A Hellish New Crossword 🔥

Dear Reader, 

You're reading the monthly newsletter from Amuse Labs, covering the world of puzzles, publishing and updates to PuzzleMe™, the most advanced digital platform for smart games. 

In this issue: 

• The Atlantic launches a new crossword

• The Guardian's 4000th Everyman crossword puzzle

• Boswords Summer Tournament 2023

Oh, and before we forget, Amuse Labs is on Threads now! Follow us there or on Twitter for puzzle trivia and platform updates! 

Inferno: The Atlantic’s New Crossword

‘See how far down you can go before you abandon all hope.’ The Atlantic boasts of its new crossword, Caleb’s Inferno. Developed by Caleb Madison, crossword-puzzles editor at The Atlantic, this crossword gets harder as you go from top to bottom.

The clue for 3 DOWN is ‘journey downward’, and guess what? In this crossword, it literally is. See how far you can descend in this delightful puzzle.

While we're at it, Madison recently participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Paolo Pasco, assistant crossword editor at The Atlantic, to talk about Inferno and puzzles at large. 

The 4000th Everyman Crossword

It’s good to celebrate milestones, and The Observer’s Everyman Crossword just crossed a big one. Started in 1945, the 4000th edition of the beginner-friendly Sunday crossword was released last month.

The Guardian took the time to note this milestone and sat down with constructor Alan Connor about its history. Here’s a fascinating tidbit from Connor:

“Crosswords received a frosty welcome when they first appeared. It was felt in the serious newspapers that these puzzles were keeping workers from their toil, mothers from their charges.” Connor said.

Newspaper editors only changed their minds about crosswords, Connor explained, when they realised how good they are for driving circulation.

From The Crossworld

Boswords Summer Tournament 2023 is back with an all-star set of puzzle constructors! The competition will be held on Sunday, July 23rd, and registrations are now open for both online and offline editions.

PuzzleMe is the platform of choice to power the online version of the contest. If you’re curious about how to organise puzzle contests, Boswords is a great competitive event to learn from.

PuzzleMe Spotlight

A selection of features from PuzzleMe, the most advanced digital platform for Smart Games

Make your jigsaws come alive with a unique background color. If you’re using your own images to create a jigsaw on PuzzleMe, the creator will now suggest a background color for it. Tweak it until you’re satisfied, and see your changes live in a brand-new preview screen on the Jigsaw creator.

We’ve supported adding images inside crossword grids for a while. Keeping with the times, we’ve now added support for GIFs too.

Get creative and make your grids come alive with GIFs. With PuzzleMe’s crossword creator, there are endless ways to get your crossword to stand out.

Solvers love dense grids with interconnected words, but we know how hard they are to create. To find words that might fit your crossword, our creator has a ‘Find words’ feature. Use it to get word suggestions to make your grid denser and more delightful.

Once you add a word from the suggestions, the list of suggested words is instantly updated for the newly available combinations. It works like magic.

About Us

Amuse Labs is the creator of PuzzleMe™, the leading digital platform for Smart Games. It is a B2B SaaS company trusted globally by brands and publishers, powering Crosswords, Sudokus, Jigsaws, Quizzes, Word Searches and more. Explore opportunities to partner by sending a note or applying if you’d like to work with us! 

Oh, and to the journalists on our mailing list, write to us if you’d like to cover highlights from this newsletter or about Amuse Labs.