Projects and Develop Blogs of Pocket Star Studio https://minikara.com/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (12) - THURSDAY PUZZLES Thursday is called “Gimmick Day” by some New York Times crossword ficionados, because this is the day many of the trickiest, twistiest puzzles are published. Plenty of Thursday puzzles have conventional themes with clues of medium difficulty, but when an innovative creation pops up, it’s most often on... Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2024-05-01-thursday-puzzles/ https://minikara.com/2024-05-01-thursday-puzzles/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (11) - MEDIUM PUZZLES The Tuesday crossword isn’t much harder than the Monday puzzle, but the difficulty level ratchets up a bit on Wednesday heading into Thursday. The vocabulary is often the same sort you see in early- week puzzles, but the clues tend to be trickier, with less reliance on straightforward... Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2024-04-01-medium-puzzles/ https://minikara.com/2024-04-01-medium-puzzles/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (10) - Lesson 5 Letter Patterns Look for patterns and think about the building blocks of the English Ian guage. In general, consonant and vowel sounds alternate, but some If the second letter in a word is a consounds contain multiple letters sonant, not every letter can precede it. For example, in... Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2024-03-01-letter-patterns/ https://minikara.com/2024-03-01-letter-patterns/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (9) - Lesson 4 What to Do When You’re Stuck Take the word(s) in a clue and try to use it in a sentence or two, and see if that leads you to a suitable answer. For example, [Clouds (up)] could be included in “The sky clouds up” (darkens) or “The window... Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2024-02-01-what-to-do-when-you-stuck/ https://minikara.com/2024-02-01-what-to-do-when-you-stuck/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (8) - Lesson 3 How Clues Get Tougher Throughout the Week Many of the same common words appear in crosswords throughout the week. The clues will be fairly straightforward in an easy Monday or Tuesday puzzle, but as the difficulty level ratchets up during the week, the same basic words will have... Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2024-01-01-how-clues-get-tougher-throughout-the-week/ https://minikara.com/2024-01-01-how-clues-get-tougher-throughout-the-week/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (7) - Lesson 2: How to Spot Your Mistakes Many crossword clues can lead to more than one answer, and solvers can easily choose an incorrect one. If something seems right but you can’t get anything else to fit around it in that section of the grid, consider erasing it and working... Fri, 01 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2023-12-01-how-to-spot-your-mistakes/ https://minikara.com/2023-12-01-how-to-spot-your-mistakes/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (6) - Lesson 1 : Getting Started as a Beginning Solver If you’re new to the New York Times crossword, start out with the easier Monday and Tuesday puzzles. The crosswords get harder as the week progresses, maxing out on Saturday— it’s easy to grow discouraged if you try tackling a hard... Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-11-01-getting-started-as-a-beginner-solver/ https://minikara.com/2023-11-01-getting-started-as-a-beginner-solver/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (5) - 100 MUST-KNOW WORDS Here are the 100 words used most commonly in Monday and Tuesday New York Times crosswords, in alphabetical order, along with the type of clues you’ll see for them early in the week. The three most common three-, four- and five-letter answers are marked with an asterisk.... Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-10-01-100-must-know-words/ https://minikara.com/2023-10-01-100-must-know-words/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (4) - EASY PUZZLES The easiest Times puzzles are printed on Monday and Tuesday. We can break down the basic approach to an easy crossword into the following steps. Check the clues for long theme entries and see if you can figure out what sort of theme is involved. If the puzzle... Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-09-01-easy-puzzles/ https://minikara.com/2023-09-01-easy-puzzles/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (3) - UNDERSTANDING CROSSWORD THEMES Most New York Times crosswords feature a theme (Friday and Saturday puzzles are generally themeless). Crossword constructors devise many creative new ideas for puzzles, but often they call upon several basic theme varieties. The more common types of themes include the following: CATEGORIES—The theme entries are phrases... Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-08-01-understand-crossword-themes/ https://minikara.com/2023-08-01-understand-crossword-themes/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (2) - CROSSWORD GLOSSARY CLUE A hint that the solver must interpret to find the answer. CONSTRUCTOR The person who devises a theme, designs a crossword grid, fills the grid and writes the clues. Sometimes called a writer, cruciverbalist, compiler or setter. CROSSING The intersection between an Across and a Down entry.... Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-07-01-crossword-glossary/ https://minikara.com/2023-07-01-crossword-glossary/ Conquer the NYT Crosswords (1) - OVERVIEW OF THE NY TIMES PUZZLE The New York Times crossword puzzles are widely held to be the gold standard in American crosswords. They increase in difficulty from Mon- day to Saturday, with Sunday generally falling at about the same level as a Thursday crossword. You may have heard someone... Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-06-01-overview-of-nytimes-puzzle/ https://minikara.com/2023-06-01-overview-of-nytimes-puzzle/ Introducing to NYT Crosswords - How to Solve the New York Times Crossword Exerpted from NYT website. This article is really conformtable to read and very insightful for the beginners. Would you like to improve your mental flexibility, learn a few interesting things every day and establish bragging rights among your friends? Solving crossword puzzles... Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-05-01-how-to-solve-the-new-york-times-crossword/ https://minikara.com/2023-05-01-how-to-solve-the-new-york-times-crossword/ Introducing CrypticCrosswords - Dissecting Cryptic Clues Each cryptic clue is basically a very concise mini-puzzle. A cryptic clue contains a definition and a bit of wordplay. Yes, you heard right. Cryptic clues contain the definition of the answer, in plain sight, such as you’d find in any quick, non-cryptic, crossword clue. However, cryptic... Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2023-04-01-untangling-cryptic-clues-and-getting-started/ https://minikara.com/2023-04-01-untangling-cryptic-clues-and-getting-started/ Crossword Tutorial for Beginners - Ten Tricks for Successfully Tackling the Trickiest Puzzles Here I offer some simple tricks for trying to push through the inevitable solver’s block: the feeling that you’re truly stuck mid-puzzle and can’t find a way to move forward. Nailing Down Your Puzzle Editor’s Style The person responsible for compiling and... Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2023-03-01-ten-tricks-for-successfully-tackling-the-trickiest-puzzles/ https://minikara.com/2023-03-01-ten-tricks-for-successfully-tackling-the-trickiest-puzzles/ Download and play crosswords around the internet - The alternative to Shortyz Shortyz is a great Android App that lets the user download lots of free crosswords automatically every day. But for recent years this App was not maintained anymore. Then there comes Alphacross which has similar functions. Sadly, the developer announced he would not maintain the App... Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2023-02-01-shortyz-alternative/ https://minikara.com/2023-02-01-shortyz-alternative/ Delete your account and data for Easy Crossword with More Clues. - Easy Crossword with More Clues uses Google Play Game Services to manage the account and game data. Usually it doesn’t create an account unless it is your first game with the Google Play Game Services. Anyway instructions are provided here. Here are the steps you can delete your account and... Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0800 https://minikara.com/2023-01-01-account-deleting-android/ https://minikara.com/2023-01-01-account-deleting-android/ Crossword Tutorial for Beginners - Interactive Crosswords Online Next I would introduce some crossword examples as part of this tutorial. In this post I included some online crossword as a first try. Sun, 04 Sep 2022 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2022-09-04-interactive-crossword-online/ https://minikara.com/2022-09-04-interactive-crossword-online/ Crossword Tutorial for Beginners - Crossword Terminology A few terms are good to know when discussing crosswords. I’ll start with the absolute basics, in case you’re not familiar with crosswords at all. A crossword puzzle consists of a grid of black and white squares, some of which are numbered, and a set of clues placed... Sat, 02 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2022-04-02-crossword-terminology/ https://minikara.com/2022-04-02-crossword-terminology/ Crossword Tutorial for Beginners - Tips for Cryptic Crosswords: The longest words in a cryptic crossword often use anagrams in their clues. The definition of the answer is in the clue, either at the start or end of the clue. Locating the definition is an important step! Also keep in mind that the definition itself... Fri, 01 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0700 https://minikara.com/2022-04-01-Tips-for-cryptic-crosswords/ https://minikara.com/2022-04-01-Tips-for-cryptic-crosswords/