Of course, Variety puzzles don’t need “saving.” Cryptics, Diagramlesses, and Acrostics have a long history and a rabid fan base. I mean I “collect” them, which even the New York Times doesn’t do anymore. And I don’t just collect them, I make them available on XWord Info, although I ask for money if you want access to them. Or better yet, buy the Sunday magazine, which has even more puzzles than I can provide.
If you love crosswords but haven’t explored the weird and wonderful world of Variety puzzles, I encourage you to give them a shot. They’re still word puzzles — no math involved — but they exercise different parts of your solving brain and provide different kinds of satisfaction when the pieces fall into place.
Community
Now that Wordplay has dropped its weekly Variety posts, there’s an absence of an on-line community which, in these modern times, feels important. I mentioned in an earlier post that there were rumors of a new Acrostics blog being prepared, and that now seems like it’s going to happen soon. More when it goes live. But Acrostics covers every second week, still leaving half the Variety puzzles without a home for enthusiasts to enthuse. Or complain.
My challenge for you
If you love Variety puzzles, or are interesting in finding out if you love them, why not start your own blogging career and cover the non-Acrostic puzzles? It’s low-cost (most blogs are free to create) and low commitment (one post every two weeks!) You could be on your way to saving Variety Puzzles yourself. Think about it.
I love your site and was thrilled to find Variety puzzles, including Acrostics, after the NYT stopped posting them–and dumped the archive! 😲 I quickly printed out a lot of the old ones, but not all. And for new ones, I had to use the copier at the library.
Would it be asking too much for I.D. to be inserted in the PDF-only Variety list? If one is in the mood to do Split Decisions, for example, it would be great to be able to find those without clicking on every one.
Thanks for everything.
I’ve been trying to remember the name of a nyt variety puzzle that stopped appearing in the last few years. It was a three-dimensional grid of words that interconnected. Looks kind of like a tinker toy or hooks and ladders. Anyone remember what it was called or have any archived?
THey were called 3-D Word Hunt, written by Will Shortz himself. If you have an XWord Info account, you can see one here: https://www.xwordinfo.com/data/NytVarPDFs/2013/Dec2213.2.pdf
Thank you so much! I’ve done so much googling to try to find out before I thought of coming here. I am not a member of X word info but I will become one as soon as I can figure out the tech. Maybe tomorrow.