size: 9x9 (midi)
style: themed
difficulty:1/5
style: themed
difficulty:
This midi has everything! High themer density! Fun facts! A revealer! Two-letter entries! Fill-in-the-blanks! Overly verbose clues! Censoring (but not of the naughty words)! Symmetry that kinda looks like diagonal symmetry if you don't think about it too hard!
Also a big thanks to my very first collaborator, whose work can be seen on the cluing of entries 1-D and 2-D! Great stuff!
In all seriousness: This puzzle came together very quickly for me, and I think it wholly represents my philosophy when it comes to crossword puzzles. Maybe some of the fill here isn't perfect, but my biggest goal as a constructor is simply for my solvers to have a good time while solving. For me, that never really translated to facing an ostensibly insurmountable challenge (more power to you if that's what you're after!), but rather just reading clues that make me smile or think about things in new ways, and providing a smooth solve with a theme that should feel like a ribbon wrapped elegantly around a present, which all comes together in the form of a grand bow on top.
So with that, this is probably my easiest (not easiest, as my first few solvers have informed me) puzzle yet, but also the one I'm proudest of. I hope it translates just as well to the solving side.
