Tuesday, April 25, 2023

WEEKLY FREEBIE: 4/24/2023

Freebie (pdf)

Admittedly, this week's puzzles are not the most mind-bendingly difficult. As I said yesterday, I had to change a few things at the last minute. Luckily, I already had some seeds for a mini Marching Bands, so I set to work building the one you are about to solve. Took me two hours -- OK, maybe three -- and I like a lot of the answers I managed to fit in. Fair warning: Some of the clues are given the "2 words" hint, and I'm using "words" rather loosely for some of them. You'll see what I mean.

Also enclosed is a kropki sudoku that I did for the Freebie about a year ago. I was proud enough to want to include it in my Best of 2022 roundup, but at the time I wasn't familiar with any tools with which to reconstruct the grid. Thank gods for Penpa. Now, my standards for constructing variety sudoku have changed since last April, but solving this thing should still be a breeze.

Enjoy! Come back next Tuesday for more. --H.A.

Monday, April 17, 2023

WEEKLY FREEBIE: 4/17/2023

Hey folks, welcome back. I have another crossword for you this week... not sure where the black squares went though. I'm sure we'll find them.

Also this week sees the debut of LITS. The rules are a little complicated, but not hard to get used to. The puzzles themselves shouldn't be too difficult.

The Freebie (pdf)

Enjoy! Can't wait for next Tuesday.

--H.A.

Monday, April 10, 2023

WEEKLY FREEBIE: 4/10/2023

Hello again. I'm so glad you're here. :)

I made a Labyrinth this week. Well, actually I made two; the one you're about to solve was the better of the two grids. While the answers are, on average, still not as exciting as I wished they were, this turned out to be more entertaining than an earlier grid just chock-full of boringness -- oh, and a 7-letter plural of a name (AMANDAS). Yeesh.

The mantra this week seems to be "interesting". I'm coming to realize that, while I heavily favor clean fill, it comes at the expense of interesting fill. I had a 15x themeless lined up for the end of the week with some fantastic long entries, but like... those were basically the only fun entries in the whole grid. OK, it's fine to have a handful of awkward answers (like compass points and RE- words that no one ever uses in conversation) as long as it's outweighed by answers like WOOKIEEPEDIA and THIS IS A WENDY'S ...right? Idk. Discuss.

Freebie (pdf)

Enjoy! Next Tuesday's Freebie will feature a diagramless. Stay tuned.

--H.A.

Monday, April 3, 2023

WEEKLY FREEBIE: 4/3/2023

Welcome back! I hope you had a fantastic ACPT weekend. And if you stayed home (like I did), I hope you enjoyed some fantastic puzzles all the same, perhaps in the company of a cat or dog.

I've changed things up a bit with the Freebie: You'll note that I now have a difficulty rating system. This week's line-up made one necessary, because while most of the puzzles are easier, the featured crossword has a tricky theme that you might expect from a Thursday NYT.

I do classic sudoku on the first week of every month, but since I've never really given myself the opportunity to do more sudoku variants, I've decided, starting this month, to do one alongside the classic. This month it's killer sudoku.


Enjoy! I'll be back with more next Tuesday, if not sooner. --H.A.