#48: Girls Gone Wild (ft. Richard Allen!)

 

[fullscreen] [PDF] [puz]

Hey, it's another themed grid - and this time, it's with a pal! Richard Allen runs the blog Lexicon Devil, where he posts metas and variety puzzles in addition to fun themelesses. In addition to this, he's also solved the puzzle classic Cain's Jawbone and one of the Zodiac Killer's ciphers (!!) - a real smart guy, and a great constructor too.

Anyway, we've got a 78-word themed puzzle of middling difficulty. Nothing too earthshaking, this type of theme, but I think it's a pretty good puzzle, firmly at the intersection of the two of our sensibilities. Especially that final theme entry! Actually, the northwest corner is... *very* Quiara, for better or worse. But we had our fun with this one, and we think you will too.

In case you missed it, I posted an "odds and ends" post earlier today recapping some of the cool stuff I did in the past three months. (I got a new job, among other things.) Anyway, applet under the cut; see you next week, probably.

#40: There Was an Attempt (ft. Riley Wise)

 

[fullscreen] [PUZ 2 come]
difficulty: medium (like a Wednesday NYT)

I don't know why it is that when you make a puzzle for a real venue, one that will pay you and everything, it takes literal months of back-and-forth and grid iterations before you get something even remotely decent, but that when you shitpost, you can create a complete and clean and good grid in thirty minutes. Such is the case with this puzzle, co-constructed by myself and Riley Wise. Lila test solved this mess, god bless her. I'll edit in the .puz file when I figure out how to get a certain aspect of the grid to work in .puz form. Anyway, applet under the cut - enjoy!

(P.S.: Did you do my AVCX grid from yesterday? It was called Monster Mash and literally everyone loved it!)

#36: The Black and White Puzzle (Themeless #16) (ft. Kate Chin Park)

 

[PDF] [PUZ]
difficulty: medium-hard

Don'tcha love Kate Chin Park? Did you know that Kate is constructing a puzzle for Boswords' Winter Wondersolve? You should register for that, IMO. If you go to the Boswords website and register right now you can see a picture of Kate squirming in pain as she puts ketchup on a burrito.

Kate and I did this puzzle a couple months ago and I am posting it here now because, quote, "guesting on your blog really ups my cred." (Lies! But I'll take the compliment.) Anyway she's the best, this puzzle is very good, etc etc. Please enjoy; applet under the cut.

#35 (Sweet Goodbyes): Exit West (by Parker Higgins) (Guest Post) (Grid Charlemagne)

 

(yes, i know not scoring this puzzle with the dan is blasphemy, but i don't want to spoil the grid)

difficulty: medium
[PDF] [PUZ]

You know a puzzle with four distinct parentheticals in the title is going to be a doozy. So here it is: a puzzle by everyone's favorite human, Parker "xor" Higgins. Among other things, Parker co-hosts the stream Cursewords Live with the equally attractive Ross Trudeau; runs a Twitter bot that posts train emoji every couple hours; and, most importantly for those of you keeping up with QVXwordz lore, has split mango mochi with me and Brooke Husic. What a king!

Parker notes:

It's an honor and a pleasure to have the opportunity to offer a contribution to the "Grid Charlemagne" movement. Thank you to Quiara for hosting me among her uniformly excellent puzzles, to Adam Aaronson for kicking off this whole Grid Charlemagne business, and to Walter and Donald for the music.

Well, that's it from me. I'll see you all next Monday with the... yes, I know I promised there'd be a Monday Mini *last* week. Please don't make a running gag out of this. Applet, as always, under the cut.

Guest Puzzle: In a Word by Robin Yu

[PDF] [PUZ]
difficulty: terse

I've taken most of July off to reap the fruits of Hot Vax Summer and/or celebrate my birthday - sorry for not saying this back on the 1st - but we'll be back to regular puzzles next week with a relatively easy themed puzzle. In the interim, we've got a guest puzzle from Robin Yu. If you're on the "Crosscord" - and why are you not, if you have a Discord account and like puzzles? - you might have seen a version of this puzzle on there, but it slipped under the radar. Undeservedly so, because it's one of my favorite puzzles of 2021 so far. (More on that a little later.) So with Robin's permission, and with some pretty minor editing, his puzzle is now getting the full audience it deserves.

Applet under the cut - enjoy.

Guest Puzzle: Tribute Demi by Tyler Hinman & Brooke Husic

[PDF] [PUZ]
difficulty: it's brooke and tyler, what do you think?

In lieu of your weekly quote of QVX-stacy, please enjoy this offering from two colossi of crossworld: Tyler Hinman, who you may know from his Twitch streams and/or epic ACPT victory this year, and Brooke Husic, who you may know from her xwords by a. ladee site and/or Boswords championship puzzle last spring. (Oh, and Will Nediger test-solved it - just another indicant of this puzzle's pedigree.) When you're done with the puzzle, you can check out the song being referenced here.

I have a pair of puzzles coming out next month for puzzle subscription services, incidentally, so keep your eyes peeled for those. See you next week. Applet under the cut; enjoy.

Guest Puzzle: Too Young to Die, Too Old to Eat Off the Kids' Menu (by Will Eisenberg)

 

[PDF] [PUZ]
difficulty: medium?

Guest puzzle this week by Will Eisenberg, a lovely guy whose interests - sports, food, classical music, etc. - could not be more diametrically opposed to mine! But the "theme" of this puzzle is a shared love of both of ours. Or a shared lust, in my case. Hrnnng.

Anyway, I took last week off because I had not one, but TWO themeless puzzles in other outlets and didn't want to detract from those. One was the American Values Club Crossword, where I did a themeless in collaboration with the Biz Quig himself; the other was the Newsday Themeless Saturday puzzle, which I did in collaboration with frequent QV collaborator Matthew Stock. Check em both out. But not before you do Will's puzzle under the cut! Hope you like it.

#8: Atlantic Time (ft. Ryan Fitzgerald)

 

[PDF] [PUZ]

Surprise: it's a bonus puzzle! This one was made in collaboration with Ryan Fitzgerald of Crosscord to coincide with... something or other. Immediately after making the PDF I realized "50/50 Chance" would be a better title for this one. Not because the work was a 50/50 split, but because... oh, you'll get it when you solve it. (Or not. Maybe that's what the 50/50 chance is - that you'll understand what the hell these themers mean.) Applet under the cut, enjoy.