Beneath The Surface

  PDF  -  Solution Back to a variety puzzle this month, and I'm pleased to share my first Playfair cryptic! I solved my first Playfair a few months ago--an Azed Christmas special . Though I'd never heard of this form of crossword before, I admired how it combined cryptic solving and codebreaking, and I knew I had to try my hand at making one. You can read more about Playfair ciphers and their uses in crosswords  here . Fortuitously, I found a good Playfair codeword from another deep interest of mine--music--and used the inspiration to come up with what I hope is a fun multi-layered challenge. And I hope it inspires some of you to search out more Playfair puzzles!

PDF  -  Solution PDF This is my first try at making an ABC Jigsaw, and I hope you'll like it! I enjoy the combination of wordplay and logic that goes into solving this variety of cryptic crossword.  As it happens, I'll have tomorrow's cryptic in The Browser, so look out for that. If you're not solving Browser cryptics, there's never been a better time to start! ;-) Back here with a new puzzle next month!

  PDF  -  Solution PDF I'm proud to present my first variety cryptic! Having once been a [see theme], it was particularly meaningful to me to use [see theme] as the inspiration for this puzzle's gimmick. I hope it brings a lot of satisfaction to work out! PDF only this month. Many thanks to bolgat from the Crosscord server for testing an early version of this and for providing helpful feedback.

pdf  -  jpz  -  solution pdf Excited to share my latest Printer's Devilry with you! I've had the itch to write a new one for a while. This 8x8 midi has 18 entries, compared to my last midi in the same size which had 24 (including 16 4-letter words). I wanted to explore the possibilities of using longer entries (6-8 letters) and generally I'm very happy with how things turned out. It was a really good practice at strategic filling; much like in cryptics, the choice of PD entries has a significant impact at the clue-writing stage. Furthermore, fewer entries allows more letters to be checked in both directions and improves grid flow; and of course there are fewer clues to write so it helped me with time management! :-) Barred grid again, hence Across Lite puz format is not supported. I've provided a jpz file for digital solving via Crossword Nexus's web interface , or an app such as XWord . Happy solving!

 [ PDF ] [ Online ] [ Solution ] It's been a few months since my last puzzle in the PD genre, and what better time time than Halloween to have some devilish  wordplay fun? After writing two minis earlier this year, I wanted to see what I could make work in a slightly larger grid. Most PDs I've seen are 12x12 barred grids with the longest entries being 9-10 letters long, such as this Azed grid which includes THUNDER GOD, INTERSTATE, ORCHESTRAL, etc. As a start I settled on an 8x8 grid with the longest answers being 6 or 7 letters. As mentioned in the instructions, the undeviled passage at 15-Down reconstitutes two proper nouns. There was a debate in my mind about whether this mechanism would be fair play; but in the end I went with it for several reasons, chiefly that I spent a long time investigating alternatives and could not come up with anything better! Besides, the undeviled passage makes sense, the two propers should be recognizable, and the solver has crossings for all ...

I felt like practicing Printer's Devilry clue-writing so I made another 'impish' mini. This one is 6x6 with bars instead of blocks. Now, it turns out that Across Lite doesn't support barred crosswords (?), but PuzzleMe does. A quick tutorial in HTML editing and voila! You're welcome, computer solvers (but if you like paper solving, there's still a PDF). In my  first PD , all of the clues were examples of what could be called 'first-order' devilry, where removal of the hidden word from the clue passage only creates one new word (by joining the remaining ends of the original undevilled words). This puzzle contains several examples of higher-order devilry where the removal's effects extend beyond the resection point, such as 2A, 5A, and 4D. When making sense of these clues, the important thing to remember is that the original order of letters in the clue is unaltered .  Entries in this grid include one proper noun. Incidentally, the proper noun entry (n...

PDF PUZ Solution This is my first try at a ' Printer's Devilry '. The standard PD is a barred 12x12 grid, but I decided to practice by making a 5x5 mini with a cryptic-style block pattern, hence 'Printer's Impishness'. Printer's Devilry puzzles use a very different cluing style to that found in American crosswords and cryptics. Their nearest cousin is the 'hidden' cryptic clue, but they operate in reverse. Here's my version of the general instructions: Each clue in this puzzle is a complete sentence from which the constructor has removed a hidden word, closing up the gap and sometimes changing the punctuation but leaving the remaining letters in their original order. When reconstructed, the original sentences should make reasonable sense. Example : Cases are a staple of action movies. Answer: ARCH – C ar ch ases are a staple of action movies. If you haven't done a PD before, and want to see one deconstructed, here's an analysis of a recen...

Updated March 4 I was inspired to make a pangram midi last spring when Sid Sivakumar featured a few examples on his site. The original version of this puzzle, written in May 2020, had slightly different corners. In preparing to post it here, I added another pair of black squares to smooth out some less desirable entries. For those not familiar with the pangram midi format, here's the basic brief: every letter appears at least once in the solution. Solvers must work out where to place the answers--there is only one correct way to place all the entries in the grid. Solver can choose from two sets of clues: Regular and Challenging. For an extra dimension of difficulty, each clue set comes with a "plus" version in which enumerations are omitted. Enjoy! Regular (PDF) Regular+ (PDF) Challenging (PDF) Challenging+ (PDF) Solution