Tag Archives: Cluing

Delving into the Lollapuzzoola 18 Puzzles!

Posted on by
Reply
lolla-logo

The eighteenth edition of Lollapuzzoola, as is tradition, arrived on a Saturday in August. (I was not in attendance, but I did purchase the Solve at Home puzzle pack.) I finally had a chance to sit down and try my hands at this year’s tournament puzzles, and I was certainly not disappointed.

Lollapuzzoola continues to push the envelope with inventive themes and unique spins on how to bring crosswords to life. (Never forget competitors MEOWING for milk at Lollapuzzoola 10!)

This year’s theme was “We Put the Zoo in Lollapuzzoola.” Every puzzle had something to do with animals and animal-based wordplay, and the constructors were clearly inspired in all sorts of ways. Let’s take a look at what they came up with.

Warmup Puzzle A: Twinlets by Brian Cimmet

This puzzle felt more like hitting the ground running than warming up, but it definitely got the creative juices flowing. The solver is presented with two identical grids and two sets of clues, and you have to figure out which grid each answer applies to.

This was complicated by the fact that several of the clues were the same for multiple entries. For example, the clue to 1 Across for both grids was “Mythical equine beast.” Naturally, the only thing to do is start writing in one grid and let the answers populate and push you toward the next entry.

I really dig Twin Crosswords or Twinlets puzzles, and Brian has a knack for putting just enough common letters in the same spaces in both grids to keep you guessing. (And for writing one exceptionally long clue that never disappoints.)

Beginning and concluding the acrosses with mythical beasts was a great hook, and I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle.

Interesting grid entries included our mythical beasts (SIMURGH, what a shout!), JANE DONE, ME THREE, and INTEGER, and my favorite clues were “Oscar Cimmet, to Brian Cimmet” for SON and “Amazing song or British sausage” for BANGER.

Warmup Puzzle B: Meet Cute by Brooke Husic

An apt pair — HELLO KITTY and BYE BYE BIRDIE — ties together this themeless midi, although the meet cute of the title is slightly less cute with the crossing entry COULD GET IT. (While I was solving, I thought the other long down entry was a similarly saucy ARE YOU DOWN, before it turned out to be ARE YOU DONE, heh.)

Brooke is a pro at making the most of a tight grid, and this puzzle was clean and loaded with great trivia in its cluing, particularly for entries solvers have seen loads of times, like ORS or UNO. Breathing new life into crossword classics can be tough, but Brooke always goes the extra mile.

Interesting grid entries included SSRIS, CLUSTER, and ARE YOU DONE, and my favorite clues were “Last number shouted before “Feliz ano nuevo!” for UNO, “Group of stars, computers, or consonants” for CLUSTER, and “Percussive string instrument technique heard in funk music” for SLAP BASS.

Puzzle #1: Commanding Leads by Hannah Slovut-Einertson

I think creating a proper puzzle #1 is one of the toughest tasks in crosswords. It has to be challenging enough to engage the solver, but accessible enough to ease them into a full day of competition. It has to represent the spirit of the event and pique interest in the puzzles to come.

That’s a lot, but Hannah delivers a solid starting puzzle with a fun theme: entries that start with commands to a pet, like DOWN, STAY, or ROLLOVER. (I also appreciated the dog-centric cluing peppered throughout the puzzle. That’s dedication to the gimmick!)

I definitely need to look up more of Hannah’s puzzles going forward.

Interesting grid entries included STEM CELLS, TEWA, T-SHOT, and ITHACA, and my favorite clues were “Alvin and the Chipmunks or Josie and the Pussycats” for TRIO and “Latter member of a rhyming candy duo” for IKE.

Wait, wrong one…

Puzzle #2: Cave Dwellers by Mark Valdez

This puzzle combined a great visual element — lots of black squares and a squat, wide design to evoke the setting in the title — and paired it with a smart gimmick for the themed entries.

We’ve unknowingly ventured into a puzzly cave with bats hanging upside down from the ceiling… so all of the themed entries reading down start with TAB instead of BAT. Diabolical!

Mark crammed LOADS of these hidden bats into the cave, making for an impressive feat of puzzle construction.

