Yes, today I have a wrestling-inspired crossword for your puzzly enjoyment.
All-Elite Wrestling’s pay-per-view WrestleDream is tonight, so what better day to unleash a power slam-fueled bit of cruciverbalism into the world, I ask you?
This slightly-asymmetrical grid is hoping accessible enough to non-wrestling fans — pro wrestling terms are their own brand of crosswordese — but the gimmick bringing together the wrestling theme entries is pretty universal, I think.
There’s a lot going on in the intertwined worlds of puzzles and games, so let’s skip the intro and get to the good stuff!
Happy Birthday Puzzmo!
After celebrating 1,000 days of Puzzmo back in July, this puzzle app has another milestone to celebrate tomorrow.
There has been a countdown running on the app for a while now, and it’s counting down to the three-year anniversary of Puzzmo!
I don’t know what they have in store on Tuesday, but considering how much care and attention goes into each day’s puzzles and games, I’m sure they’ve got something up their sleeves.
Their flagship “Interactive Nutcracker in Swingtime” Club Drosselmeyer event has performances set for December 4th, 5th, & 6th AND December 10th, 11th, 12th, & 13th.
As the organizers themselves say, “Prepare yourself for another season of magic and mayhem, romance and revelry, champagne and sugarplums.”
It’s always worth celebrating when a new public space opens up for chatting about puzzles.
MyCrossword is a website allowing cryptic crossword solvers and setters to share their work and sample puzzles. It is a hub of creative expression and puzzly fun.
Raider at MyCrossword has written a welcoming post, and I hope the forums soon fill up with excited solvers and engaging discourse about the world of cryptics.
(Oh, and thank you to Tom at MyCrossword for providing the feature image for this part of the post.)
Two Puzzle Game Sites to Try Out!
One of the coolest things about running PuzzCulture is getting to learn about new puzzles and creators in the puzzle space. Several enterprising constructors have reached out to me recently, and I’m pleased to help spread the word about their puzzly endeavors.
The first is Andres Echenique’s crossword-inspired deduction puzzle, CrossEights Daily.
This free daily puzzle challenges solvers to figure out the eight crossing 8-letter words, four across and four down.
You can get hints Wheel of Fortune-style and place certain letters in order to help you figure out the words.
But since only some of the letters are overlapping, it’s up to you to puzzle out starting and ending letters (which can be difficult if you’re not if you need an -ED, -ER, or -ES).
There’s a running leaderboard for speed and efficiency of solving, and I found the combination of deduction and letter-picking luck really fun.
CrossEights Daily is a relative newcomer to the puzzle world, so I thought for my other recommendation today, I’d discuss a puzzle website that has been around since 2006!
Yes, LiveSudoku.com has been sharing free Sudoku puzzles for two decades now, allowing for head-to-head play worldwide, printable booklets, and solving assistance.
I spoke to Maya at LiveSudoku and learned some very cool facts about the site.
The site has more than 10,000 daily players, and there are 14 different languages available for players (including Turkish and Greek, which were just added this summer).
The community aspect of this site really appeals to me, and I’m happy to help spread the word to other Sudoku fans in the audience.
Ronald Wladich, a prolific dine-and-dasher in Southwest Florida, left a calling card for some of his crimes by leaving a crossword puzzle book behind instead of paying his tab.
(You know, it’s never a good sign when a thief patterns himself after the Wet Bandits from Home Alone.)
A total of five restaurants reported being part of this cruciverbalist crime spree, which is part of how he got caught.
Restaurant employees began trading stories about this crossword-loving crook and they recognized a familiar blue sweatshirt, drink order, and of course, a love of puzzles.
He was also charged with DUI for riding his bicycle into a Wendy’s parking lot while intoxicated.
No one has yet reported on what crossword books were preferred by this thief. (Why don’t people ask the truly important questions!)
Did I miss any puzzly news or fun board game stories from the last few weeks? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.
I had a chance to sit down and try my hands at this year’s tournament puzzles. As always, I have some thoughts.
So, without further ado, let’s see what the Midwest Gridfest constructors had in store for solvers this year!
Puzzle #1: “Well, It’s About Time”by Kate Jenson
This 16×15 grid was an excellent starter for the tournament, offering solid accessible cluing (with some regional color and trivia) and an impressive swathe of long, varied entries all ending with “MN.” This puzzle was tied together nicely by the grid-spanning revealer MINNESOTA GOODBYE.
