I did a roundup of Crossword News last week, but one important bit of news came through too late to be included, so it gets its own post today!
BosWords has only been around since 2017, but every year, they deliver several outstanding puzzly experiences.
Their flagship event has longbeentheSummerTournament, but you’re missing out if you don’t participate in their other events. Their Spring and Fall Themeless League events are all-virtual weekly puzzles to solve over a two-month period. It’s a great way to stretch your solving muscles without the pressure of in-person tournament-style solving.
And speaking of at-home solving, they just announced that registration is open for the 2025 Winter Wondersolve event.
It’s taking place on Sunday, February 2, from 1-4:30 PM Eastern, and features three themed puzzles and a themeless. The best of both worlds!
Plus they’ve lined up a terrific team. You’ve got event directors John Lieb and Andrew Kingsley, puzzle editor Brad Wilber, and a quartet of constructors handling the puzzling this year: Alina Abidi, Kareem Ayas, Carly Schuna, and Andrew White.
Check out the Boswords website for all the details (including a video narrated by John Lieb).
Will you be participating in the Winter Wondersolve (or any other Boswords events this year), fellow puzzlers? Let us know! We’d love to hear from you.
This is wonderful news, as Will had to step back from his editing work in February to attend to his recovery.
For those who were unaware, Will suffered a stroke that affected his mobility — he offered details on both the stroke and his recovery to Brain & Life magazine — but he is back to editing and playing table tennis.
From the NYT article:
In addition to completing hours of physical therapy and rehab, Will slowly returned to puzzle making and editing throughout the year. He directed the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, returned as the creator of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle in April and resumed choosing puzzles for The Times in May.
We wish Will all the best in his continued recovery and return to puzzling. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with Will a number of times — mostly at the ACPT, though I did interview him for the blog years ago — and I’m very glad to hear that he’s well enough to enjoy both of his favorite pastimes again.
Once again being hosted in Stamford, CT, the ACPT is a weekend-long puzzle extravaganza of solving, puzzle-themed events, fun, and community.
This year’s tournament runs from April 4th through the 6th, and you can click here for more details (and to register for this year’s event, should the spirit move you).
Are you planning on competing this year? Let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you.
Our last bit of crossword news was brought to our attention by friend-of-the-blog DGhandcrafted.
There is a crisscross grid featured on the site for the entire month of January, and the numbered answers correspond to what’s on sale that particular day!
There’s even a chance to win a bonus prize if you solve the entire puzzle early!
It’s a pretty clever way to bring solvers and crafters back to the site throughout the month, and hopefully it’s a success for both the customers and Lima Beads.
Now, there are a few caveats here. Obviously this is not a traditional crossword grid. It has no symmetry (either radial or axial), and it is littered with one- and two-letter entries, which are not allowed. There is also the small matter of the bottom left corner being completely disconnected from the rest of the grid.
Here is the empty grid with MERRY and CHRISTMAS preset (without the pencil blocking several squares):
Now, to stick to the reddit request, I left the grid mostly as is.
However, I could not in good conscience have part of the grid disconnected from the rest, so I removed a single black square in order to connect the grid fully.
There we go.
Oh. And one additional challenge: I only allotted myself ten minutes to fill the grid.
As usual in crossword construction, I tried to avoid abbreviations and variant spellings as much as possible (even with the two-letter entries), and keep the vocabulary as accessible as possible.
The only real challenge in this grid was finding a seven-letter word starting with R that aligned nicely with CHRISTMAS as the neighboring word.
In keeping with the holiday theme, I chose RAISINS, as the California Raisins and their long-lost classic Christmas special came to mind.
From that point, it was a pretty quick job filling in the rest of the grid.
There are more plurals than I’d prefer, and DYNAST is by far the most difficult entry in terms of vocabulary, but otherwise, I’m pleased with my nine minutes and thirteen seconds’ worth of work.
What do you think?
I might come back to this one and see if I could clean it up more. Eliminate all the plurals, or maybe put themed words for all the border words along the edge. Something to really challenge me.