Interesting grid entries included SO SUE ME, AM DIAL, and PAWNEE, and my favorite clues were “Tower on the sea” for TUG and “Short king?” for TUT.

Yes, all your favorite animals like helicopter and hat…

Puzzle #3: Balloon Animals by Kate Hawkins

Size matters in this 19x stormer, where animal names not only appear in multiple entries, but each letter fills a 2×2 set of boxes! I was definitely confused on several of the down entries, since I knew the answers, but they didn’t fit. When it finally clicked for me, it was very satisfying to write those huge letters across the grid.

I’ve seen rebuses and shared letters and repeated letters, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen ballooned letters before. I can only imagine the a-ha moment happening in real time during the tournament!

Interesting grid entries included RAW SCORE, TESLA COILS, AND SCENE, and ARCHIVAL, and my favorite clues were “Curry popular in the Bay Area” for STEPH, “Bedizen with lace or ribbon” for TRIM, and “Took the wrong way?” for STOLE.

Puzzle #4: Shady Characters by Brooke Husic

Brooke is one of the most inventive constructors in puzzles, and this 15x is no exception. Every clue that includes the word “red” required the solver to use the opposite of that word in the clue instead. For instance, “Hatred” clued the grid entry KINDNESS (a one-for-one swap) while “Spotted Serengeti predator” clued the grid entry GIRAFFE (swapping only “predator” and not the entire clue).

This was bolstered by the instruction in 63A (“what you should do, appropriately, when you see red”) for the revealer CALL BULL. Which is just lovely wordplay, hitting both the misleading cluing gimmick and referencing the classic concept of waving red to a bull.

This one was tough but quite clever, definitely the puzzle I struggled with most. (I was having flashbacks to a similarly devious #4 puzzle from Brooke in the 2021 edition of Lollapuzzoola.)

Interesting grid entries included GASOLINA, IN SEASON, CRITTERS, and PREFECT, and my favorite clues were “Useful paper for a trip” for LSD TAB and “Matter of record?” for VINYL.

Good job folks, we did it. We found my new favorite stock photo…

Puzzle #5: Wild Discoveries by Kareem Ayas

This 21x two-page delight managed to fit two hidden answers (spelled out with circles), another scattered throughout the grid, an anagram, a rebus, and an answer beyond the grid itself, all tied together by the revealer SCAVENGER HUNT, tying together the animals and the puzzle gimmick perfectly.

This was SO MUCH FUN. The creativity is off the charts. Kareem had lots of clues that referenced the main gimmick, providing hints to our six crafty scavengers, and really making the puzzle feel unified and thoughtfully assembled.

Interesting grid entries included CARRYON, EXECRABLE, VOYAGER, and UV LAMP, and my favorite clues were “Glue bottle bull whose mate is Elsie” for ELMER and “Imitates nested spoons with a partner or pet” for SNUGGLES.

Puzzle #6: Championship Final by Malaika Handa

As always, there were two sets of clues for the Finals puzzle, the Local and the more difficult Express clues. No matter which clues you were working with, you were in for an excellent tournament finale.

This grid fill was SMOOTH, offering a lot of strong vocabulary, interesting crossings, and devious cluing. Everything you could hope for, highlighting the strengths and possibilities of a smartly constructed themeless puzzle.

I had the privilege of interviewing Malaika years ago for the blog, and I’m overjoyed to see her continue going from strength to strength in constructing.

Interesting grid entries included SAYSO, TRIPSITTER, KOREAN TACO, and RAT CZAR. Both the Local and Express sets of clues had some gems, so I’ll list them separately below:

Local clues:

  • “Game whose box depicts someone covering their mouth” for TABOO
  • “It might help you treasure your chest” for TOP SURGERY
  • “Lead-in to tail or trial” for MOCK

Express clues:

  • “Possessive that becomes another possessive if you add a letter” for OUR
  • “Fictional Russian aristocrat portrayed by Garbo, Leigh, and Knightley” for KARENINA
  • “Way of getting something off one’s chest” for TOP SURGERY
  • “Body found deep in a forest, perhaps” for LAKE (SO DARK, I LOVE IT)
  • “Board present at a corporate event?” for CHARCUTERIE
  • “Target of much paper coverage” for ROCK

There was also a tiebreaker themeless midi by Sid Sivakumar. It was a quick and satisfying solve, offering the apt pair of TALKS TURKEY and CRIES WOLF (though I enjoyed the grid-spanning down entries more, STICK FIGURE and SO FAR SO GOOD).

