onefin's puzzle corner

he/they/one. xword maker and puzzle hunter. rambling about curiosities to an audience of zero. "onee" in my username is pronounced like in "onee-san".

[oneefin]

crosswords | prev | next

forty minis

hi all! i'm excited to unveil the project i've been working on for the past two months: a set of 40 bite-sized crosswords filled with various themes and nerdy references.

these are all playable on crosshare today if you use the links in this post. if, on the other hand, you prefer playing minis day-by-day, they will be publicized one a time (from now to mid-june!) on my crosshare blog, so you can follow along with that if you like! each puzzle includes a detailed constructor's note that you can read after solving.

thanks to heron, niv, luny, and ethan zarov for playtesting these. have fun! links below:

1-two-dimensional-knot

2-daily-high-and-low

3-self-strengthening

4-song-dance

5-polished-stems

6-the-meat-of-the-matter

7-shes-an-astronyaut

8-game-stu-diorama

9-wheres-that-pokemon

10-round-numbers

11-creeeature-feeeature

12-ooh-ooh

13-eddy

14-you-fool-i-have-70-alt-accounts

15-the-walls-are-screaming

16-check-that-right-now

17-hear-and-everywh-ere

18-ooae-oe-oy

19-latin-square

20-sound-cloud

21-markupright

22-the-ipod-mini-mini

23-flip-overtime

24-anatomy-notes

25-mug-shot

26-diatonically-increasing

27-push-for-directions

28-alleles

29-is-this

30-offscreen-thwomp

31-octo-expansion

32-black-mesa

33-tetris-tutorial

34-the-rebus-mini

35-length-x-height

36-illusion-of-choice

37-foreboding-message

38-im-not-skilled-enough-to-make-a-completely-empty-7x7

39-hows-the-weather-up-there

40-themeless-40

[oneefin]

what software do you use to make crosswords? ive been using the built-in crosshare constructor, but it doesn't have custom wordlists so my fills end up very samey, as opposed to your fills which are always distinct and full of fun modern references

everyone should use ingrid it is amazing

[oneefin]

i think a big reason why i gravitated towards crossword construction (as opposed to other forms of puzzle making) is that in any artform i find success doing, it hinges on finding a way to cultivate a unique style and make stuff that no one else is making. like this happened with me for writing music, but it hasn't happened with me for visual arts. so crosswords was kind of a cool to find as a medium because, for a puzzle genre where you can literally write whatever you want, popular newspaper puzzles are so goddamn standardized and homogenous that breaking those convention and making puzzles with more whimsy and character comes as an absolute no-brainer. i started with gimmick puzzles that were highly silly and stupid and i'm still doing that!

[kaleidoscopingmechanism]

hi all! i know i don't really post anything and have a sum total of *reads note* zero followers but my crossword blog is up! there's currently one puzzle on there right now but more are to come very soon!really proud of this grid in particular so give it a shot if you dare!

Puzzle 1: Right In The Kisser!

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to my blog! Since this is my first post on here (pop the champagne!), this puzzle's a bit of a special on

[oneefin]

best seven deadly month

pride month (june)

greed month (july)

lust month (august)

envy month (september)

gluttony month (october)

wrath month (november)

sloth month (december)

[show results]

Remaining time: 4 days 6 hours

[oneefin]

also today the posted this crossword which was marvelous to witness come to fruition, for reasons that should be evident with a single glance:

[oneefin]

today is the last day of apihminis (a month-long crossword series highlighting asian / pacific islander voices) and the sendoff was written by my good friend lunacyecho so you are required to play it on my / our behalf

i have some overall thoughts on the portion of the series that i've actually solved so far that i'll save for myself because i haven't solved all of them so i don't have a complete picture yet

[oneefin]

crosswords | prev | next

am i seeing double?

i'm in puzzmo again! leo tsai invited me to co-construct for one of their minis this month - you can play the results of our back-and-forth here.

[oneefin]

crosswords | prev | next

am i seeing double?

i'm in puzzmo again! leo tsai invited me to co-construct for one of their minis this month - you can play the results of our back-and-forth here.

[just-shower-thoughts]

Another term for “guns” is “arms”. Another term for “arms” is “guns”.

[oneefin]

crosswords | prev | next

am i seeing double?

i'm in puzzmo again! leo tsai invited me to co-construct for one of their minis this month - you can play the results of our back-and-forth here.

[oneefin]

carry the cooked cod, team (8)

[oneefin]

best word that doesn't mean "to witness something eavesdropping-ly"

overlook

oversee

oversight

overview

something else

(overshow results)

Voting ended onMay 25

very funny

[oneefin]

the recent pico8 game carrot kingdom by shoma is short, very accessible, and densely packed with fun moments of discovery. the same vein as stuff like öoo, but smaller!

Carrot Kingdom!

(original japanese version here)

[oneefin]

best way to get onto the tower to collect "top of the fortress" in 0 A presses

throw a box into mario using the hat-in-hand glitch from the elevator

get mario into a misalignment near the bullet bill block

teleport a falling block while mario is on it

spawn 2 100-coin stars by overflowing the coin counter

throw a box into mario using behind camera anywhere from the bullet bill block

something else discovered after the release of the above video

cheat

(show results)

Voting ended onMay 23

[oneefin]

after two months of painstaking effort over about 80 hours i have solved every puzzle in the artisan of glimmith, a grid logic puzzle game by lunarch studios with over 1,000 hand-crafted puzzles written by the best of the best

(also becoming one of the very few games i own where i have all the steam achievements on it)

i didn't mark my favorite levels as i went so i would have to trawl through to find things i remember but there was so much good stuff in it and some really hard stuff also. truly this is like an insane collection written by the only team in the entire world who can do it in any reasonable, cost-effective way.

[oneefin]

best name that's a substring of "fredrick"

fredrick

fredric

fred

red

ed

edric

rick

ric

i

(something else)

[show results]

Voting ended onMay 21

(this has been sitting in my drafts forever because i didn't come up with it)

[oneefin]

eye roll emoji at the nyt midi yesterday for chickening out of asking solvers to know some of the most surface level video game trivia out there and instead cluing all of these mario terms with an alternate, straightforward hint

what am i, 4? do i deserve a lollipop for saying 3 + 5 is 8?