Christmas has come and gone, but Hanukkah has only just begun, and thanks to the creative minds of George Barany and Michael Hanko, I’m delighted to have an additional puzzle to share with you all at this festive time!
George and Michael have titled their puzzle December 25, 2024 (clued to midweek difficulty), and they’ve provided the following preface:
This holiday puzzle, with its dual time options and its two sets of clues, offers you the gift of choice. To accentuate your experience of your holiday–whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah–choose the clue set that corresponds to your personal tradition. Or, to ramp up your puzzle’s level of difficulty, choose a clue set that is outside your personal tradition. However you choose to approach our puzzle, we wish you a happy and/or merry solve!
Reminder, a SINGLE answer grid is produced by solving from either clue set. George and Michael are grateful to Noam Elkies, Charles Flaster, Theresa Horan, and Markand Thakar for taking time from each of their busy holiday leadups to test solve both versions and make helpful suggestions that improved it.
By request of the constructors, if you like the puzzle, please spread the cheer to your own circle.
Okay. It says it’s definitely not a mimic. That’s good enough for me.
But maybe I should examine the rest of the box.
More eyes. And a mouth. And a warning to roll for Initiative.
Clearly nothing to worry about. Let’s open it up!
Yup, I was right, nothing to worry about! There are even cookies lurking under the packaging paper!
Oh, hey, there’s a note:
YOU ATTEMPT TO RETRIEVE THE COOKIES BY REACHING DOWN THE GULLET OF A PARTICULARLY OBVIOUS MIMIC. BECAUSE, WELL… COOKIES!
And you know what? The note was right. I grabbed those cookies like Gollum going after the One Ring.
At least if the mimic eats me, I’ll go out doing what I love. Eating cookies.
*various munching noises*
Sorry. Cookies.
Hey, wait, I didn’t get eaten by the mimic. What gives?
Oh, another note! Let’s see what it says:
YOU RETRIEVE THE COOKIES. THE MIMIC CLEARS ITS THROAT. YOU’VE SAVED IT FROM CHOKING. IT’S GRATEFUL. ITS FORM CHANGES. YOU NOTICE A FALSE BOTTOM TO THE BOX.
And you know what? This note was right too! There was a false bottom.
I pulled it up and discovered a beautiful wooden box.
It also had a note attached:
BEYOND THE SUGARY GUTS OF THE MIMIC LIES… THE LAIR OF THE DUNGEON MASTER.
YOU HAVE MASTERED IT. IT REVEALS ITS TREASURES TO YOU.
I couldn’t resist. I’d gone this far, risked life and limb for the greatest treasure of all — cookies — and discovered another reward.
I opened the box…
Allow me to explain, fellow puzzlers.
I am a man of many puzzly pursuits, and roleplaying games stand very high on that list. I’ve been running RPG games like Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars RPG, Dread, GURPS, See You Space Cowboy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, and many others over the years.
Although I have had the pleasure of being a player in a few games, for the vast majority of that time, I’ve been running the games for others. Be it as a Storyteller, a Dungeon Master, or any of the other terms used to describe game masters for roleplaying systems, running an RPG is one of my favorite things in the world to do.
I get to tell stories with my friends, build a world with them, surprise them with plot twists and villainous plans, and watch them solve puzzles, unravel conspiracies, and defeat great evils with only their wits and some dice rolls.
It’s the best.
I’m currently the Dungeon Master for several campaigns, one of which features some of my lovely coworkers. And they decided to surprise me this holiday season with a small treasure trove of delights, including a notebook, stickers, dice, and a very lovely card.
And one of them went the extra mile to not only package this wonderful gift up with cookies and careful packaging, but to include a small quest for me as well.
Beware of the mimic, people!
Would I brave the potential danger of a mimic for cookies?
As you can see, the answer is yes. Obviously.
I am incredibly lucky to have friends and players like this, and I’m equally blown away by the kindness and whimsy involved in this present. And I simply couldn’t resist sharing the story with all of you.
It’s amazing what people can do with a marker, some construction paper, and a boatload of creativity.
