by Ross Trudeau
[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty: 4/5
In recent weeks I’ve been toying with the idea of using this site to share puzzles from the wider indie crossword community, perhaps midweek. There have only been three puzzles not at least co-authored by me on this site, and I’m curious to know how Rossword Solvers would feel about doing that a bit more regularly. Drop a comment below. (You’re definitely going to see some of Cursewords artist and activist Parker Higgins‘ solo work here regardless.)
My gratitude to friends of the blog David, Rebecca, and Daad for test solving this week’s puzzle. A couple thoughts and spoilers for “The Drop Off” below.
This one went through several iterations (see inset). For me, it all hinged on whether the mechanic was interesting enough to only be repeated a couple of times (version 1, 4 EAVEs drops), or not interesting enough to sustain, say, a 21×21 grid (version 2, 7 EAVEs drops). What you solved above was version three, which felt like the right amount of theme density for a gimmick like this one. (FWIW, the 21×21 version almost entirely exhausts the possible valid E-A-V-E strings I could find.) Did I make the right call? Leave a comment below. Happy solving, friends! -R