I wasn’t wild about LEAVES OF AUTUMN as an entry, which kinda felt like a lyric or line of verse that was reworded in Yodaspeak in order to fit a rhyme. (Though a quick internet search does seem to support the constructor, so this is quite possibly a me problem.)
But for the most part, this was a strong kickoff to a day of puzzle-solving.
Interesting grid entries included MASON WASP, BIANNUAL, and OFF-PUT, and my favorite clues were “Beauty brand with a six-shade ‘Ford Mustang’ collection” for OPI and “What a castle by the sea might be made of” for SAND.
Puzzle #2: Local Flavorby Mike Graczyk
The growing number of crossword tournaments each year across the US means we get more interesting location-specific clues, in addition to regional touches of personality. (As a trivia nerd, that’s a huge bonus for me.)
That’s absolutely the case with this 15x themeless crossword.
Now, unlike our constructor, I don’t begrudge people a little ketchup on their hot dogs (and that’s coming from someone who worked at a hot dog stand on and off for the better part of a decade). But I still quite enjoyed (almost wrote “relished” there) all the local references and “flavor” promised by the title.
There are some good crossings in this well-constructed grid, but the cluing is where Graczyk shines.
Interesting grid entries included MARSALIS, ONE AND DONE, SEARS TOWER, and JULES, and my favorite clues were “Feature of Grand Rapids and Green Bay” for HARD G, “Be a little shy” for OWE, and “Its name technically changed in 2009 (What’chu talkin’ ’bout… Willis??)” for SEARS TOWER.
Puzzle #3: Team Spiritby Rena Cohen
This 21x crossword, like Snickers, was guaranteed to satisfy any solvers in desperate need of some sports-based punnery.
Common phrases like BANG FOR YOUR BUCK and GUARDIAN ANGELS were clued to reference Midwest sports teams, and Cohen packed seven of them into the grid, including a grid-spanning centerpiece that taught me that there’s a hockey team called the Minnesota Wild.
Mix that with some excellent grid fill and a tightly constructed grid (UNIDEAL notwithstanding), and you’ve got an eye-catching behemoth to mark the Midwest midpoint of the tournament.
Interesting grid entries included BOCA RATON, LEFT A TIP, BELOW PAR, FIDELIO, PHOENICIA, and BAD PUNS (untrue when it comes to the puns in this puzzle), and my favorite clues were “Garment whose name evolved from French baby talk” for TUTU and “You might have one to get out of an escape room” for HOUR.
Puzzle #4: Take a Michigan Leftby Emily Biegas and Sala Wanetick
I’ve solved several excellent collaborations by Biegas and Wanetick this year, so when I saw this byline come up in Puzzle #4, I knew I was in for something good.
What I didn’t know was how devious it would be.
This 15x puzzle featured four theme entries with U-turn signs accompanying them, as well as four black lines at various spots in the grid. It was clear that some sort of wordplay / answer manipulation would be at play here. I figured I would have to go beyond the actual answer to each clue to understand the gimmick involved.
For instance, 17-Across was clued “____ space (stairways, corridors, etc.)”, and the grid crossings resulted in LIMODRIVER. I knew LIMINAL was the answer, and I kept looking around, trying to find a way to replace letters or spell it out with neighboring letters in some way.
But I couldn’t suss it out.
This was, in fact, the second tournament puzzle this year where I completed the grid well within the allotted time, but I definitely didn’t UNDERSTAND the puzzle within the allotted time. (Puzzle #4 at Lollapuzzoola 19, I remember you.)
But after completing the rest of the tournament puzzles and then coming back to stare baffled at my completed grid for far too long, I reached out to a fellow puzzler who I knew was in attendance at the tournament, and she thankfully reassured me that I wasn’t alone in my befuddlement. In fact, many solvers needed the puzzle’s gimmick explained to them with visual aids.
As it turns out, I was on the right path, looking for the answer in a path beyond the actual entry. But U-turn arrows are curved, and so was the path to the answer, including diagonals. (Each one would stop at one of those black lines in the grid.)
WOOF. This one was a doozy. Impressively constructed and smartly clued, to be sure. But a doozy nonetheless.
Interesting grid entries included OK FINE, TEST RUN, SEMPER FI, and DEEP RED (sadly not clued to reference the Argento film), and my favorite clues were “Totally fasten-ated?” for RIVETED and “They turn thoughts into actions” for SYNAPSES.