My favorite clues were “Well-supported gp.” for OPEC and “Coin on which a star indicates it was minted in Hyderabad” for RUPEE.

I’m sure I sound like a broken record at this point, but that’s because there are only so many ways to talk about how GOOD things are. (It’s way easier to complain about the bad than to find ways to celebrate the good.)

The puzzles at Lollapuzzoola always impress, and this year was easily my favorite edition of the tournament so far. Every puzzle had a strong theme, good fill, and topnotch cluing. So many of the themes were creative, playful, and eye-opening in how they played with the solver’s expectations.

There are so many great puzzle tournaments each year, and constructors sweat over these brilliant grids for our enjoyment. But Lollapuzzoola truly remains its own unique flavor of puzzles, embracing imaginative themes and clever execution like none other.

I cannot wait to see what they’re cooking up for next year.

Did you tackle this year’s Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament, fellow puzzlers, either from home or live in person? Let me know in the comment section below, I’d love to hear from you!

Anagram Cluing: Hiding in Plain Sight!

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve got anagrams on the brain today.

The Puzzmo mini crossword is always accompanied by notes from the constructor and the editor. The comments from yesterday’s puzzle centered around anagrams, since the mini had not only an anagram in the theme entries — MAORI and MARIO — but actually had the word ANAGRAMMED crossing those entries.

In those comments, both Will Eisenberg and Brooke Husic discussed a really playful subset of cluing involving misdirection.

You give the solver an anagram, but present it is as a statement, rather than just saying “ABLE, to BALE.” When done properly, it takes a second for your brain to actually register the anagram, even though it’s right in front of you!

Will used the example “Ancients, for instance,” which cleverly employs the standard crossword trope of “for example / for instance / for one / e.g.” to conceal the anagram. Brooke had another banger example, offering “Anemone, to name one.”

I delved into the archives on Xwordinfo to look for other examples of this misdirection cluing style, and I found some fun ones. (Obviously, ANAGRAM isn’t an incredibly common entry, but I was genuinely surprised by the variety of options that awaited me in the archives.)

Back in 2011, Oliver Hill and Eliza Bagg gave us “Neo, for one,” which is such an effective misdirect than I can imagine writing the wrong answer more than once in the grid before realizing the trick, since this sort of clue is used so often for things like HERO or ROLE.

Other constructors phrased their anagrams as if they were slang or specialized jargon, leading solvers down the garden path while showing off their own impressive anagramming talents.

  • Ryan McCarty and Nelson Hardy gave us “Schoolmaster for the classroom, e.g.”
  • Margaret Saine offered “Illustration for an ill tourist?”
  • Sam Trabucco crafted “Nerd’s epithet for the president?”
  • Bryant White presented “Coasters for Socrates, e.g.”

Naturally, cryptic crossword or British-style crossword solvers probably suss out these clues faster, since this sort of stealthy wordplay is standard in cryptic cluing, where clues are written out like sentences, rather than the more direct cluing typically used in American crosswords. (Cryptic crossword icons Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon had one ANAGRAM clue in the Xwordinfo archives, the elegant “Broadcast of bad actors, e.g.”

Some constructors take it even further, employing the age-old trick of apropos anagrams for celebrities.

The Simpsons helped popularize knowledge of this game when Lisa learned that ALEC GUINNESS anagrams into GENUINE CLASS. Another famous one is CLINT EASTWOOD anagramming to OLD WEST ACTION. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE aptly anagrams to FLIT ON, CHEERING ANGEL.

Patrick Merrell employed this nicely with his clue for ANAGRAM, “Horrid glances from Charles Grodin?”

I could go on and on listing examples, but Patrick’s clue is hard to top.

I’m obviously a huge fan of misdirection clues, so it was a joy to deep-dive into a different genre of cluing and watch clever people work their magic. Hopefully you enjoyed taking this puzzly stroll with me.

