Something different today: a 7x7 easy, themed mini designed for kids! My daughter is off to kindergarten in a few weeks (😲) so I've been spending a lot of time with her this summer (🤗). She has enjoyed working on the Grids for Kids puzzle pack  with me, so I wanted to make a special puzzle just like those but with some of her interests included. The paired theme answers here (9-Across and 12-Across) fit together well and reference some books she has been loving, too. She ended up "solving" the puzzle with lots of guidance from me, but I do believe it's doable by anyone who is able to read the clues. (If you're so inclined, please try it for yourself and let me know what you think about the age-level.) Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! puz pdf fullscreen solution

  I just dusted off this grid I worked on a while ago and forgot about. I revamped the fill and almost changed the pattern of blocks but then remembered why I liked this one: it has symmetry along both diagonals (which implies standard 180-degree rotational symmetry, as well). There's a nice flow with the interlocking 11s all around, although next time I'll try it without that block right in the center (swapping four fours for two nines [say that ten times fast]). After all that, I ended up writing the clues for the seed entries (12-A and 3-D) last, aaaannnnnd... here we are in the present moment. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ open in new tab ]

I'm feeling pretty busy this week with the spring semester starting up and working on some other big projects, so here's a small, easy themeless puzzle I've had in a folder for a while. It's just a 9x9 puzzle so I tried to squeeze as many full-length 9s in there as I could without leading to any unfun fill, and that led to this diagonally-symmetric grid. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ play online ]

  Here's a 9x9 grid with diagonal symmetry along the top-right to bottom-left  diagonal. I just want to note that the mention of a "diagonal" in the clue for 4-Down refers (implicitly) to the other kind, the top-left to bottom-right  diagonal of a matrix. I think there are some fun entries (I like 3-Down and 11-Across) and clues (I like 6-Down and 14-Across) in here, and I'm guessing a  medium  difficulty, hoping that the short stuff will give you plenty of ways to crack into it. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ play online ]

Back to some experimentation with diagonal symmetry! I started this puzzle with the 14-Across / 3-Down crossing and tried to carve out some corners from there. The other spanners kinda fell into place, and I think the rest of the fill and clues are pretty fun and interesting. Let me know if this plays a little harder than usual; I tried to to make it tough but fair 😊 Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ play online ]

  Back to challenging midi themeless puzzles, after last week's easy rhyme time :-) I like all the spanning answers in this one, especially the mathematical connections in 3-Down and 6-Down, and even in 7-Down (who was a mathematics major in college). There are quite a few TLAs in the grid to hold it all together, but I'm hoping that you're like me and really don't mind all that much. I am a little curious about whether you'll consider two of the spanning entries to be dupes of each other. I thought they were fine enough to leave in, [3-Down], but let me know if this is something you would have avoided in construction. You'll see what I mean... Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ play online ]

This puzzle has both  standard rotational symmetry and  diagonal symmetry. One coding project I'd like to work on (someday when I have time...) is a way to generate all grids of a certain size that have both those symmetries. Perhaps I could even tweak the code to ensure certain restrictions on word lengths and black square counts. If you're interested in working on that, too, let me know! I think this one will be a little challenging for its size (9x9)  but not too hard overall. I'll label it "hard" just in case, though. [spoiler alert] For when you're done, here's a link to more info about Hedetniemi's conjecture , which is mentioned in 4-Down. My mathematical research these days involves similar ideas (Cartesian and strong graph products) , so let me know if you're interested in learning more about that, too! Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]  ...

  Another midi-sized themeless puzzle with diagonal symmetry! This one is 11x11, and it all started with the diagonally crossing entries 38-Across and 9-Down. As I filled in the rest of the grid, I noticed a few chances to include some other entries that "fit" with those two seed entries (hah, seed! ), so that's why I have somewhat contradictorily labeled this post with both the  "themeless" and "mini themes" categories. Still, it's decidedly not a "themed puzzle", and I'm just pointing this out in case you notice the miniature theme and it helps you solve a clue or two. I acknowledge there's an abundance of proper names in this puzzle, so that's why I'm labeling this Extra Hard , even though the rest of the clues are probably more medium-to-hard .  I'm sorry if some of those names get in the way of your solving, but please always feel free to use that Reveal  button liberally! In fact, just the other day I inadvert...