Wait, wrong one…
Puzzle #5: Chicago Styleby Zachary Edward-Brown
After my struggle with Puzzle #4, I regained a little confidence as I tackled this 15x grid that matched Puzzle #1’s welcoming energy, enjoying a breezy, smooth solve.
The theme entries were established phrases that became something new when CHI was added — my favorite was NO NOTES becoming CHINO NOTES — and the grid fill was great fun. Has SKINEMAX ever appeared in the NYT Crossword? (I just checked XWordInfo, and it has not. You scooped them, Zachary!)
Interesting grid entries included SMIRCH, EASY TIGER, PAC-MAN, NO OFFENSE, and the aforementioned SKINEMAX, and my favorite clues were “One assisting with coursework?” for SOUS CHEF and “Archenemy of Odlaw” for WALDO. (Deep Where’s Waldo? lore there!)
Puzzle #6: End of the Roadby Jess Rucks
This 15x themeless was the perfect capper to the day’s solving, as Rucks presented a tight grid with loads of long entries crossing and buckets of personality in the grid fill.
There were two sets of clues available for the championship themeless, MINNESOTA NICE and CHICAGO FIRE, depending on your preference.
And Rucks excelled with both sets of clues, hitting the difficulty of each version perfectly and offering tons of style and wordplay to solvers of all ability levels. One of my favorite themeless puzzles this year.
Interesting grid entries included THE GOAT, PSYOPS, ACTION STAR, GICHIGAMI, and the fun pair of OKAY I GIVE and OH GOD NO.
As for favorite clues, here’s a list:
MN NICE: “Guy who totally sleighs at gift-giving” for SANTA
MN NICE: “Life phases, like ‘villain’ or ‘healing'” for ERAS
MN NICE: “What one must do to be the last one standing, so to speak, in musical chairs” for SIT
CHI FIRE: “They’re all talk, to some degree” for ORALS
CHI FIRE: “It leads to suffering, per Yoda” for HATE
CHI FIRE: “Present day figure” for SANTA
CHI FIRE: “Many Gen Alpha members (already!?)” for TEENS
CHI FIRE: “Doodle bug?” for FLEA
BOTH: “Original name for Lake Superior (“great water,” in Anishinaabemowin)” for GICHIGAMI
Plus some shameless puns and a Golden Girls reference. Outstanding clues.
Tiebreaker: Calculus Classby Will Eisenberg
Waiting in the wings for any ties was this 12×9 Midwest midi packed with snark (quite apropos for MEAN GIRLS DAY, one of the grid-spanning answers).
It was a fun, quick solve and a terrific light dessert after a crossword feast.
And, for those who STILL weren’t solving-sated, there was a bonus themeless crossword by Kaye Brown, a Ben Bass cryptogram, and a Mini Meta Suite curated by Sally Hoelscher. Attendees were absolutely spoiled!
Last year’s Midwest Crossword Tournament puzzles made a big impression on me when I solved them earlier this year, so my expectations were high going into this year’s tournament. And for the most part, this year’s puzzles easily met those lofty expectations.
There were a few odd grid entries, but otherwise the construction this year was terrific. The themes were accessible and full of Midwestern color.
I obviously struggled with Puzzle #4, but that’s not a flaw in the programming, that’s a feature. There should always be one or two puzzles that ratchet up the challenge level and test your puzzly mettle, and Puzzle #4 succeeded at that.
Did you tackle this year’s Midwest Gridfest, fellow puzzlers, either from home or live in person? Let me know in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you!
(I know it’s Halloween season, but it’s never too early to look forward to holiday puzzly goodness for later in the year!)
If you’re a puzzle fan, you’re absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to puzzly events to explore. Crossword tournaments, treasure hunts, escape rooms, puzzles by mail, puzzles by email, puzzles on your phone.
But I guarantee you’ve never experienced anything like Club Drosselmeyer.
Imagine getting all gussied up in your best 1940s-appropriate garb and grabbing your tickets before heading out to a show in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What kind of show, you ask? Well, a vaudeville-style variety show with live music, enchanting and exciting performances, and all sorts of mysteries and intrigue playing out before your eyes, all set during the heady days and nights of World War II.
And what if there was an elaborate puzzle hunt tying the entire show together?
In a nutshell, that’s a Club Drosselmeyer event.
And tickets are available this Thursday for their latest immersive show!