Happy puzzling, everyone!

Brother, Can You Paradigm?: A Punderful Discussion

Posted on by
Reply

6030310212c97e5d37e7cc001fd312db

I like puns. Okay, that’s a massive understatement. I adore puns. I happily share them on Facebook every Wednesday in our Wordplay Wednesday posts. I love Tom Swifties.

I love pretty much all wordplay, no matter how shameless. You may have noticed that PuzzleNation Blog posts discussing puns and wordplay often include the searchable tag “Get thee to a punnery” in the list of tags below.

Yup, that’s how much I like puns.

A lot of great crossword clues are built on punning, utilizing the multiple meanings of words to mislead you, to create soundalike phrases (like “Baa nana?” for EWE), or simply to keep the cluing interesting.

And puns get a bad reputation. Fozzie Bear’s elicit groans from his fellow Muppets. John Oliver, a comedian I absolutely adore, is often quoted online as having said, “I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.”

That’s pretty rough. I haven’t been able to verify that quote to my satisfaction, but I can verify that he said this: “The moment I accept that there’s an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeling I’ll get hooked.”

bad puns

That’s the catch, isn’t it? A lot of crossword clues rely on wordplay, but a lot of people supposedly hate puns. But where is the line between wordplay and puns?

I can’t say for certain, but I suspect the line is drawn directly between what makes someone groan and what makes them nod their head in appreciation.

“Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns. He should be drawn and quoted.” — Fred Allen

A quick Google search will find celebrities on both sides of the great pun divide. Alfred Hitchcock famously said that puns are the highest form of literature. Shakespeare is loaded with puns. Edgar Allan Poe enjoyed wordplay in all its forms.

Poe+Pun+2

[Well, maybe not in this particular form…]

We find puns everywhere. In the one-liners of action heroes, in funny asides by the Cryptkeeper, on bumper stickers, in tweets, in dad jokes, on coffee mugs. And certainly in crossword clues.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but in the end, I’d rather have a groan-worthy pun than no puns at all.

So what do you say we share a few? Leave your favorite puns in the comments section below!

Here’s a really bad one to get the ball rolling:

A man is about to have surgery, and before he goes into the operating room, the anesthesiologist pulls him aside and says, “We’re out of the usual anesthetics, so you have two unconventional options. I can use an older organic compound that’ll knock you out… or I can hit you in the head with a boat paddle.”

The man replied, “So it’s an ether-oar situation?”

Shameless.

Your turn. Go!

  dailypopwsicon

Treat yourself to some delightful deals on puzzles. You can find them on the Home Screen for Daily POP Crosswords and Daily POP Word Search! Check them out!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

A Cracking Collection of Crossword Clues

Posted on by
1

Someone recently asked me about my favorite crossword clue, and after mentioning four or five off the top of my head, I cut myself off and tried to explain that it’s impossible for me to pick one.

So many clues are out there that surprised me, or outwitted me, or made me laugh, or made me think in an unexpected way. I could never narrow it down..

Regular readers who have seen my reviews of various crossword tournament puzzles will recall I like to highlight favorite clues.

I actually keep track of clues from constructors as I solve various crosswords. Not only are they often witty, hilarious, and/or impressive, but they inspire me as a puzzler to always try to find entertaining, engaging new angles for these crucial crossword elements.

So today, I’d like to pull some favorites from my personal clue vault and give them some time in the spotlight.

(I’m crediting the constructor listed on the byline for each clue. These clues may have been created elsewhere and reused, created by the constructor, or changed by an editor, I have no way of knowing. So I’m just doing my best to give credit where credit is due.)

Misdirection

I love a good misdirection clue, because it not only has a straightforward meaning that sends you one way, but it has a true secondary meaning that usually only emerges once you’ve considered the clue for a bit.

Constructor Amanda Rafkin has a knack for these sorts of clues, delivering terrific examples with “Decline a raise?” for FOLD and “One who’s pro con?” for NERD.

It’s particularly great when a constructor can use a misdirection clue to put a new spin on a word you’ve seen dozens of times before. Peter Gordon did just that with both TYPO (“Character flaw?”) and AHS (“Sounds made with depressed tongues”), and even manages to be topical whilst doing so, as he did with the clue “Page with lines of dialogue” for ELLIOT.

