzzle to get to: it's themeless, and it's fairly tough. I'm not sure whether it's harder or easier than the first themeless, so I'm curious to hear what your experience is. Huge thanks to Brooke Husic for test-solving this on very short notice. Enjoy!
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ReplyDeleteThank you for posting the links, Mollie! I am one of the new subscribers and relatively new to the crossword community. I did not know there was such an active indie puzzle scene until recently, and I am having a blast with the (new-to-me) puzzle sources. I loved solving your "404 Page Not Found" puzzle and looks forward to solving the other two. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteWoohoo- so glad you're enjoying your foray into the indie universe!
DeleteI really love your puzzles! For me, this one was a bit harder than the first one, with a few clues/answers that I found more obscure. There were a lot of proper names in it, which made me afraid because I never know proper names and they always make me feel like I'm not smart enough to do crosswords, but I was able to get everything with a bit of help from my partner! Thank you so much for providing these great puzzles; I look forward to seeing many more from you. And I am an aspiring constructor as well with a few puzzles out on submission, so if you would ever consider collaborating and wouldn't mind working with a newer person, I'd be honored to work with you!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Carly! I'd be stoked to collab, definitely shoot me an email - mollie dot cowger at gmail :)
DeleteTricky but fun!
ReplyDeleteLove seeing 3-Down in a puzzle. (I've always wanted to clue it as something like "Only this person can have a this-person-number of 1.")
I got the top-right and bottom-right corners pretty quickly, but the entire left half of the puzzle was too tough for me and I had to reveal some stuff, like 17-A, 24-D. I had CATSPAW for a while, too, and I still don't understand what 39-Across is about...
I like the bottom-left corner connections, but the surrounding clues 64-A and 66-A kept me from making progress (tried TAGS and CANT or WONT for a while).
Definitely on the hard side (for me) but cool puzzle overall! :-)
I meant: "Only this person can have a this-person-number of *0*"
Deleteooh that's a great 3-down angle! and thanks for sharing your process- I love knowing how solvers go through a puzzle. 39-across is (rot13'd to avoid accidental spoilers) gur ngevhz bs n urneg, vagrecergvat "pbagenpgbe" nf "fbzrguvat gung pbagenpgf" - vg'f n ovg bs n fgergpu, zrnavat-jvfr!
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