This is my second crossword, a 15×15 themed puzzle with 68 words. It is themed and though it’s still only an OK puzzle it’s much better than my last in some important ways.
- Many fewer obscure clues. The last puzzle had many clues that would be considered too obscure for a submittable puzzle. For example: “Gujarat City SANAND (6)”, “Like a Dickens abbr. SER (3)”, and “Transporter Protien inits. OATP (4)”.
- Better clues, or fewer misspelled words. My first puzzle had, for example, “Newsome arrested over racist flag BRI (3)” when her name is BREE (4). It’s still a good clue, I just wish I had been able to use her actual name.
- A far superior grid. This puzzle was done with the whole of the NYT “How to make a crossword” series complete and part 3 was immensely helpful for designing a grid that made the puzzle fun and challenging to solve.
My first crossword was designed in Numbers and exported to PDF for printing and submission. The NYT series pointed me to a new web-based and open source crossword builder called Phil. It comes with a word list built in which saved me a few trips to onelook and helped maintain symmetry as I was designing the grid. Phil also exports the puzzle to a printable PDF, including a version ready for submission, PUZ file, and an “xw” file, which appears to be just JSON under the hood.
Here’s the puzzle (and the submitable version with the solution). If you’re so inclined, give it a shot and leave your thoughts about it in the comments. Oh, and despite the improvements, I still don’t have a good clue for 38 across. But here’s a clue for 52 down