Web Presence

 Hi!

I'm writing to point out a few puzzles I've made that have shown up in places other than this blog...

 Liari and I were guest constructors for Out of Left Field #166!   If you don't know what Out of Left Field is, you should!  Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto wrote the weekly puzzle for The Nation for over eight years, and when The Nation's weekly cryptic was cut, they kept it going online.  If you back their Patreon campaign for five bucks a month, you get a great weekly 15x15 block grid cryptic, and you get access to their Patreon archive which goes back, well, over 166 puzzles now.  Go solve their puzzles, they're great!

Every nine puzzles or so Out of Left Field runs a grid from a guest constructor, and last month Liari and I were the guest constructors.  Oh and if you don't know who Liari is, Liari's an American setter making grids mostly in the UK style for her blog and on MyCrossword, and now she's also regularly contributing American cryptics to The Browser.  Go solve her puzzles, they're great!

Anyway, Liari and I teamed up to make a puzzle called "Ice Planet" which appeared as Out of Left Field #166.  I don't think we ever told anyone that's the name, but that was the name we gave it before it also got the name Out of Left Field #166, which is a pretty good name too.  I'm really psyched about it; it came out great!  It's got American-style (cryptic), and I think it's a little harder than a typical OoLF puzzle but a good bit easier than a typical me or Liari puzzle.

Also!

I teamed up with Pixlate to make a crossword called "Web Presence", which we went and dropped on MyCrossword, as MyCrossword #1213.  You might know Pixlate from our previous collab a few months ago, Blank Check, which was the most involved variety grid I think I've made yet... this one is much simpler and has only a little bit shenanigans going on.  But hopefully Pix and I will have more variety nonsense coming up.  Pix sets in the UK style and this puzzle has a couple UK abbreviations in it, but I think they're all first letters of the words so shouldn't be too rough for American solvers.  If you check Pix's blog you'll find... basically every kind of crossword?  Hard-as-nails non-cryptics, fun easier non-cryptics, shitposts, easy cryptics, a cryptic with intentionally hard vocabulary, and (my favorite) five really tight variety cryptics.  Ghost in the Machine is SO GOOD.  Pix is amazing!  Go solve her puzzles, they're great!

Also!

Yesterday a collab I made with Matt from Team Crazy Cryptics dropped, called Tetris!  This is kind of a remarkable thing... it's a 16x10 grid, made with 16 10-letter fills going across and 40 4-letter fills filling it up in the shape of Tetris pieces...  Just nuts that it came together.  Matt makes a mix of regular 15x block grids with UK style cluing--mostly on MyCrossword I think, as well as a good number of high concept deep shenanigans puzzles on his blog.  These have always been kind of interesting to me, having what I'd describe as US-style variety gimmicks, but with UK-style cluing.  He also has a reputation among our friends for making pretty difficult clues, so followers of my blog might be warned that Tetris! skews a little harder than most of the stuff on this blog... but damn he makes tight surfaces.  (Tetris! also has 55 clues and it's difficult to put most of them in the grid, so be prepared to spend two sessions on it or maybe bring a friend to help?)  Go solve Matt's puzzles!  They're great!

Also!

Tomorrow my first solo publication drops!  I set Browser #129, July 2, 2023.  (If you haven't heard of it, The Browser is a daily newsletter subscription that has included a weekly American-style cryptic for a couple years now, from a good variety of setters.)  Working with editor Dan Feyer was a real blast and I'm super happy with how the puzzle turned out.  Go get The Browser and do a bunch of their puzzles, they're great!

I love cryptics!