Crossword Fiend | Reviewing the best crosswords in newspapers and on the Web

WSJ Contest — Friday, February 9, 2024

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Conrad

Grid: untimed; Meta: 20 minutes

Posted in Contests | Tagged Matt Gaffney | 18 Comments

Muller Monthly Music Meta, February 2024

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Matt Gaffney

Title: “Drink Recipe” by Pete Muller, Mack Meller, and Andrew White
Prompt: The meta for this puzzle is a well-known song from the ’70s.
Answer: “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass

puzzle 8:05; meta 2 hours mins (Matt)

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Posted in Daily Puzzles | Tagged Andrew White, Mack Meller, Muller Monthly Music Meta, Pete Muller | 13 Comments

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Nate Cardin

LAT untimed (Jack)

NYT 12:28 (Nate)

USA Today tk (Darby)

Universal (Sunday) untimed (Jim)

Universal tk (norah)

WaPo 5:14 (Matthew)

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Posted in Daily Puzzles | Tagged C.C. Burnikel, Chandi Deitmer, Evan Birnholz, Matthew Stock, Peter Koetters, Tom Pepper, Zhouqin Burnikel | 40 Comments

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Amy Reynaldo

LAT 3:13 (Stella)

Newsday 19:15 (pannonica)

NYT untimed (Amy)

Universal 2:08 (Matthew)

USA Today tk (Matthew)

WSJ untimed (pannonica)

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Posted in Daily Puzzles | Tagged Alex Eaton-Salners, Matthew Sewell, Rafael Musa, Zhouqin Burnikel | 24 Comments

Friday, February 9, 2024

Posted on February 8, 2024 by Amy Reynaldo

LAT untimed (pannonica)

NYT 8:30 (Amy)

The New Yorker 7:35 paper (norah)

Universal 4:09 (Jim)

USA Today 3:26 (Darby)

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Posted in Daily Puzzles | Tagged Caroline Hand, Chandi Deitmer, Christina Iverson, Katie Hale, Spencer Leach, Stella Zawistowski | 47 Comments

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Jenni Levy

BEQ tk (Darby)

LAT 4:16 (Gareth)

NYT 8:38 (ZDL)

The New Yorker 2:24 (Kyle)

Universal tk (Sophia)

USA Today 7:08(Emily)

WSJ 9:44 (Jim)

Fireball untimed (Jenni)

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Posted in Daily Puzzles | Tagged Caitlin Reid, Howard Neuthaler, Jared Goudsmit, Jon Daly, Mike Shenk, Samuel A. Donaldson | 18 Comments

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Posted on February 6, 2024 by Amy Reynaldo

AVCX 8:51 (Amy)

LAT 3:50 (Gareth)

The New Yorker 3:58 (Amy)

NYT 4:41 (Amy)

Universal untimed (pannonica)

USA Today 4:26 (Emily)

WSJ untimed (Jim)

There are a couple new online games from crossword constructors:

On the wordplay front, Jeff Chen brings us Squeezy, where players squeeze letter tiles into words to make new words (example: squeeze a P into SORT to create SPORT).
For trivia buffs, David Levinson Wilk has Initial Instinct, where you get a randomly rolled set of initials and have 30 seconds to guess the name of a noted person with those initials.

Continue reading →