juff's cryptic crosswords

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 a...

  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...

 Hi all! Standard apology for not updating the blog in a while.  Here's some puzzles I've released in the meantime... On Christmas Day 2024, I did a twitch stream making a puzzle collaboratively with everyone who showed up to help... That was:  Skaldskaparmal, Taceo, RoboTwilight, Longyfan, Frisco.  Puzzle's here , and I think it's pretty neat, and it's themed on a Christmas Present I got this year. Also:  Jess Shulman and I made a puzzle called Loophole in the Wall Street Journal!  The Wall Street freakin' Journal!  Like where the Hex puzzles were!?  An unbelievable honor and I'm super stoked and I think the puzzle came out great and I hope you like it. Also:  The Browser released it's volume of The Browser Cryptic Crosswords 2023 , a bound version of the Browser's puzzles of that year, of which three were by me. Also:  In October I was in the Browser again, with Browser #194, edited as always by Dan Feyer. And that's it!  Big ne...

 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!

    Two more puzzles to mention for May.  On the 19th I had another Browser come out, Browser Cryptic #173, "Toy Phones" available at The Browser , edited as always by Dan Feyer.  This one came out really great.   Also, just now ProbablyApocryphal and I released our first collab, a themed puzzled called " Not Untitled ," available at his site.  PA does great puzzles and you should check them out!   Have fun!

 Hi all! Three puzzles to mention... Roland Ingram ( Longyfan !) and I wrote the Browser cryptic for this week called "Connect," expertly edited as always by the inestimable Dan Feyer.  This one is a prize puzzle, meaning there's a final meta-answer to the puzzle that you can send in for a chance to win a prize.  Neither of us has done one of these before and I'm excited to hear how people find it. Also!  Last week I posted a special puzzle on MyCrossword...  I don't think I ever gave that a name in my head.  Let's say that one was called Strong Shot . Also!  This week I'm dropping another one on MyCrossword, which I'm calling Free Radical .  I hope you like it. Yay Cryptic Crosswords!

Hi all, I'm on a roll with puzzles lately? I'll see how long I can keep dropping one a week. Off this blog, joeadultman and I dropped another Alphabet Jigsaw (you don't have to solve it as a jigsaw though). Also, Longyfan and I appeared in The Browser on March 10, with a movie-themed puzzle for Oscar night, edited by Dan Feyer. But here's this week's puzzle, which has no shenanigans but does have an interesting property that might be fun to try to figure out as you solve.  This puzzle was also posted as MyCrossword #1674 .  Have fun!  Thanks to Liari, Longyfan, StJtB Skaldskaparmal and Frisco for testing, and to N0hk for clue assistance. Full Screen link .

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 .

Today I'm sharing two puzzles both a little bit old, both made with a ton of people for a special occasion. On Christmas day, 2023, I did a Twitch stream where I invited anyone interested to jump in and help make a cryptic, and it came out great!  Thanks to the colloborators: Danandbabka, DragonEngineer, EdBreadScissorsFriends, elderism, frisco17mashups, gordiantangle, JayForty, JMbrow29, joeadultman, longyfan, RoflIsALot, Roy Johnson, rubyyy_j, rubyyy_j, StephenSta192, Taceo, tui_bird, Warking14, and possibly others I missed.  And thanks to Joshsolves for testing it, live on stream. There's two versions available... solve this one if you love variety nonsense and solve this one on MyCrossword if you only LIKE variety nonsense. ALSO In January to celebrate the excellent streamer / setter / guy joeadultman's birthday I invited a top crew of amazing friends to help make a puzzle for him.  Thanks to collaborators: Deanne, Glentopher, Herzwesten, JM, juff, LM, Longyfan,...

Hi all!  You probably know my friend the streamer and setter and great guy joeadultman .  He has a redemption on his twitch channel whereby for 50,000 points you can make him a Cryptic of the Year puzzle.  I redeemed this one quite a while ago and made it for Joe based on a year of his choosing that he says he can't remember having picked.   Thanks to a weirdly high number of testers...  Rubix, MP, Jack, Liari, Skald, Aaron, JM, and Ashley.  (Maybe more?  It's been banging around for a while and I'm not totally sure my notes are all here...) (It can be found over at MyCrossword .)

