Puzzle 203: Synograms. Moving around the world, in more ways than one.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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If I made a Venn diagram of “people who like anagrams” and “people who like world geography”, how big would the intersecting area be? I guess we’ll find out a bit of that with this puzzle, no? The challenge is to take a pair of words, figure out which one to change to its synonym, and pair that word with the other word to anagram it into a well-known US city or world city.

The “easier version” gives the length of each city; the “harder version” does not.

If I had to do a self-assessment, I would say that this is on the tougher side, but I know that not a single one of you likes to back down from a challenge, right?

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Puzzle 202: Freestyle 169. Enough of this mudslinging!

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.43

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Do you see what it does to a grid when I want to do something so innocent as put a couple of 14-letter entries in a grid? Seriously messes things up, man. I’ve got a 14 stacked with a 15 twice in this grid, and it did some (as Dana Carvey doing Johnny Carson would say) weird, wild stuff with the rest of the grid. More 3-letter entries than I would have liked, but not an absolute glut of them.

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Puzzle 201: Freestyle 168. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Last Friday’s Split Decisions Two Ways solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.57

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You bet your booty that today’s grid was inspired by my exasperation with the “political process” known as the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. (Don’t worry, I’m not giving anything away with the following.) The seed entry going down the center (not to mention, one might argue, the one going across the center, too) was something I picked up from this hullabaloo. And that’s about as political as you’ll ever see me get, folks.

Oh, also, I feel like I have to mention this also: you might see I did something a little cheeky in the clues to avoid a duped entry that I didn’t want to tear out one of two sections to remove. See if you can find out what it is…

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 200: Freestyle 167. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.46

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I could be wrong on this, but, in my memory, I usually don’t include a long central answer when I do a 10-stack or 11-stack in the corners. It’s usually because I do all I can to make the long corner stacks work, and that usually eventually means blocks in the center. But, this time, it worked out that the corner stacks had to be a little isolated from the rest of the grid (17/57/61-Across were all seeds in the corners, and I really wanted to make all of them work), and so none of the columns intersecting the corner stacks reached all the way to or through the center row of the grid. Thus, I looked for a good 13 or 15, as well as two eights or nines I could put above and below it, from the trusty seed list, and found three (28/36/41-Across) that worked well together.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 199: Split Decisions Two Ways 4. When you come to a fork in the words, take it.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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WHAAAAT? No standard freestyle crossword today? Surprise! Well, actually, I got an email message through the website saying that they liked these puzzles and hadn’t seen one in a while. I guess that message stirred something in me, because I did something I hadn’t done in a LONG time on this site, and that’s making a variety puzzle instead of a crossword. If you’ve missed the first three (which I won’t blame you for having done, since I published the last one in the Reagan administration), here’s a link to them. I’ve been on a roll with freestyle crosswords for a … long … while, so I guess it’s good to break up the landscape every once in a while, no?

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Puzzle 198: Freestyle 166. Tastes like chicken!

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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The seed for this grid was, as you’d guess, the center answer across. One problem, though — for some answers (like this one), nice as you think they are, you don’t really think about how tough they would be to clue without using a word from the answer in the clue (which is, obviously, a no-no). I managed to think of one, obviously, but… it’s a consideration for next time.

You’ll notice that most of the long answers, across and down, are all pretty close to the center. That was by no means my intent — even after I came up with the central horizontal stack. It was very fortunate that it all fell together — there were a couple spots where only one or two entries fit, but just happened to work with the surrounding ones.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 197: Freestyle 165. Well, that’s a relief.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.28

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I don’t know why I don’t go this route as often as I do — stacking two long answers as opposed to three — because it’s a lot easier to construct and, obviously, easier to find two nice entries to stack on each other than three. Thus, all four fifteens were intentionally plucked from my list of seed entries (yes, one of the 15s has been used in grids before, but I still liked the entry enough to want to put it in a grid myself). The pairs of 15s I used both stacked so well that the most difficult parts of the grid to construct were the left and right center.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 196: Freestyle 164. Can I get a second opinion?

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.51

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This grid was only supposed to have one 15-letter answer, which was the seed entry, 7-Down. The evolution of this grid meant that the horizontal grid-spanner came into play too. Luckily, it wasn’t just a throwaway 15 but an entry that I also really liked. You might notice something funny (odd-funny, not “ha ha”-funny) about the juxtaposition of two answers on the left half of the grid — know that that was, believe it or not, unintentional, just a happy accident.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 195: Freestyle 163. That’s what she said [snicker]!

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.49

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Another instance where 70 worked out better than 72 for me. Obviously the opportunity to pare it down to 72 lay in splitting what’s now 6-Down and 30-Down, but it would have made the area above the bottom stack and under the middle very awkward with some not-so-nice entries. Also, you’ll get the rare  “one helper square stacked on top of another” animal here — it helped both of those corners immensely. You’ll also see a sort-of dupe in this grid that I let go because it wasn’t worth tearing apart an area that I think came out pretty well.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 194: Freestyle 162. It’s just common sense, right?

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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Breaking news! I added blocks for aesthetics instead of practicality. It was in the corners — I had to add the pair in the upper left and lower right and, though I don’t usually think this, I thought, “Boy, that looks weird”, and put another pair in the other two corners. It definitely helped with the fill, of course, but I didn’t absolutely need those two other black squares. I remember doing that waaaay back in my first ever grid for this site, and it was for the same reason.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Friday!