There are performances set for December 4th, 5th, & 6th AND December 10th, 11th, 12th, & 13th for a two-hour whirlwind of puzzly theatricality. As the organizers themselves say, “Prepare yourself for another season of magic and mayhem, romance and revelry, champagne and sugarplums.”
Although I’ve never gotten to attend a Club Drosselmeyer event in person, a few years ago I participated in their virtual Club Drosselmeyer Interactive Radio Broadcast of 1943, and it remains one of my all-time favorite puzzle experiences.
I enjoyed two hours of wonderful music while tracking a rogue flying toaster, unraveling a criminal conspiracy during an air raid, decoding secret messages, helping a starlet choose the right lipstick for her show, and even performing a magic trick!
Club Drosselmeyer is run by a small and incredibly dedicated group of writers, performers, puzzlers, and musicians who put their all into this event every single year, and I simply cannot sing their praises loud enough.
But if you can’t wait for December…
Our friends at Club Drosselmeyer have cordially invited you to a wedding!
That’s so many new opportunities to check out this delightful “playable theater” experience.
It seems our good friends, Jack and Norah, are finally getting married. You know Jack and Norah, right? Of course you do, EVERYBODY knows Jack and Norah! They both work at Harmonics Inc. (Not the game studio, the global telecom services company founded by the Lane family. Right, that one.) Their reception will be at the W Boston Hotel downtown. They’re thrilled that you’re coming and we’re absolutely certain it will be an entirely normal wedding with absolutely no surprises at all.
…
The Wedding Party will have all of the Drossely craziness that you love but set in 2026 — and with dinner! This wedding will have it all: wonderful food, champagne and custom cocktails, decorations, a charming bridal party, spies, puzzles, intrigue… all the best things of a totally regular normal-person wedding.
Who doesn’t love a wedding with all the pomp and circumstance and spies and secret plots and potentially world-endangering threats?
You know, wedding stuff!
Nope, we’re STILL not done with puzzly Drosselmeyer promotions!
Blood Hunt is a comedy vampire bar crawl on Halloween night in Malden, Massachusetts! It’s What We Do in the Shadows with a puzzle hunt twist, loaded with fun characters, good drinks, and silly, spooky fun.
Check out the pitch:
You are newly turned. Freshly fanged. Tragically immortal. And before dawn, you must pass trials administered by the most unhinged elders the undead world has to offer. You and your coterie have until dawn to prove yourself worthy of the ancient vampire council — four locations, each with trials and elders who have survived plagues and empires and are somehow most annoyed by you specifically.
Can you endure all four stops and prove your vampiric value?
Will you be attending any of these delightful immersive puzzly experiences, fellow solvers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
There’s so much going on in the intertwined worlds of puzzles and games, so let’s skip the intro and get to the good stuff!
The Boswords Fall Themeless League Kicks Off Tonight!
There’s still time to register for this year’s Fall Themeless League, which officially starts up tonight! (There was a preseason puzzle last week.)
If you’re unfamiliar, the Boswords 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 / freestyle crossword each week, scored based on your accuracy and how fast you complete the grid.
Look at that lineup of talent!
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 you register to participate, you choose the difficulty level that suits you best.)
Look how many people are participating this year!
Each week’s puzzle is accompanied by a one-hour broadcast on Twitch, starting with a preseason puzzle and broadcast.
Organized by Shannon Rapp and Sally Hoelscher, the excellent lineup of constructors and editors guaranteed a lively and occasionally devious experience for all involved!
The Chicago Fire was the tougher division, and Minnesota Nice the less-tough-but-still-devious division.
Congrats to all the winners and everyone who participated this year!
Oh, and if you want to watch the Chicago Fire live-solved finals, check out the video:
My deep dive into this year’s tournament puzzles will be posted on Thursday.
More on The Independent Cryptic Crossword
I have a quick update regarding Thursday’s post about the potential end of The Independent‘s daily cryptic crossword.
There is another email address you can contact to show your interest and support!
Leave the body of the email empty, your email alone will count as another person who wants to see The Independent‘s cryptic crossword continue! You’ll get an automated reply letting you know that your voice has been heard.
Hopefully this will show the managing editor of The Independent that the crossword is worth saving!
Spooky Crowdfunding Roundup!
To close out today’s post, here’s a trio of games to support that fit the Halloween / horror / survival vibe nicely that are currently crowdfunding.
The Mysterious Package Company makes some of the coolest, most immersive puzzle-solving experiences on the market today, and if you were a fan of their Doomensions: Mystery Manor pop-up escape room puzzle game a few years ago, then you’re in for double the excitement this time around.
