I’ve got a long Year in Review post that follows, but first
off, here’s the December FREE RG. This puzzle started with the New
Years’-inspired entry in Row A. Hope you enjoy!
December FREE RG - RGZ (for solving in the Rows Garden app for iPad/iPhone, Android, and Kindle Fire)
YEAR IN REVIEW
This was quite a landmark year at Aries Puzzles headquarters! Both Aries Rows Garden and
Aries Freestyle successfully transitioned to weekly-delivered services, and in
addition, free weekly Thursday puzzles were introduced in April. In total, Aries
Puzzles published 153 puzzles in 2019, counting both email-delivered
subscription puzzles and free website puzzles, by far the most prolific year to date. Let’s run down the
highlights of 2019, season by season, with handy links included for those who may
have missed these puzzles the first time around.
WINTER (January-March): The year started off with a bang
right away on January 1-2 for the launch of Year 6 of Aries Rows Garden and
Year 2 of Aries Freestyle. Rows Garden solvers were excited for the launch of
the Rows Garden app for iOS, which offered a new option for solving Aries Rows
Garden puzzles. On the website, I wrote long-form essays on crosswordese movies,
and in particular the 1983 Mr. T. comedy D.C. Cab. Upon re-reading these
just now, it reminds me that I need to resurrect this bit, if for no other
reason than to lament the recent loss of Ulee himself, Peter Fonda. In February
I published the first Puns & Anagrams puzzle on the site; if you dig
P&As, be sure to also check out the pair of P&As that I wrote for the
New York Times this year. March saw the lone variety cryptic published this
year, titled “Entertainment Options,” and I wrote up a post acknowledging the
two Orca nominations earned by Aries Freestyle. Speaking of Aries Freestyle,
March ended as C.C. Burnikel crafted the first guest Freestyle of the year.
SPRING (April-June): April began with the launch of free weekly puzzles on the site every Thursday, and I launched the Aries Puzzles
page on Facebook. I waxed poetic about The French Lieutenant’s Woman in
a Rows Garden email and had a couple of lovely interactions with subscribers
about that film as a result. The second
guest Freestyle, written by Peter Wentz, was published in late May. Also
published in May was the debut of Twists & Turns, a puzzle format that I
developed. The creation of a new format was perhaps the most exciting thing
that I accomplished this year. I published the second T&T in October and am
working on a writing more of them as we speak! Stay tuned for more news in that
realm.
SUMMER (July-September): Things started to heat up come
summertime – the July 3rd Freestyle featured a clue that one
subscriber reported as “one of my favorite all-time clues.” The third guest
Freestyle of the year was published in late July, this one written by Stella
Zawistowski. I may have taken a week’s vacation in August, but Aries Puzzles
takes no vacation, so it was business as usual. The Rows Garden app debuted its
Android version, opening yet another avenue for Rows Garden solving. The end of
August saw the publishing of a Double or Nothing puzzle, and I once again got
to appreciate the difficulty that is writing a Patrick Berry-invented format (a
tip to the kids: if, like me, you think that a Triple or Nothing puzzle
“shouldn’t be that tough” to write, think again). In September, the New York
Times ran a long-form interview with me on Wordplay, their crossword blog. For
the year, I had ten puzzles published in the Times – seven themelesses, one
Sunday themed puzzle, and two Puns & Anagrams.
AUTUMN (October-December): The chill of fall started to creep
in, and speaking of chills and creeps, I reminisced about Creepy Crosswords in
the Throwback puzzle for October. Also in October, Aries Rows Garden ran a rare
Meta Contest – congrats again to Jenny Gutbezahl on winning the three-month
subscription extension as the randomly-selected winner of that contest! On the
Aries Freestyle side, Caitlin Reid contributed the fourth guest Freestyle of
the year at the beginning of October. In November, I wrote a current-events puzzle for the news website Vox; there’s still a chance that more could come of
that opportunity, so do write them and demand that I write puzzles for them, if you are so inclined. Going back into the nostalgia file, the November Throwback celebrated a special ten-year anniversary for Aries Puzzles. Holiday-themed puzzles were prominently
featured throughout the autumn season; Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and
New Year’s all got acknowledgments in Rows Gardens and Freestyles. And
technically we’re still not done with 2019, as there is a 53rd Rows
Garden and a 53rd Freestyle – a guest puzzle written by Neville
Fogarty and Doug Peterson – to be sent next week.
As December winds down, things are moving steadily but smoothly here at
Aries Puzzles HQ. I’m primed for 2020, for the next decade, and for what’s to
come after that. If you’ve solved all 153 puzzles this year, or this is the
first post that you’ve ever read on this site, I hope you’ll be back for more!
My mission each year is to improve on the previous year, and while this year
will be tough to top, I’ll do my very best to try. As always, thanks for solving!
-Andrew
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