Indie puzzle news abound!

1) Veteran constructor Tim Croce has started his own new site, Club 72. Looks like it’s a themeless puzzle joint on Tuesday nights, and he just posted a variety puzzle last night. Hit it up.

2) I’ve previously mentioned Adam Nicolle, a young gun puzzlemaker (like real young — 12 years old, in fact), and I recently helped him create this easy puzzle here. He’s still learning the ropes of construction, but the work on that puzzle is mostly his. Check it out.

3) Matt Gaffney is switching his Weekly Crossword Contest over to a subscription-based model beginning in January, for a low price of $26/year. Put that on your holiday gift list for the puzzle lover in your family.

4) In other news in the puzzles-as-holiday-gifts department, why don’t you head on over and give some tips to Brendan Emmett Quigley for some bonus crosswords and Patrick Blindauer for his upcoming 12-part Space Puzzlefest?

5) Dear new constructors who haven’t been published in mainstream puzzles that much: want to see your puzzle solved live before an audience? The five of us running the Indie 500 Crossword Tournament are accepting submissions for a sixth puzzle. If we like yours the best, we’ll pay you $500 for it. The deadline to submit is January 15, 2015. See more information here.

6) Finally: while I have not made a decision on this yet, there is a decent chance I’ll be increasing my Devil Cross output, moving from a bi-weekly to a weekly feature. Have to work out all the kinks, and all that, but either way, I’m posting a new puzzle later on this week. Stay tuned.

Enjoy today’s puzzle, and enjoy next Friday’s (Dec. 12) New York Times puzzle — that one’s all mine.

       





Three unrelated things: first, I think it was just yesterday that Brendan Emmett Quigley posted what looked like a bizarre, inside joke on Facebook (“Too many cooks, indeed” or something like that). I didn’t even bother to look up what he meant. But then just as I picked my wife up from work yesterday evening, she immediately said, “Have you seen the ‘Too Many Cooks’ video?” Apparently the whole world was raving about it and I knew nothing, but then my friend Ron showed it to me. And It. Is. Glorious.





Second, one reason that this puzzle is coming in a bit late was that I excised the answer SURE TO WIN from the grid just last night and refilled maybe 25% of it. The phrase Googles reasonably well enough, and I even had a decent clue for it [Like a lock, say]. You could probably have gotten it on crosses. But after staring at it for a long while, it just sounded too arbitrary to my ear. I think I made the right call, though if anyone wants to defend it, feel free. I’ll probably be tempted to have answers like SURE TO GO or SURE TO PUNCH. You can’t stop me from using them in my puzzles. But hopefully I can.

Finally, will the Devil Cross solver named Chris Cain please e-mail me? Much thanks.

Enjoy this puzzle, a slightly expanded 16×15 grid for slightly expanded fun. There will be a new one on November 22.

Update, 11/8/14 @ 7:30 pm ET: There’s some new info about the Indie 500 Crossword Puzzle Tournament that may be of interest to you new, indie puzzle constructors out there. We’re looking for a 6th constructor, and that could be you. Go to the site here and click on “Submit” to get the details.