Thumbnails
5 puzzles by Yacob Yonas
with constructor comments
| S | E | R | A | U | N | P | E | G | M | A | N | E | |||
| O | M | A | R | P | O | L | I | O | N | I | C | E | R | ||
| C | O | M | M | I | T | M | E | N | T | I | N | C | U | R | |
| U | P | S | R | O | S | S | T | S | H | I | R | T | |||
| T | O | E | T | A | P | S | T | A | Y | A | L | E | R | T | |
| E | P | S | O | N | D | Y | E | R | O | A | D | I | E | ||
| M | I | C | E | C | P | U | B | I | N | S | |||||
| T | M | S | S | U | N | C | H | I | P | S | T | O | T | ||
| R | O | A | R | E | Y | E | N | Y | E | T | |||||
| I | N | L | E | T | S | D | U | E | P | I | D | A | Y | ||
| G | A | S | P | R | I | C | E | S | S | T | O | O | G | E | |
| L | A | T | I | N | O | M | A | U | I | G | E | L | |||
| T | I | B | I | A | S | K | I | P | S | C | H | O | O | L | |
| I | S | A | L | L | M | E | N | S | A | B | O | N | E | ||
| C | A | R | E | O | A | T | E | N | O | D | E | D |
YACOB: I love themes that play with word movement within the themers. I feel like they can lead to a strong aha moment, since, at first glance, the theme answers might make no sense. I hope you all enjoy it!
In case you were curious, here are some of the themers that didn't make the cut: HA[RPI]NGON, S[PACE]CREW, S[PITT]AKE, F[REED]IVE.
CHAD: Super excited to be making my NYT crossword debut. This acceptance came after a half dozen or so unsuccessful attempts, so for any aspiring constructors out there, definitely keep at it!
All credit goes to Yacob for this theme idea. As for the fill and clues, I tend to enjoy more trivia-y content, and some of my favorite clues of ours that made it through the editing process are 14A, 2D (loved those bands in high school!), and 58D (one of my all-time favorite shows). Very cool to see this run as a Thursday; some of the clues have definitely been Thursday-ed up a bit, but hopefully nothing too tricky!
| E | T | T | A | W | A | N | D | S | H | Y | ||||
| B | E | A | N | A | B | O | U | T | C | U | E | |||
| B | A | K | I | N | G | B | R | E | A | D | O | M | G | |
| L | E | M | O | N | Y | C | U | E | R | V | O | |||
| S | E | S | A | M | E | I | N | T | H | R | E | E | D | |
| L | O | I | T | E | R | M | O | I | O | D | E | S | ||
| A | N | G | E | R | P | I | L | E | S | |||||
| B | I | N | C | A | T | E | R | E | D | C | G | I | ||
| M | Y | B | A | D | G | I | L | E | S | |||||
| A | S | I | A | O | L | E | D | E | M | O | T | E | ||
| C | O | M | P | A | R | E | D | O | O | P | S | I | E | |
| T | I | L | S | I | T | A | M | U | L | E | T | |||
| I | R | A | R | E | L | O | C | A | T | I | O | N | S | |
| N | E | T | D | E | L | H | I | E | N | O | S | |||
| G | E | E | E | D | E | N | S | E | W | N |
YACOB: In June 2018, Erik and I were brainstorming themes for a back-to-school themed puzzle for the Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament. In our list of funky ideas, we considered making a puzzle centered around the revealer PASSING NOTES where musical notes (e.g. DO/RE/MI) would move from one theme answer to the next. I wrote up some code to try to find entries that could work for each musical note.
ERIK: Little did we know that Paolo Pasco was already working on a similar puzzle for the tournament! It's always a bummer to be scooped on a theme idea, but it stings a little less when it's by one of the greats.
YACOB: After Lolla, we remembered that we found a lot of promising entries for RE, and we figured sometime down the line, we could find a way to make a cool theme centered around just moving RE. This is that puzzle! Hope you all enjoy :)
| B | L | O | W | D | A | R | T | G | R | I | N | D | ||
| A | L | P | H | A | N | E | R | D | P | O | D | I | A | |
| G | A | P | I | N | G | M | A | W | A | V | A | N | T | |
| E | M | O | T | E | S | I | A | S | E | R | T | A | ||
| L | A | S | E | U | L | T | R | A | D | E | E | P | ||
| S | S | E | O | N | E | O | F | F | S | S | N | L | ||
| E | U | L | E | R | R | A | M | A | D | A | ||||
| C | R | O | P | T | O | P | C | A | R | R | Y | O | N | |
| S | O | N | A | T | A | S | E | M | I | S | ||||
| I | M | S | A | D | S | A | L | E | S | L | A | B | ||
| M | A | A | M | S | O | U | L | S | L | A | R | A | ||
| I | N | F | E | R | A | T | M | B | A | S | I | N | ||
| A | G | A | T | E | R | E | A | D | A | T | H | O | N | |
| M | O | R | O | N | S | E | T | A | T | E | A | S | E | |
| I | D | I | O | T | D | E | M | E | N | T | O | R |
Some puzzle facts:
- This is both my first solo-constructed crossword and my first themeless puzzle!
