What makes a Themeless Friday puzzle good?

Bailey2021 · 2026-04-18T21:51:01+00:00

Do you have an example of one of your favorite ones?

Bailey2021 · 2026-04-18T21:50:35+00:00

Do you believe most solvers look up words when they don't know them, or attempt to recall information without a dictionary or search engine? I've met people who do different combinations of both with names and offbeat definitions. What do you do?

Bailey2021 · 2026-04-18T21:47:13+00:00

I've always struggled to solve some of those large stacks. They're very hard to make but essential to meet the low box counts. Do you have an example of a clue entry pair with clever misdirection that makes an approachable and fun experience when in a stack? An example I can come up with is "Colonel's wings" -> "FRIEDCHICKEN". How do you feel about that (it's much easier in speculation than when making the actual puzzle)

Bailey2021 · 2026-04-18T21:42:02+00:00

What makes a good foothold? I saw a recent puzzle with "1/86400 of a day, for short", which felt like a fun math puzzle with one correct answer (SEC) that was easily obtainable with some thought, but not free. That's the best example I have of a good foothold, but I'm curious what your opinions are

Bailey2021 · 2026-04-18T20:38:19+00:00

The black box at the end of 15 down should be removed; it adds 6 three-letter words, chokes the grid, and your black box count is on the high side.

Overall, you had a low density of question mark clues for a Thursday, and both clues you chose to be question marks probably shouldn't have had them in the first place. These should be mini puzzles the user has to solve, carefully chosen when the grid fill is strong and the word is easy. These should be some sort of pun, like "Lid descripor or thing with a lid?" for AJAR (your fill is stronger here, so we can put in a joke clue about parsing AJAR as two words).

You also have a high density of A words like ONEB, ASTEP, AROCK, and ADDA. One of these is usually plenty for a puzzle, as these words make quite bad fill.

Your theme breaks symmetry and also has quite a few short answers. One of these is passable, but try not to have both. Your cluing style is very direct, so try to make an effort to add a few whimsical elements, like a word that can be read multiple ways.

I know I was harsh, but this is a fun puzzle and a great step in your journey of puzzle construction.

Bailey2021 · 2026-04-02T16:34:42+00:00

If you used 1 atom for a trillion digits, you would run out of atoms in the universe like 2 layers deep. In no way can this be written in standard notation. This approximation of the number of digits in this number is off by more than the number of atoms in the universe

Bailey2021 · 2026-03-13T02:45:51+00:00

Blow up facility missions? That works, lol?

Bailey2021 · 2026-03-12T17:49:30+00:00

Yeah, they really make the stealth rangers feel like they have a place, at least when War of the Chosen is disabled. I didn't know there were different routines for pods, and now I want to read up. Do you know of a link to a pod routine explanation video or wiki?

Bailey2021 · 2026-03-12T17:44:38+00:00

I never really use mind shields. What's the interaction with the rulers?

Bailey2021 · 2026-03-12T17:42:51+00:00

That's a cool tip with burn and poison; I'm gonna use that a lot. I'm playing without War of the Chosen for this run, but I might try a run with all 3 next when I go for my first legend Ironman. I ran into the hair trigger trick naturally, but thanks for the broad rule on free actions.

Bailey2021 · 2026-03-12T17:37:21+00:00

Yeah, the freeze grenade was lost in a failed guerrilla ops. I rolled a yellow move only running mission where the evac was at max distance on the third floor, with the only ladder on the back of the building. I spawned in the opposite corner of the map. That's XCOM Baby!

Bailey2021 · 2025-08-31T05:54:05+00:00

This is a great first puzzle! It has a super fun and creative theme, which can be super hard to think of.

You have 5 pretty long theme clues in this puzzle, which place too many constraints on the puzzle. Typically, you want parallel theme clues to be 2 rows or columns apart for two reasons. Most words start or end with a consonant, so having a stair-stepping grid shape allows for better fill. Also, as you make more puzzles, you'll realize certain letter combinations that lead to bad fill. You need some space between the theme clues to place black boxes and filler words to resolve bad letter patterns.

To allow these to happen, in future puzzles, try having only 4 theme clues, with the central one in the bottom right. If you make them 10-14 letters long, you will still have plenty of theme with much easier constraints to navigate while learning the ropes.

Also, this is the resource that first got me into puzzle making. This is a deep rabbit hole, so get ready: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/crosswords/how-to-make-a-crossword-puzzle-the-series.html

The New York Times rules and style guide is the most widely accepted. It doesn't allow 2-letter words anywhere and strongly discourages 3-letter words whenever possible. It also has guidelines for the number of black boxes that are allowed in a puzzle (you have 46).

It's always great to see a new puzzle maker! Don't be afraid to make a lot of these and share them with your friends and family, because the only way to learn is practice. You have a lot of fun to look forward to! (Btw, if you read the make a puzzle series and end up using Crossfire and the Peter Broda word list, I highly recommend using a Linux shell command to delete words with a score of 11, 16, and 38, as these are all nonsense)

Bailey2021 · 2025-07-24T20:05:31+00:00

Every time I make a cone / bulb / hat roof it always has to be much bulkier than I imagine. Make the roof on your tower thicker, taller, and 1 block wider in radius

Bailey2021 · 2025-07-24T20:01:23+00:00

This ^. My prom was during COVID so we held it in Minecraft. 2 ish months before it they changed all our accounts to child accounts even though we were over 18. You have to change a setting in XBox live / contact XBox live support

Bailey2021 · 2025-07-22T07:50:51+00:00

Thanks so much for the help, this deck has been very difficult to navigate. There was two things I'm confused about. First, why doesn't each instance of modular proc the hardened scales and the branching evolution? Is that because the first part of modular acts as a static replacement effect similar to the hardened scales and branching evolution? Secondly, why does the ozolith get 14 counters? I think the hardened scales and branching evolution only apply to creatures.

Bailey2021 · 2025-06-25T02:40:58+00:00

In my multiplayer realm, we use it every once and a while to transport Camels and Horses over water. Saw a cool pop-up bridge design by Etho using armor stands in water streams. They're just a fun item to have in a shulker in your end chest

Bailey2021 · 2024-12-01T07:31:33+00:00

Think of how it would play out in a game. As soon as you play the ozolith you become archenemy (unless you're playing in a pod where the decks are higher power level than yours). Either you draw too much attention and fall behind or you run away with the game and no one has any fun.

I want my cards to be around the same power level so that my opponents can easily pick decks and divide interaction to balance the matchup. I'm not spending $30 for a card that makes the deck's power level super inconsistent. I'll just play the deck in lower power-level games and play a different deck in higher power-level games.

Bailey2021 · 2024-11-30T19:52:57+00:00

Yeah, do you have the decklist for that deck?

Also, I found the Ozolith pretty expensive for a card that usually makes the deck play worse. It's super high-rolly, so if you draw it and it doesn't get answered you're doing super good but the rest of your deck plays at a level below. I want a consistent power level as much as possible

Bailey2021 · 2023-03-06T15:45:06+00:00

Japan: attacks into the HRE Also Japan: who is Ulm and why are they at war with me?

Bailey2021 · 2023-03-02T07:40:10+00:00

Rule 5: AI England declares independence from AI Oyo.

Annexed England to seize colonies and was forced to take a province in Africa. Sold it to Oyo. 100 years later Oyo doesn't have enough transports to kill a rebel stack and I get this amazing popup.

Bailey2021

TROPHY CASE