Mini
Over a year ago, I dropped my New York Times Games subscription and started getting my daily puzzle fill over at Puzzmo. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned Puzzmo—I used to include it on my bygone Links page—but something struck me recently. I’ve been doing their mini crossword every single day; usually it’s the first puzzle I knock out after opening the app. In contrast, I never did the NYT mini. The NYT mini was a bland affair, a basic 5x5 grid of words with no character to it whatsoever. Sure, I could complete it in under a minute, but even that little bit of time was not worth sacrificing to such a nothing experience.
I won’t claim that Puzzmo’s minis are my favorite puzzle on offer, but I will say they far outclass NYT in terms of inventiveness and personality. Lately they’ve introduced monthly “residencies”, where a single constructor handles all the minis for an entire month. Because they have to churn out 30 of the things, they tend to start to getting particularly creative by the end of the second week. It’s an incredibly smart idea.
And if you’re already on Puzzmo, maybe let’s follow each other. Need to see some names on the scoreboard who aren’t staff members.