Month: January 2024

A new weekly post curated by the DCL team.

If you missed us last week, this is the second post in a new, spoiler-free weekly series designed to recommend puzzles you might have missed among ever-longer daily posts. It draws on the example set by Will Nediger’s Indie Puzzle Highlights posts.

This is not at all an attempt to pick the “best” puzzles, and we will be less detailed in our comments than Will was. Our approach is best described as “puzzles we don’t think you should miss.” Kind of like staff recommendations at a local bookstore.

Whether you solve one or all of this list, we’d love to hear about your favorite puzzles from the week in the comments here, as well.

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Puzzmo: Here’s a Story (1/6) by Pravan Chakravarthy. Triple stacks in an 11x midi grid, but the highlights for me are in the clues. If you missed it when it originally ran in Lil AVC X, here’s another chance. – Matt

Autostraddle: A+ Crossword is an Amorphous Thing (1/6) by Rebecca Goldstein. Easy breezy themed midi with an adorably fresh revealer. – Matt

Defector: Going Bowling (1/9). Trent Evans pulls together a bright, in-the-language theme set to mark the end of the college football season. – Matt

Universal: Cha-Ching! by Sarah Butkovic (1/9) A tricky theme with a great revealer – don’t prejudge it based on the unorthodox grid! – Matt

Squared Away (1/7) by Taylor Johnson. A tricky take on the deceptively simple variety format that presents a fun challenge for solvers of all difficulty levels. -Norah

Tough As Nails: Tough as Nails Themeless #104 (1/10). Stella Zawistowski’s typical collection of from a broad swath of topics should provide an inroad to a tough grid and something to learn for all solvers. -Matt

USA Today: Rising Rates (1/9) and The Rates Are Rising Again! (1/10) by Sally Hoelscher & Wendy L. Brandes. “Variations on a Theme” comes to the crossword world. Kudos to the USA Today team for dialing up this one-two combo. -Matt

Puzzles That Need A Home: Russia’s Greatest Love Machine (1/10) Brian Thomas is back with a puzzle worth the wait, including the best clue I’ve seen in months. – Matt

Los Angeles Times: (1/10) Rebecca Goldstein’s theme + revealer combo lends itself to a colorful themeset, but I particularly enjoyed the longest non-theme answers in this midweek grid. -Matt

Vox: (1/11) by Will Nediger. Themes in midi puzzles aren’t uncommon, but one doesn’t expect this much theme content. A lovely little concept. -Matt

Fireball: Figure It Out by Paul Coulter and The Wall Street Journal: Removing Experience by Mike Shenk. A pair of Thursday puzzles with themes reminiscent of tournament puzzles. A great place to look for solvers preparing for ACPT in a few months. -Matt

BEQ 1/11: A theme type that could present as tricky, but the difficulty of both theme content and the cluing is on the easy side, making this a good exercise for newer solvers looking to improve their theme recognition skills. – Norah

The New Yorker: 1/12 by Brooke Husic. Showcasing Brooke’s trademark cross-cultural style, this easy joyful offering combines a perfect revealer with well-chosen theme entries. – Norah & Rich