From Online

by graham

• Play it ↗
• Difficulty: easy

I think this is the first themeless puzzle I've seen from the Open Submission Week so I don't want to be too hard on it. With that out of the way, this crossword was very much not for me.

Let's start with what I liked. CREASE as "Origami verb" was fun to puzzle out in my head (hm, fold, no, flatten, aha!). AVATAR is luckily a reference to the awesome animated series and not the Pocahontas rip-off James Cameron movie. BAABAA is cute and easily guessed without knowing the actual rhyme.

The rest of the crossword is built around one of my least favorite puzzle motifs: List of Things the Constructor Likes. A ton of the clues in this grid are literally just a list of examples. BOARDGAMES: "Four of my favorites are 'Camel Up', 'Root', 'Azul', and 'Spirit Island'". Thanks, didn't ask?

Look, I respect puzzlemaking as an art form. It's inevitable that part of a constructor's identity will be exposed as the crossword takes shape. But please, don't forget to throw in a little something extra for the solver. I don't care about your partner's hobbies (CLAY).

Anyway, I'll get off my high horse. I dare someone to put OGRE in their grid and not reference Shrek.

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