It might just be my computer (don't have a colour printer), but I'm having a hard time distinguishing the two shades of green unless I pull the screen right up to my face. I think 1-46 has one shade of green and all the other green squares are another shade, but I'm not 100%.
I thought they were all the same green, but then the fact that there are two green circles in the puzzle and two green bars at the bottom makes that confusing.
... I thought they were all the same green. The light blue came out a bit dark on my printer, and I was confused momentarily, but the puzzle works fine with just one green (yes even with the thing at the bottom)... Unless I'm nuts, which, well, it's possible.
Hmmmm. Interesting. Two green circles and two green bars..... Anyway, the greens should all be the same, but I experimented around with different shades trying to get them as easy to distinguish as I could and might not have changed them all over into my final choice. They're even harder to distinguish printed out, I think. I guess its a limitation I should keep in mind. Maybe reduce the number of colors in a given puzzled down to four or five. Good to know.
I've posted the completed "On a Picnic" crossword in post #7 where I first posted a teaser: https://kintsugi.seebs.net/threads/beta-test-a-crossword.3708/#post-271573
Neat, I'm doing it now! Spoiler: feedback Things you use a lot: the clue "verb(ed) again" with the answer "re-synonym(ed)"; the word "locale,"; obviously it's hard to avoid short crossword words but you used EMT in both your puzzles, jsyk. Also, it's hard to write on the ants - maybe make them a lighter color? - and the lighter gray squares sometimes confused me for a second about the boundaries of the writing area. 111 down: I don't know that I'd describe ash as "pulverized lava?" It is apparently defined as any solid residue of a fire. ... and then I gave up because I was tired. >.>; will attempt to finish at a later date
I used to wonder why there were certain 3 and 4-letter words that seemed to be used over and over in crosswords but seldom elsewhere, like adit, ens, Ayn, and StLô. I thought it was a crossword puzzle-doers cultural thing. Now I know that they're almost magically able to get one out of a tight spot if a portion of the puzzle just won't go together. I could stand to increase my storehouse of magical words. I'm curious. Is it annoying if several of the clues have a similar wording leading to answers of similar structure, or is it helpful in that it gives you a toehold? I'm sort of torn on that issue. Spoiler Volcanic ash is pulverized lava. I didn't know that until I did my research for this puzzle. As for the ants, consider the behavior of ants at a picnic. There's no place to write some of the letters down because they've been carried off. Thanks. Your feedback is definitely helpful. After hours working on a puzzle I get almost blind to it.
Oh, cool! I didn't know about volcanic ash. (P.S., the code for spoilertags is [ spoiler ] without the spaces, not [hide].)
