Thematic Foursome 11/8/2025

Hi! I still have a blog! I haven't been here much; if you missed my last couple posts, I've been putting most of my crosswording effort into The Gnomon these days. Maybe I should outline what I've done since the last time I posted?

 I've composed nine and edited seven puzzles for The Gnomon, which has been an absolute dream and keeps on growing, with five more puzzles (only two by me) coming December 1.

I've appeared in The Browser in #212 (with Roland Ingram), #225, #236, and should have one more (another collab) before the Browser wraps up its weekly cryptic at the end of the year. 

I composed in the tenth puzzle on Cryptic Crossweird, the cryptics patreon run by Dob, Momes and Bob from the twitch stream Crossweird.

And in August, Jess Shulman and I were back in the Wall Street Journal with a puzzle titled Boxes.

But 

Somehow none of those were the impetus for this post!  Over the last few days I've been constructing a puzzle live on twitch.tv, with assistance from viewers.  This puzzle is a weird format … the "Foursome" format has existed for a while, where you make a grid with ninety degree symmetry and you don't list the clues individually, but as a batch with the rotations of each light all clued together as a group.  So it's kind of a jigsaw, but theoretically should be way easier than an alphabet jigsaw, since each clue has only four places it should go.  This puzzle is a bit of a twist on that; with an additional handful of clues (here seven) which are thematically linked all going in unclued.

I'm calling this format a "Thematic Foursome," and the first one I made like this will appear in the December issue of the Gnomon.  Thanks to everyone who showed up in chat, either to help pitch ideas or refinements or just to hang out.  That is: thanks to liari77, gordianTangle, skaldskaparmal, StephenSta192, archdavidsan, lilalikeslemons, a spambot, boobypuppy, longyfan, shawkattack, Taceocli, Dadgumituh, CrypticSunday and norahsharpe, and also thanks to PuzzleJohn for the test.

Anyway, please enjoy Thematic Foursome 11/8/2025. (Also posted on MyCrossword.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seed Entry

  Hey all, If you're a follower of this blog you may be interested in a new project I'm spinning up called The Gnomon .  The goal of The Gnomon will be to put out high quality American style variety cryptics, in batches about about 4, about every other month, for six bucks apiece, starting June 1st, with free previews in February and April.  If that sounds like something you might be interested in solving, head on over and sign up for email updates.  And especially if you're a constructor I'd love to work with you on running a puzzle of yours.  Our style sheet with info about pay rates and rights can be found here . Also, since last post I appeared in The Browser again, with #207, another collaboration with Longyfan , aka Roland Ingram.  That puzzle came out great and Longy's great and if you do UK cryptics (and even if you don't) you should especially check out this remarkably cool puzzle he made. Also, for the last few months I've been delighted to serve...
Read more

It's 3am

 Hi all.  Today I'm here with another Frisco collab--this time a variant on a cryptic acrostic, called "It's 3am I Must be Lonely."  This makes what, 3 Frisco collabs?  Frisco recently graduated high school and is starting college and now I don't have an excuse to stop him from putting dirty clues in our puzzles, so please be prepared... Sheets (sign into google and make yourself a copy) pdf Solutions (Also, I should probably mention that since my last post, I was in the Browser two more times, with Cryptic #173 and Cryptic #185, edited as always by the amazing Dan Feyer..  Also, I made [to audience] , edited by the wonderful Dob Olino, and hosted on the Crossweird site. ) More exciting stuff coming down the line...  Yay, cryptics!
Read more

Filling Time

Here's a very special puzzle. Filling Time was the first cryptic crossword I ever made, way back in 2008.  I showed it to a couple friends and then put it in a drawer and didn't think about it for a long time.  Then in 2022 I showed it to some new cryptic friends I made online and felt inspired to keep going at it...  It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that I've spend the last couple years trying to get good at making cryptics specifically so I could do this one justice.  And in the last couple months I've tweaked the grid some and rewritten all the clues, did a ton of testing, and now am putting it out.  I hope you enjoy it. Thanks a ton to the too-many-to-list test solvers who've improved this puzzle over the years and especially months. There's an in-browser solving option below, or you can print this pdf , or some people prefer Google Sheets .
Read more