 Happy Halloween! I'm happy to deliver a Halloween variety cryptic, called "Treatise on Trickery," made with the amazing Pixlate !  I hope you enjoy it! I've been doing a lot of themelesses lately so I might remind people that this is something diffrerent... this is a variety cryptic, meaning there's some shenanigans going on beyond just having to solve cryptic clues.  In particular, this is the kind where you're not entirely sure going in what exactly all the rules are at the beginning, but it hopefully becomes clearer as the game goes on.  This is my favorite kind of cryptic and Pix and I are really happy to share it with you.   Happy Solving!  Happy Halloween!  Yay cryptics! Thanks a ton to Skaldskaparmal, joeadultman, dadgumituh and Jack H. Keynes for testing. Solve Online ipuz pdf solutions

Another post collecting puzzles to be found elsewhere: At the end of September I had a themeless cryptic appear in AVCX !  My editor was Francis Heaney who is amazing, and I'm really really happy with how the puzzle came out.  Looking at my notes, I've been waiting just over a year to use that bottom across clue.  Man...  (I guess I'll continue my tradition of saying my puzzles' secret names here?  Before it was called AVCX Cryptic 9/28/23, I called this one "Everything Everywhere.") Just after that, Frisco dropped Oh No-Meration 2 , a collaboration.  Frisco's first Oh No-Meration dropped in February and has such a simple cool semi-variety gimmick of the kind I love, and I was really happy when Frisco invited me to join for the sequel.  I think it came out pretty neat!  (There isn't a plot or anything, and you don't have to do the first one first.  But the first one is pretty good too.) And then the day after that I had another Browser cry...

 I have another over-checked grid up at MyCrossword, this one with the amazing LongyFan.  Check out our new collab here , and check out Longy's other great puzzles here and here . Thanks to JoeAdultman, Jack H Keynes and Skald for the tests.

  New puzzle up on MyCrossword .  It looks really weird but there's nothing shenanigans going on, just a weird shaped grid trying to get all the clues to be 2/3 checked.  And it worked!    I've been making regular blocked grids more lately and have missed doing barred grids with their extra checkedness and how the extra crossers let you go further afield in the cluing.  So here's a themeless with over-checked words and slightly sussier cluing to take advantage.  I hope you like it. Thanks to Jack H Keynes, Liari, MP, and Skaldskaparmal for the test solves.

A fairly rude puzzle, made by me and Liari , for Celise. Thanks to Skaldskaparmal, MP and Pixlate for testing. Solve online:  Grid , Clues ( google doc , pdf ) Printable Version Solutions

 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 c...

Wow, it looks like I put this grid into amuselabs in June 2022...  This puzzle took a WHILE to finish. Thanks Skaldskaparmal, Pixlate, Liari, Jack H Keynes, and StJtB for the test solves, and thanks to JMBrow29 for clue assistance, and thanks to Skald and Stephen C for help with the themers. [ fullscreen link ]

Hi!  My latest puzzle is a symmetric themeless, which for some reason I feel like I should prove the world I'm capable of?  But I think I also wanna keep the blog a symmetry-free zone, so you can find this puzzle at  https://mycrossword.co.uk/cryptic/1028 .  Thanks to Skaldskaparmal and Pixlate for test solving, and thanks to Norah Sharpe for suggesting the signature clue idea. I think when I do this from time to time I'll use this space to wax on a topic, as if it's my blog. Today, I'd like to talk about connecting words.  I don't really have any big philosophy on connecting words but I think I differ from the mainstream in a few ways that are worth presenting my take one. Firstly, I don't really get "with" as a connecting word.  The promise of a cryptic clue is that it's going to give you two things.  I'm not sure why, but saying "THIS with THAT" makes the two things that are supposed to be there into one thing in a way that saying ...

Hello cryptic friends!  I'm super excited to share with you another amazing collaboration, this time with Pixlate , an Australian setter who has made some really remarkable varieties .   In pix I've been really delighted to find a peer with a similar sensibility to mine.  We both prefer way overchecked barred grids, and both prefer every three-letter word in such to be fully checked.  I've been attempting to get one of these asymmetric barred grids to have every entry 2/3 checked, and with Pix's help I'm really happy to finally have one on the blog.  (Feel free to go back through my older grids and find the ONE aggravatingly just-less-than-2/3 checked word in each...) The puzzle is called "Blank Check."  I sometimes do puzzles without reading the instructions--if you're such a solver as well, this isn't a good puzzle for that.  (The instructions are no help at all, feel free to read away.) We really hope you enjoy! Thanks to Skald and Agnijo Ban...

         Hi again. So uh, this is a weird one to have to explain...   Okay so on Twitch, there's a chatbot called Buttsbot who you can invite to come into your stream chat, where it will randomly repeat things people have said, replacing one or more syllables with "butt."  I promise, it's funnier than it sounds. This puzzle, which is called Buttsbot, is about Buttsbot.  I made it with Lila , who is amazing!  This is our first collab and her first cryptic.  Check out all her really fun non-cryptic puzzles which are just oozing with style! Thanks to Liari for clue assistance, and to Skald , Pixlate , teamcrazymatt , n0hk , and MP for the test solves. Fullscreen link .