Wednesday, January 30, 2013

new puzzle - 'themeless 12'

The new puzzle is up at World of Crosswords. It's a themeless this week - our twelfth. (Does anyone else like the way that the word "twelfth" has the word "elf" in it?)

Monday, January 28, 2013

Solve our crosswords on mobile devices!

This month, World of Crosswords became a puzzle provider for the Crosswords app produced by Stand Alone, Inc. You can use their app on devices like the iPod, iPad, and Android tablets to work our crosswords!

We'll be providing the first puzzle of each month via Crosswords, and I'll post a reminder when this happens. The puzzle will remain available on our site, as well, so you can solve it in your browser, if you prefer (or you can print it out as usual from our website).

Our first puzzle to show up in Crosswords is 'fiscal cliff notes.' You can take a look at the screenshots below to get an idea of how the puzzles look in the app. The screenshots are from my Asus EEE Transformer Prime tablet (Android), but you can get the puzzles on many different devices, including the iPod Touch and the iPad.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

new puzzle! 'grainy images'

The new crossword is up at World of Crosswords. The theme for this week is 'grainy images.' Have fun figuring out the theme puns!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

stale vs edgy grid fill

This post is for those who are interested in crossword construction!

Ben Tausig's Reddit interview got me thinking about a recent trend in crosswords towards "edgy" clues and fill, and away from stodgier old-school fill. (When I say "fill," I mean words in the grid which are not theme entries.)

I should explain my background before going further. I began working the N.Y. Times crosswords as a teenager, many years ago, when Eugene Maleska was the editor. Crosswords had the reputation of being for cerebral types, and I felt compelled to conquer the challenge of successfully (and speedily) working these puzzles. From an early age, I've preferred working on difficult problems; solving something that's easy is boring, and not much fun. So crosswords were right up my alley.

When I first started, I found that I was stymied by some very peculiar word entries: for example, "ELA," "STOA," "ANOA," and "NIDUS." Sometimes I was able to reveal the solution by filling in all the crossing entries. In the worst case, I'd wait for the solution to be published. Either way, I was initially frustrated by the inclusion of such bizarre, uncommon words in a puzzle. It was an outrage! How could they expect anyone to know such obscure terms!?  Over time, of course, I'd soon be able to match a clue with its peculiar word entry. I never used these words, and never saw them used, either in written or spoken language. But I knew what they meant (more or less)!

Today such words are called crosswordese, and you can certainly find enough people who despise them. I have come to look at them fondly, however. When I see the clue "Guidonian note," I know exactly what to plug in. Although I may not have a firm knowledge of what it means (and according to Tausig, it's not a real word), learning about it has made a small dent in my knowledge of music. Even the entry "ULEE," which initially bothered me no end, has me interested in viewing a film I might never have heard of, otherwise.

So I'm no longer bothered by crosswordese. I consider it just another interesting challenge. I like fresh and trendy fill as well... though I prefer references to higher quality pop culture such as The Simpsons, and have a bias against references to reality TV.

I'll point out that I'm not into sports, so I'm just as much handicapped when trying to solve a sports-related clue as someone else might be by a reference to Greek architecture. But that doesn't invalidate the clue.

At World of Crosswords, I'm the one mainly responsible for producing the grid fill. While I enjoy crosswordese, I recognize that it can be a big problem for many solvers, so I try not to put too much of it into a single puzzle. We're trying to produce difficult puzzles, but not overwhelmingly so!

I recently had a discussion with Carla (the clue writer at WOC) about the word "PIKA." After I researched it, I was glad that I was introduced to the word and the very cute animal itself... I hope you agree!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Ben Tausig interview on Reddit

I'm late to publish about this, but better late than never! Ben Tausig has done an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") on Reddit. Go take a look, it's fun!

new puzzle! "it's alive!"

The latest puzzle is up at World of Crosswords. The theme for this week is, in the immortal words from Young Frankenstein, "it's alive!". We hope you won't find the puns too deadly...

Monday, January 7, 2013

new puzzle! 'fiscal cliff notes'

However you feel about the temporary resolution to the "fiscal cliff" in the US, we hope you will enjoy this week's crossword. The theme title is 'fiscal cliff notes.' We trust that it will tickle your economic fancy!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

new puzzle! 'take one'

The crossword puzzle which brings in the new year is 'take one'. I enjoyed coming up with the theme entries for this one - I hope you enjoy solving them just as much!