Halloween Themeless

Happy (almost) Halloween! Have a new puzzle... and a new blog! All of the crossword cool kids seem to have them, so I figured I was due for a proper blog to post my puzzles. I'm not planning to post on any regular schedule, but definitely stay tuned for more puzzles!

This puzzle came from two things. First, one thing I've really found I like is puzzles that look and play more or less like themeless puzzles but have a lot of entries or clues related to a semi-theme. Halloween is fun and gives me plenty to work with, so I figured I'd do something seasonal. Second, I've been trying to learn how to fill a themeless grid, since I don't really have much experience working with 15x themelesses. I think I made some tradeoffs here for the sake of the semi-theme that I might not make elsewhere, but I'm pretty happy with the end result, and it's definitely a learning process. (Maybe next time I'll go wild and learn what a stack is.)

On a technical note, I'm planning to continue using Crosshare to host and embed the actual puzzles, which means that puz and PDF options are built into the applet. (Edit: here's a direct puz link for those of you who don't want to deal with the applet, because, say, you're a bot. We love our bots here.) Let me know if anything doesn't work or if there's a good reason for me to switch software. In general, if you have any comments about the applet, the puzzle, or just overall crossword stuff, feel free to contact me via Twitter, Discord, or the comments here. Thanks to Norah and my sister for test solving, and enjoy!

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