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Puzzle

September 1, 2026 - "The Cube" - Adryel W. Robles Ojeda, edited by Will Eisenberg for $1

Puzzle Notes

Dear friends:

Tonight's puzzle is a 9x9 themeless offering from Adryel that's entitled "The Cube." This one has to be seen to be believed. It might not be the easiest puzzle, but we think the grid will blow you away.

Adryel says: "In a prior conversation, my mentor (Will Eisenberg) laid down a challenge to the Lil constructors to make a 9x9 puzzle with only a 3x3 block in the middle. I didn't think much of it, thinking it might take me a week or so, but quickly realized that I couldn't even fill the damn thing, let alone make a good puzzle out of it.

I had underestimated this grid, for it was a veritable black and white whale. Every time I opened Ingrid, I would stare at the puzzle titled "The Cube", unfilled, taunting me. The inky void in the middle of the grid was an abyss so unimaginably deep, so alluring that I couldn't get away. I had but a single way out.

So after a few months fiddling with it off and on, I decided to tackle the project seriously for a Lil puzzle. I used John Hawksley's Orca in conjunction with several modifications to my wordlist, including a timely publication of Will Nediger's personal wordlist, and went through a large chunk of the 3s and 9s of my personal wordlist, so I could make a separate, curated list to seriously attempt this project. I also set some rules in the program to avoid a couple of the most common letter patterns, especially for the ends of the longer entries, though avoiding all of them is not feasible. This grid doesn't do very well with seed entries, but the idea to get slightly more interesting entries came to me from some advice from fellow constructor Adam Levav, who sometimes seeds themeless puzzles with single letters instead of entries.

I often see themeless puzzle creation as mining. This puzzle was the result of sifting through hundreds of possible solutions and picking from promising candidates (gems?) that could potentially be a publishable puzzle. As much of a challenge as it was for me to make, I also wanted to make it a challenge for you, dear solver. Hopefully it's one you can also overcome.

Finally, I would be thrilled to see if anyone has any puzzles with this grid shape, and thus extend the challenge to you! I would love to see what you come up with. Please reach out to me through email (adryelxws@gmail.com) or on Crosscord (Selbor) if you think you have a nice puzzle with this grid shape. I'm sure the constructing world can come up with some incredible solutions, and I'd love to see what I potentially missed. Happy solving."

Solve this puzzle online! (AVCX login credentials required)

Headed to your inbox next week from Lil AVCX: more roster puzzles from Zoey and Faren.

May you rise to the next impossible-seeming challenge,

Your friends at Lil AVCX

avxwords.com | @avcxword | @lilavcx | @avcxtrivia

September 1, 2026 - "The Cube" - Adryel W. Robles Ojeda, edited by Will Eisenberg for $1

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