In Good Company

Constructor: Shannon Rapp & Jess Shulman

Don't let my time fool you on this puzzle, it's a breezy Monday with solid fill. I was on track for a 5 minute solve until I hit the bottom-left corner, where I remained in second-guessing purgatory for the next 8 minutes. Did you know there are loads of 4-lettered words for potato preparation? Boil, skin, peel, mash, dice, all of which are not the magic word BAKE. Something was wrong with my brain last night and my partner pointed out to me that I could think of a million ways to prepare a potato, none of which were the most obvious.

Apart from my personal inability to solve one corner I think this crossword is great. Certainly a fantastic debut with some above-average fill (edit: just a Puzzmo debut, the constructor is an editor at AVCX). I especially enjoyed the callout to Pathfinder in TTRPG, the DnD alternative where my roleplaying hobby started. There's also quite a bit of clever wordplay in this puzzle, e.g. "Chemistry test?" as DATE and "Meeting meant to raise spirits?" as SEANCE.

The actual theme is a little lackluster, especially since I didn't notice it until after I had already solved the thing. I had assumed this crossword was themeless due to the lack of another 11-length word in the grid. In retrospect, "In Good Company" is a great title for an apt pair.

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