The meta answer is a ten-letter word. Submit answers through the Crosshare applet below (which also exports .puz and PDF). All answers due by Tuesday, January 31 at 12 PM EST. Two winners receive an unreleased puzzle pack!
After you've solved, scroll down for a bonus Marching Bands puzzle that's a little different - you'll find out how.
The rules are a little different for this one. First, working in teams is A-OK. Second, you can use the links below to check your answers to the individual puzzles. However, the final answer must be submitted by email to lexicondevillive@outlook.com. (This is so I can provide better feedback in response to wrong answers, etc.) Third, there's a little more time to submit the final answer for this one. The deadline is Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 12 PM EST. Fourth, any individual or group who submits a correct final answer will receive a digital package of unreleased Lexicon Devil puzzles.
Answer Checker #1: Modern Rock
Answer Checker #2: Power Ballads
Answer Checker #4: Quiet Storm
Watch this space during the rest of December - the 21st in particular - for some special end-of-year announcements and opportunities.
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| gourd luck everyone |
Another contest meta! This one's perhaps a bit more, shall we say, frightening than your average LD meta and may require a little web searching to confirm your answers. This month we're back on Crosshare. PDF and .puz file download are both available through the applet below.
Feedback from test-solvers was essential this month. Many thanks to Abide, Paolo P., Hoang-Kim Vu, FrankieHeck, and Tane.
Submit your answers, again through Crosshare, by Wednesday, October 26 at 12 PM EST.
The meta answer is an eight-letter word.
Submit answers at the link below before 12 PM EST, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022 Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 (I'm pushing this out two days because I couldn't get the blog post up until two days after I sent the puzzle via email):
https://forms.gle/FywmP7N4vgUS6qRX7
Check answers here:
As always, the winner gets the coveted Lexicon Devil sticker.
This themeless was described as "a bit morbid" by one commentator. As if that's a bad thing!
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| Hitchhiker stock photos are really weird |
It's been an extremely busy past two months for me, with far less time to brainstorm and construct puzzles than in the past. As a result, the July contest meta... is now the August contest meta.
One of the things I was up to: I went out of town with my family the week before last. While I was there, I had an idea for a meta puzzle. Where was I? Well, that's the meta answer.
The meta answer is a US state.
Submit answers at the link below by Wednesday, August 24 at 12 PM EST. Winners will receive the coveted Lexicon Devil sticker.
https://forms.gle/cmYUZMRhxScpJxAV7
Check your answer beforehand at:
Back in July I was the Week 1 constructor for Guest Constructor Month over at Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest. This was a huge honor for me - thank you, Matt! - and I was delighted by all the positive responses to the puzzle - by far the most I've ever received for any puzzle I've published. The link, in case you missed it:
I also made my debut on the great AVCX Crosswords with "Bit Flipping," a puzzle I'm proud of and that I hope you'll enjoy. Even if you're not a subscriber (you should be!), you can get it for $1 at:
https://avxwords.com/puzzles/1129/
Have a great rest of the summer!
LeaderboardThe answer to this month's meta challenge is a four-letter word one might say upon completing the meta.
Nota bene: this is a harder meta than average for LD.
Thanks to Peter Abide for test-solving.
Submit answers at the following link by Wednesday, June 23 at 12 PM EST:
https://forms.gle/W96tdBRb3fg7jy2t7
Check your answer at:
A more gently-clued 72-entry freestyle this week, and hopefully a smooth solve for you. Thanks to kateschmate for test-solving (go solve her puzzles if for some reason you're not doing that already).
Another puzzle from the vaults. There's a story behind this one that follows below beneath the PuzzleMe applet. Thanks to Steve Mossberg for test-solving.
Congrats to Abide and benchen71, who won the most recent meta contest for "Don't Hold Your Breath." An explanation is posted on the X-Word Muggles forum.
Reminder: I have a collection of 15 9x9 midi puzzles called MIDI CONTROLLER available on a pay-what-you-want basis over on GumRoad. Big thanks to everyone who's already bought or downloaded it!
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| Isaac Moillon, "Éole donnant les vents à Ulysse" |
It's not uncommon in the crossworld to have a good theme idea and then to come across a newly published puzzle by someone else featuring the same idea, revealing they hit upon the same idea independently months before you did, or featuring an idea close enough to yours to reduce your puzzle's odds of publication significantly. Such was the case with last Friday's NYT puzzle by Caitlin Reid, which - spoiler alert - features a marquee entry / clue combo similar enough to a feature of this puzzle to mandate its publication here on the blog. They're still two different puzzles, so I hope that even if you solved Caitlin's puzzle, you'll give mine a spin. And if you didn't solve her puzzle, just solve mine first and you're good to go.
Congrats to Paolo and Megarriffic, winners of last month's meta contest. You can see the leaderboard and read a writeup of the solution here on X-Word Muggles.
Lastly, I have a collection of 15 9x9 midi puzzles called MIDI CONTROLLER available on a pay-what-you-want basis over on GumRoad. Big thanks to everyone who's already bought or downloaded it!
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| Some procedurally generated art by me from one of the two days of #genuary2022 I managed to complete |
The answer to this month's meta contest is a common-law criminal offense.
And I haven't mentioned donations lately, but if you enjoyed these puzzles over the past year, please consider making a small contribution via the tip jar. The donations I received at last year's end really helped with the cost of the stickers and postage (plus printer ink, paper, domain name costs, etc.) Additionally, with enough donations, I may be able to upgrade the prizes from stickers to... Well, I don't want to give too much away, but let's say things that you wear or things that you drink from...
And I haven't mentioned donations lately, but if you enjoyed these puzzles over the past year, please consider making a small contribution via the tip jar. The donations I received at last year's end really helped with the cost of the stickers and postage (plus printer ink, paper, domain name costs, etc.) Additionally, with enough donations, I may be able to upgrade the prizes from stickers to... Well, I don't want to give too much away, but let's say things that you wear or things that you drink from...
