Tales from the Cryptic

"Gig Swiftie'" difficulty level: it's ? City over here toot toot! get out the way! Big Boy is pulling into the station! and by that i mean: a 15x15 collab with bolgat !

the fine editors at Cryptic Crossweird (momes, dob, and moi) have collabed on another cryptic given out at a crossword tournament, this time Westwords 2026 in the Bay Area.

this post is a month late but AVCX put out another cryptic of mine , and I'm really quite of this one. it's behind a $1 paywall, but also I can send you the file if you ask nicely :). enjoy!

Cryptic Mini #000000127:   "God's Answer to 'No Way!'" difficulty level: i'm getting too old for this shit Hello there! Back to the actual-mini-sized grind with this 5x7. Also trying out a new embedded solver from Puzzmo's Workshop — still in beta, plz let me know about any issues!

Cryptic Mini #000000126:   "Tie Men Up" difficulty level: scoville wishes Remember when I said I had more 17-letter answers I wanted to put in a grid ? Well, I started to make that puzzle, then realized I had some 18s that were even better! Mwahahaha

Do you subscribe to The Gnomon yet? If not, how can you call yourself a true cryptic sicko?

Cryptic Mini #000000125:   "Chicken Grabbing Your Ass" difficulty level: ctrl-alt-delete hello sickos! happy Equinox, Ostara, Nowruz, and of course, National Ravioli Day. in honor of all of these events, I present: a cryptic midi that has nothing to do with any of them! Enjoy!

Cryptic Mini #000000124:   "Stealing Disney's Head" difficulty level: am i the baddie? Hello! It's been a long-ass time, so here's a long-ass grid.

hello! as sad as I am that the weekly Browser cryptic is no more, the one silver lining is now I can freely distribute my archives! So here are *all seven* of the puzzles I wrote for them.

Cryptic Mini #000000123:   "Ashtray, Pie, and Gelatin" difficulty level: my controller's broken Hello cryptic sickos! Hope everyone is having a good Seasonal Affective Disorder. Most doctors say the best cure is a weird, frustrating little puzzle. So take two and call me in the morning! (though I only have one, and please don't ever call me)

Cryptic Mini #000000122:   "Get The Hell Out Of Coachella" difficulty level: mamma mia! Hi! I didn't forget about you! I just have ADHD... which means I forgot about you. But then I remembered! So here we are.

a banner couple of weeks for me! my third published cryptic of October just dropped on AVCX ! sorry it's yet another puzz behind a paywall, but I promise I'll upload another classic Tale from the Cryptic soon! enjoy!

"Cool Flip Trick" Did I ever mention that I co-run a cryptic venue? It's called Cryptic Crossweird , which I formed in January with Momes and Dob of the Twitch stream CrossweirdTV . We pay constructors for mid-size cryptics and publish them twice a month ( submissions are open! ).

Sadly, the wonderful weekly cryptic at The Browser will be no more after the end of the year. I was able to sneak one in before the end, and it might be my favorite cryptic yet. Big thanks to their intrepid editor, Dan Feyer, who published *seven* of my puzzles in the past couple years, and helped shaped them into their best possible form. Your work will be missed!

"Pet Dragon" Ahoy! Long time no see. I hope the interminable chaos of daily life has been treating you well. If not, hopefully this special treat will ease every single one of your woes!

Cryptic Mini #000000121:   "A-Tier Drug" difficulty level: let me get back to you on that Happy Saturday! We here at the Cryptic Mini Factory pulled a long week to get this one out. We had a record number of workplace injuries, but I'd say it was worth it.

Cryptic Mini #000000120:   "Seductive In A Cute Way" difficulty level: [redacted] I had a whole month to come up with a fun intro to this puzzle, and... here it is!

Cryptic Mini #000000119:   "Bottomless Grimace Shakes" difficulty level: why are you looking at me like that aaand we're back! thank you for your patience. as a reward, here is a frustrating and tricksy puzzle that you must solve. enjoy!

Cryptic Mini #000000118:   "Broadcast News for Animals" difficulty level: did iiii do that? whoops! so i didn't upload a new puzz two weeks ago because, well, according to my publicist: "i just plain forgot" (i'm firing this publicist).

Cryptic Mini #000000117:   "Banshee Attacked Dinosaur" difficulty level: 😶‍🌫️ why do I always write these after midnight, when all my joke juice has been depleted? the answer: [write punchline here]