Pyramin by Shark
4 years ago I was looking up magic square in Chambers and spotted magic pyramid. We all know a Rubik’s cube when we see one and I vaguely remembered the Rubik’s triamid and the similar looking pyraminx, however I admit that I have never come across the term magic pyramid before then. Given Rubik’s triamid and magic pyramids have the same number of letters, I set out to create a 13 by 13 square crossword with these on the diagonals in the form of a cross. The title was always Pyramin as this cross signified the X to finish off the other example. It was carte blanche with added bars in the form of “square” rings so it looked like a pyramid if viewed from the top. I then made an instruction to turn each of them a quarter of a turn more than the last so that eventually the phrases were spelt out. I was quite pleased with myself as I hadn’t been setting long, but something nagged at me and so I never sent it off. I revisited it recently with a fresh mind, took one look and it dawned on me that the shape of this pyramid was not a tetrahedron like the real puzzles and therefore flawed. The only way around it was to construct a triangular puzzle with similar instructions. Oh dear, what had I let myself into? The size of the triangle was immediately apparent from the length of the phrases and I remember solving Ploy’s Driving Force in 2009 with triangular shaped cells but I wanted something different than this entry method. I decided on entries around the edges of different sized triangles. I used the perimeters of different shaped triangles, however the cell just in from the corners would not be filled. Plus the fact the fill would require too many three-letter entries, I used the central cell to make four-letter answers. Even so there were going to be too many and so I joined up the corners and made them into eights. The grid fill was actually quite fun, except the blank central cell proving tricky to skirt around. The number of entries decided for me what colours to use for each “triangular” ring; yellow being too long and relegated to the outside. The final part of the puzzle was to think of a “thematic” gimmick. Looking back at my original plan, I had used moving words within the clues and continued with this idea as it was the most thematic gimmick I could think of. This is the point where I need to write that, if the Magpie folded, this puzzle would never have seen the light of day. There is only one outlet for unusual creations like this and I am also glad the editors liked it enough to give it the puzzle of the month. I am really chuffed given it is my first especially when comparing it to the excellent POTM crosswords I have solved in the last 3 years. I would also like to thank AJ for his perfect painstaking reconstruction of my grid.
Shark