When you are doing a titled crossword puzzle (as the NYT does on Sundays but not on weekdays), it’s sometimes a challenge to make the title reflect the them of the puzzle without giving away too much info. However, if you are lucky you can use it instead to inspire and provide coherence to the puzzle. This is one of those — I chose the title first, and then forced the rest of the puzzle to conform to the provided template. The result may be an “oh, yeah” moment, or a “yeah, just as I expected” reaction, but it should come out feeling like a complete well-rounded package.
Since this blog, and all the free puzzles on it, exist largely to promote a product, I should point out that the CrossFire Crossword Maker made it particularly easy to execute a theme of this sort. Since circles and rebuses are supported at every level, it was trivial to add the circles and include them in the .PUZ files and printable images. Further, the powerful word search features made it easy to find just the right entries to make an interesting theme. (Needless to say, it was also invaluable in building the grid, filling it, and creating a good set of clues.) If you’ve found yourself looking at our humble offerings and saying: “I could do better than that”, why not download a trial copy and try doing just that. It’s probably easier than you think.
Title: Social Circles
Difficulty: Wednesday
Download: Across Lite or printable PNG (w/ solution)