Yacob Yonas took an awkward RE- word — all too common in crossword grids — and made it shine when he clued REHEM as “Take up again, say.” Priyanka Sethy did the same with a multi-word answer when she clued IGOTIT with the delightful “Catch phrase?”

Brendan Emmett Quigley covered up an ugly abbreviation answer — ECG — with a banger of a clue: “Ticker tape?”

As you can tell, misdirection clues are absolutely a favorite of mine.

hofstadter

[Image courtesy of XKCD.]

I also can’t resist clues that get a little meta, playing with the format of cluing itself.

TYPO appears for a second time in today’s post, but the cluing is totally different, as Andrea Carla Michaels offered this meta treat: “Something annnoying about this clue but hopefully no others!”

And Francis Heaney went out of his way to word to clue the word AUTOMOBILES in a manner you’ll never forget: “‘Humorous People in ____ Acquiring Caffeinated Drinks’ (Jerry Seinfeld series whose name I might be remembering incorrectly)”

Using multiple examples in a clue not only shows off the variety of definitions some words have, but allows constructors to juxtapose these meanings in entertaining fashion.

Janie Smulyan deftly shows off this technique by cluing SPELLS “Some are dry, some are magic.” Concise and clever.

“Beehive part, or beehive parter” for COMB was Sid Sivakumar’s tricky way to use multiple meanings twice!

And although this Hannah Slovut offering isn’t as concise as the others in this clue for SEE, it’s still a terrific example of employing multiple uses of a word: “Different tense of ‘saw’ that may precede ‘saw'”

ghilchip

[Image courtesy of David Louis Ghilchip.]

I know some crossword outlets aren’t fans of using clues that specifically reference each other — “With 21-Across, name of Charlie Chaplin film,” for instance — but other publishers are completely fine with this style of cluing.

Naturally, that allows constructors to have some fun making connections and using clues to reference each other.

Hannah Slovut utilized this technique in a recent puzzle, cluing STYE as “Ailment that might be seen near 63-Across.” (63-Across was the exclamation MYEYE.)

There are all sorts of cluing styles we didn’t cover in this post — trivia clues, fill-in-the-blank, clues that use capitalization or pronunciation to mislead the solver — but hopefully we’ll get to them in a future blog post.

misdirection-image-1486812621

In the meantime, how about a few more misdirection clues for the road?

Brooke Husic made readers take a second look at a familiar word — “Surroundings?” — when she used it to clue SIEGES.

Catherine Cetta’s “Spot early on?” definitely sends you down the wrong path before you double-back and find the correct answer: PUP.

And we happily conclude with a clue from puzzle master Mike Shenk, who clearly had some fun with this one, cluing ANKLES with “They’re just over two feet.” Absolutely shameless.

Gotta love it.

What are some of your favorite crossword clues, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

dailypopwsicon

Halloween is almost here, and we have some spookily good deals for you to check out. You can find them on the Home Screen for Daily POP Crosswords and Daily POP Word Search! Check them out!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

Vague Cluing: Yea or Nay?

Posted on by
Reply

vague

When is vagueness in crossword cluing a bad thing?

That’s kind of a loaded question, because I think it depends on the clue and the solver’s knowledge base. But there are definitely good vague clues and bad vague clues.

Someone on Reddit’s r/crossword forum mentioned the clue “Son of Zeus,” which got a laugh from folks who remember their Greek mythology and just how… prolific Zeus was.

But to me, this isn’t necessarily a bad clue. You know the number of letters (4 in this particular case), which helps narrow down the field a lot.

There are some synonym-style clues that do lend themselves to multiple answers, which can be frustrating for solvers.

Problem-solving-crossword

For instance, if you have a 5-letter word and the clue is “Kingly,” you could have REGAL or ROYAL, and those shared letters add a level of uncertainty and challenge to the grid. Similarly, if you have a 5-letter word and the clue is “Escape” or “Sidestep,” you’ve got EVADE, ELUDE, AVOID, and DODGE all as possibilities. That’s a little tougher.

But all of these clues seem fair to me. The vague cluing style that really irks me is “Certain [blank]”.