My numbering scheme tells me that almost half of all the puzzles I've posted here have been of the midi themeless  variety, so... I hope y'all enjoy them! I like making them because it's a chance to highlight some fun entries or clues without necessarily building a whole 15x puzzle around them (that's 15-Across and 4-Down, in this one), as well as a way to experiment with grid shapes and symmetries and have something to show for it (that's diagonal symmetry and a pretty low black square percentage, in this one). They're also sooo much faster to make than 15x puzzles, like, disproportionately so, in my experience! I think this is a  medium-hard  difficulty overall, and I'll err on the hard  side just because of a few proper nouns. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ play online ]

  This puzzle is inspired by two events that happened yesterday!  One of them is referenced in the central answer in this grid, which then ties into a couple of other answers, as well as the puzzle's title (which, by the way, is almost but not quite  the same as my first entry in this "Grid 'n Play" series where I experiment with themeless grids). The other was Brian Thomas's crossword construction Twitch stream yesterday afternoon that taught me a lot about how to approach themeless grids and inspired me to try for a low word count puzzle. What you see above is the grid I ended up with: it has 62 words (yay), 46 black squares (meh), and an average word length of 5.77.  It has standard rotational symmetry, but it almost  looks like it has diagonal symmetry. In fact, if you just slide one pair of those pyramids over one step, then you get a grid that is symmetric across both  diagonals . Be sure to check out Brian's Twitch ( link here ) and his blog ( link...

  As promised after the weird "Anagranimalums" puzzle , I'm posting a few more standard themeless crosswords, but I'm also continuing to explore diagonal symmetry in these midi grids (8x8 to10x10 ish). I like how this one turned out, with a bunch of intersecting 8s and then some 3s and 4s scattered around to hold it all together. This is also the first time, I'm pretty sure, that I have used the top-right/bottom-left diagonal as the axis of symmetry. (Because of matrices and linear algebra, I am accustomed to seeing diagonal symmetry across  the "main diagonal" from the top-left to the bottom-right .) This one started with the 6-Down / 18-Across combo, which I highly recommend watching. (I had to track down DVDs from my local library, and you might, too.) And regarding 1-Across, yes I was there at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston for the taping, somewhere in the 4th row! I can see the back of my head at one point in the show, but only because I know where to...

Huzzah, more diagonal symmetry! I used it recently with  Midi Themeless #9  because some seed entries crossed in just the right way, and I'm using it this time because it allowed for several long answers to squeeze into one area and helped the whole thing feel a little more like an open themeless grid, despite its size. Plus, I just think it looks nice 😊 As usual, some entries may be inspired by recent stuff: current events, or things I'm watching, or (in one case, in this puzzle) things I find myself saying at the dinner table, etc. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ play online ]

Check it out, diagonal symmetry! I didn't start out with that idea for this puzzle, but I realized it would work well with a couple of the 10-letter seed entries. I like how everything turned out, with the confluence of intersecting 10s toward the bottom-right*, as well as the sprinkling of mathematics in the entries in the top-left*. * I've realized recently that I really don't like the NESW convention for referring to grid sections. I  can understand why it's used, but I honestly struggle to remember which way is East and which is West, in a way that I very much  don't  with Left vs. Right. So, I plan on continuing to use top/bottom & left/right instead. Hope that's alright with y'all. However, I'm unsure about one particular square in this grid. It  could  have been an S, pluralizing both of the entries crossing there, but I ended up making it a black square. This increased the black square count beyond what I was hoping for, but there were alread...