- This puzzle originated with this grid layout I found on XWord Info. I proceeded to fill it and refill it a few times for a month or so. In my opinion, this layout has a good balance between feeling open, yet still allowing me to rework a corner without needing to empty the grid.
- My favorite clues to write were 14A and 16A.
- My favorite clues written by Will & co. were 1D and 35D.
Thanks to Jeff Chen and Ryan McCarty for providing early feedback and pushing me always to keep improving my fill! And to Erik Agard for helping to encourage me to start making themelesses!
| S | C | R | U | B | S | L | A | M | M | O | S | |||
| P | R | U | N | E | S | L | O | B | E | A | A | H | ||
| F | U | N | I | N | T | H | E | S | U | N | C | S | I | |
| S | E | T | G | O | O | D | S | O | N | A | I | R | ||
| M | A | L | T | A | R | O | U | S | E | |||||
| I | C | I | C | L | E | S | P | L | A | T | ||||
| M | A | D | E | I | N | T | H | E | S | H | A | D | E | |
| O | R | E | S | I | O | N | C | R | A | W | ||||
| B | A | C | K | I | N | T | H | E | B | L | A | C | K | |
| H | I | R | E | S | L | A | U | G | H | S | ||||
| T | E | R | E | S | A | B | E | N | E | |||||
| U | S | E | R | S | E | P | I | C | S | O | O | H | ||
| P | I | C | E | Y | E | I | N | T | H | E | S | K | Y | |
| A | G | O | R | E | N | T | S | E | A | L | E | D | ||
| C | N | N | S | A | Y | S | E | R | O | D | E |
YACOB: I found Erik after he mentioned the Facebook group he created (Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory) in the XWord Info notes for one of his puzzles in 2018. I reached out to ask him for ideas on how to improve a theme idea I had in mind. He responded fifteen minutes later with a bunch of useful feedback. Two months later, he checked back in to see if that theme idea had materialized and asked if I was interested in co-constructing a puzzle. I said yes, and this is the puzzle we produced! Since making this puzzle, we worked together on another one that ran as a part of the Lollapuzzoola tournament last summer.
Just wanted to shout out Erik for being an awesome mentor! And also, if you're interested in learning how to construct, the Facebook group is a great place to start and look around for resources and potential mentors.
ERIK: If memory serves, this is the lowest proportion of clues I've ever had changed by editors from submission to publication, which seems like a strong argument either for collaboration in general or for working with Yacob in particular (I highly recommend both).
| U | N | P | A | I | D | S | P | A | U | G | L | I | S | ||
| P | O | O | R | M | E | C | A | L | P | O | I | N | T | ||
| D | U | K | E | O | F | K | E | N | T | E | E | N | S | Y | |
| A | G | E | S | Y | I | N | E | O | N | S | |||||
| T | A | R | O | T | S | T | A | R | K | N | A | K | E | D | |
| E | T | S | A | H | S | V | E | E | H | A | L | O | |||
| I | C | E | S | A | G | E | E | T | A | L | |||||
| F | O | U | N | T | A | I | N | S | O | F | W | A | Y | N | E |
| A | T | T | A | T | N | U | T | F | E | D | |||||
| W | R | E | N | M | A | C | B | E | E | P | A | S | |||
| N | O | S | Y | P | A | R | K | E | R | P | S | A | L | M | |
| C | O | P | A | R | A | T | A | S | E | A | |||||
| B | R | E | A | D | B | A | N | N | E | R | Y | E | A | R | |
| L | A | S | S | I | I | D | S | C | O | H | O | S | T | ||
| T | Y | P | E | A | C | O | T | H | O | I | S | T | S |
One of the first theme answers we thought of was 16-letters, so you'll notice that the grid is not square today (16x15). Given that we didn't have any other theme answers that long, we realized two things: 1) we needed five theme answers (the longest across the entire middle row, two above, two below) and 2) the revealer was going to be tricky to place. We placed our five symmetrical themers fairly quickly, but struggled with the revealer, even debating whether or not to split it between two answers with cross-referenced clues. Finally, Yacob came up with a heroic solution and found a Down answer where our revealer could cross 3 of the Across theme answers, et voila! We had all of the thematic material placed, and the rest of the grid fell into place.