“Certain cat,” for example, might as well just be “Cat.” The word “certain” adds literally NOTHING to the clue. “Type of [blank]” and “Kind of [blank]” clues can also fall into this trap, but there are a fair number of cases where those clues point toward a category, not just an example of that particular group, so “Type of” and “Kind of” still provide some context.

But “certain” is a waste of typing. You could have given me a helpful adjective, or a misleading one, or a funny one. Instead, it’s the least helpful addition possible.

That sort of vague cluing is infuriating, because there’s no cleverness or art to it. Obviously, the only exception here would be some sort of wordplay involving the definition of “certain.” Something like “Certain thing?” for LOCK or GIVEN. But those are pretty rare.

In the end, vagueness can be a tool for clever cluing or a bit of filler in a long-overused clue. It’s all up to the constructor.

Are there are any vague clues or cluing tropes that get your goat, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Halfway through the Boswords 2020 Fall Themeless League!

Posted on by
Reply

boswords new

Last night marked the fifth week of competitive puzzly fun in the Boswords 2020 Fall Themeless League.

If you’re unfamiliar, the Boswords 2020 Fall Themeless League is a clever weekly spin on traditional crossword tournament-style solving. Instead of cracking through a number of puzzles in a single day (or two), the Fall Themeless League consists of one themeless crossword each week, scored based on your accuracy and how fast you complete the grid.

Each week’s puzzle only has one grid, but there are three sets of clues, each representing a different difficulty level for solvers. Smooth is the least challenging, Choppy is the middle ground, and Stormy is the most challenging. (When solvers registered to participate — which you can still do now! — they chose the difficulty level that suited them best.)

With a lineup of top-flight constructors involved and the Boswords team organizing, it was a can’t miss prospect, and hundreds of solvers signed up for the challenge of two months of themeless puzzle solving and a bit of friendly competition.

120718_crossword_L

Now that we’re officially halfway through the season, it feels like the right time to take a moment and reflect on the last four weeks of puzzling.

I will only be referencing the previous four puzzles — not last night’s Week 5 themeless — so there are only potential spoilers for non-participants. Competitors may read at their leisure.

Although I am quite familiar with crosswords, I am far from the fastest or cagiest solver, nor have I ever competed in any tournament solving, so I opted to enter the Choppy rank.

And I have very much enjoyed the experience thus far. Themeless puzzles always often a fun challenge, mixing long answers — often crossing or stacked with other long answers — with strong cluing, clever grid design, and most notably, no theme around which to frame the grid (or your solve, if you happen to dig into the theme entries immediately).

The cluing feels very fresh, mixing topical entries, meme fodder, and slang with traditional crossword classics and a dash of pop culture references. Although my lack of football knowledge betrayed me in week 1, I’ve made up some ground in weeks 3 and 4, posting my two quickest times, both with clean grids.

My times are far from cheetah-like; the top solvers in the Choppy rankings often solve these puzzles in half the time I do, and manage perfect scores to boot. I am getting faster, it seems, which is probably due to a growing familiarity with the solving interface, wasting less time maneuvering the screen.

I’m definitely finding it challenging. There are plenty of clues I pass over two or three times before coming up with something that fits the entries I’ve already placed, and these diabolical constructors always slip some devious wordplay and a-ha cluing into their puzzles.

In October alone, solvers contended with puzzles from Tracy Gray, Nate Cardin, Amanda Rafkin, and David Quarfoot, each bringing a unique style and flavor to their grid entries and cluing. Each themeless has been a challenge all its own, and once you finally figure out each solver’s tricks, you’re confronted with a new constructor the next week, and you start all over again.

Still, it’s great fun, a nice puzzly touch to the week that feels like you’re part of a community, bolstered not only by a communal solving experience once a week, but by Twitch chats and interactions with the organizers and fellow solvers.

We’re only halfway through, and I’d have to declare the Boswords 2020 Fall Themeless League a rousing success. I can’t wait to see what surprises the November puzzles bring, and what awaits the top solvers in the championship round.

Whether you’re competing alongside us or simply enjoying puzzles at your own speed, thanks for visiting. And happy puzzling!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!