Happy December! This whirlwind of a month is finally slowing down with the holidays coming up next week. I'll be spending time away from home with family, and hopefully get some free time to finish constructing a bunch of in-progress puzzles! That and catch up on my puzzle backlog which has only grown since last month...
This asymmetric offering today began with the vertical stack in the NW and grew out from there. Thanks to Will Nediger for test solving. Hope you enjoy!
Back again - with an asymmetrical grid this time! The story with this one is that I got the NE quad stack corner built, and then couldn't for the life of me find a compelling matching corner in the SW with rotational symmetry. So, I switched things up and made a charcuterie board of black square shapes in the middle, including a T, +, and my ol' reliable staircase.
I also have the Saturday puzzle over at the New York Times today! If you're hungry for a Chasm-like treat, check it out 😄
Thanks to Will Nediger for test solving (check out his Freeform Freestyles for more asymmetrical goodness!) Hope you enjoy!
Hello Crossworld!
I'm super excited to be debuting my indie crossword blog McGrids! I've been making crosswords for a few years now, with several dozen published across various publications. My specialty has been themeless puzzles, particularly those with wide-open grids and low word counts.
For this blog I'm looking to continue exploring crossword construction beyond standard formats and expectations. I'll be grouping these puzzles into several parallel series—some will be more familiar, some more experimental. This puzzle is the first of the Asym series of themeless puzzles with deliberately asymmetrical grids.
As of now, I'm planning to post a new puzzle monthly on the 17th plus whatever else I feel like/have time for in between.
Special thanks to Brooke Husic and Ada Nicolle for their help and advice with putting this together. Please check out their puzzles if you haven't already!
Hope you enjoy!
