Interval Train-ing

It's been forever! Summer courses ended in mid-August, and then I had exactly a week before the next courses started, which I spent a long way away from my laptop. So this is my first break in a while where I get to make some puzzles! Here is a variety puzzle about trains, which was in fact written on a train (the Via Rail/Amtrak Maple Leaf).

I've made a few variety-puzzle-ish grids for this blog before, but this is the first one conceived as a variety puzzle from the start! Its connection to the theme of this blog is a little dubious, but I guess trains fall under engineering, which is of course the E in STEM. (Also, what high school math student hasn't had to calculate whether two trains will crash or not?)

Happy solving, and hopefully I'll be able to write and publish more puzzles in 2026!

PDF (solution included)

The Amazing Spiders Man (feat. Lila and Quiara)

 

Sorry for the long hiatus, it's been a busy summer. But since Boswords' summer in-person tournament is coming up, and I will be there, I thought it would be a good time to run my first collab for the blog! It's been in the works for a while, so I'm very excited to finally publish it :)

This puzzle was constructed with Lila Goldenberg and Quiara Vasquez, and we will have paper copies at the Boswords tournament!

Mini tic tac toe

 

It's summer in the strange schedule of university, so you know what that means: it's time for another experimental mini! Or should I say... twelve minis? This is an unfortunate departure from the usual theme of this blog-- my apologies, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon. I try to get my non-science puzzles published in outlets where possible, but I truly had no idea where to publish this.

This puzzle, or I guess these puzzles, are best done on paper, but if you don't have access to a printer, I recommend writing the grids down on paper once you've filled them. Finding someone else to do this with is not optional, though. Make a friend.

One last administrative thing: My subscriber emails haven't been working for the last few months, and I'm trying to fix it. Please let me know if you have signed up for email updates but did not receive an email about this puzzle.

PDF (solution included)

Charged Interactions

 

It's finals season and I'm stuck inside with a cold, so naturally, it's time for another blog puzzle! This one is shaped like the periodic table, so I can finally make the bad joke that I update this blog periodically.

When I set out to make a puzzle with the periodic table as a grid, I had envisioned it being pretty big-- there are a lot of elements! It turns out, though, that it's more of a midi. The shape constraints also led to a lot of 2-letter entries, so I did my best to make the words fun and the crossings fair.

I've discovered I really like incorporating meta elements, so there's a short meta answer this time. The instructions are visible on the PDF and online version!

The Seaweed Is Always Greener In Somebody Else's Lake

Hello again and sorry about the last couple of puzzle-less months!

Getting crossworld business out of the way first: I'm thrilled to announce that my puzzle "You're Projecting" is nominated for an ORCA Award, specifically "Best Themed Crossword". Voting is open until mid-February, so vote here for your favourite puzzles of the year!

Anyway, enough about orcas. Today's puzzle is about a different sea (and land!) creature: the humble crab.

Many species have evolved into crablike creatures, and similarly, this puzzle is evolving into a puzzle about crabs. The starred entries are each one or two letters away from being different species of crab, and it's up to you to figure out which letters need to be replaced to evolve a crab! When you put all the replaced letters together (the letters you originally filled in and are discarding), from left to right and top to bottom, you'll get the title of an appropriate song to play when this puzzle is finished. 

(The song is NOT "Under the Sea", I'm not going that easy on you.)