You’ll get to explore these three-dimensional set pieces as you unravel the mysteries behind each puzzly setting.
The attention to detail with Mystery Manor was fantastic, and I really enjoyed the hours spent revealing the puzzle’s hidden secrets and facing each new twist and mystery as it emerged.
Another horror-themed sequel game is crowdfunding right now, as the smash hit game Don’t Go In There has gotten a die-rolling successor in, you guessed it, Don’t Go Back There.
This standalone expansion is built on the same template as the original, but with new foes and new effects to deal with.
Plus you can mix and match this game with the original and test yourself against BOTH games’ mechanics and monsters.
Don’t Go In There was part of my 31 Games of Halloween countdown last year, and rightly so. I have no doubt the Road to Infamy team have exceeded themselves with the sequel.
Like in the OG Oregon Trail game, you might have to ford a river in your Ford and you’ll definitely be contracting a variety of illnesses. But the main obstacle between you and Portland will be capitalism. Your characters have limited resources (and no health insurance), and your roles as societal misfits will make you a target for capitalist villains who hate that you don’t follow their rules. In this game, though, conformity is as good as death.
This GM-less roleplaying game is a collaborative adventure to endure all the nonsense of road trips with modern day anti-capitalist rebel spirit, all in the familiar flavors of the original Oregon Trail we all know and either love, hate, or love and hate.
Although I have dabbled with cryptic (or British-style) crosswords for years, this year I’ve made more of a dedicated effort to improve my cryptic solving. I’ve tackled Josh Wardle’s Parseword game, sampled cryptics from many different outlets, and tried to learn more about the history of cryptic crosswords.
But it was the solving, experiencing all of those different voices and styles across many different publishers, that taught me about the incredible diversity and creativity of the cryptic setter community. Over the last year, I’ve solved puzzles from The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Observer, The Globe and Mail,the Cox and Rathvon archive, and more, as well as a backlog of cryptics from puzzle suites I’ve purchased in the past.
One of my most frequent cryptic crossword stops is The Independent.
The Independent crossword is widely regarded as a breeding ground for new talent. Many commenters have rejoiced in all the new bylines and setters they see on a weekly basis, and solvers all over are lamenting the loss of a marvelous cryptic crossword outlet.
But thankfully, solvers are reaching out.
Simon Anthony at Cracking the Cryptic has shared the news with the CTC audience in the hopes of encouraging solvers to step up in support of The Independent crossword.
If you would like to add your voice to the chorus, you can share your thoughts (respectfully, please!) with Richard Best, managing editor of The Independent, at managingeditor@independent.co.uk.
I’ve already sent a few words there myself, hoping to be a small drop in a larger, more influential torrent of hope, interest, and protest.
If you’re unfamiliar with cryptic solving in general or The Independent crossword in particular, please click the links here and here to read more about the crossword’s influence and see the outpouring of support in the comments.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but The Independent crossword is one of the first cryptic crosswords I ever seriously attempted to solve.
It was 2013 and I was reading John Halpern’s The Centenary of the Crossword, where he chronicled a century of crossword solving on both sides of the Atlantic.
There were many puzzles included in the book, and after exhausting all of the American-style crosswords, I decided to try my luck with the cryptics.
It went poorly.
It was slow going at first.
Years later, I returned to those puzzles, determined to try again. Among the puzzles I finally completed were a 2012 cryptic set by Anax and a 2009 cryptic set by Nimrod, both from The Independent.
So this year, when I decided to improve my cryptic solving, I remembered those puzzles, and made The Independent a regular part of my solving.
Do I still struggle? Absolutely. I am, at best, a mediocre cryptic solver. At the start, I ended up figuring out the word from crossings in the grid and identifying the definition part of the clue, and then reverse-engineering how the clue worked from the answer.
But more and more now, I’m learning the tricks and techniques, and I have slowly started getting better. The moments of total bafflement upon reading a clue are fewer and farther between, and grids are filling faster each week.
And it’s sad to think that — now that I’m finally getting the hang of it! — one of those cherished cryptic outlets is going away.
Hopefully enough people reach out and the managing editor is convinced to reverse his decision. Maybe they’ll follow the template laid out by other outlets and charge a small subscription fee to solvers to offset costs. I think it would serve them well to try.
Solvers aren’t the largest group in the world, but they are among the most loyal.
