Fortnightly Topic Challenge #43: Variety Crossword Grids

Question

This is the second installment of the Fortnightly Topic Challenges Rerun described here and the forty-third installment of the FTCs overall, with topics suggested and voted on here. This fortnight's topic is "Variety Crossword Grids" (suggested by bobble) and will span from the 15th of November to the 28th of November. During this period, we will compile the list of relevant questions and post it as an answer to this question.

In the meantime, please go and propose and vote on future challenges!

Everyone have fun, and happy puzzling!

_{Link to other Fortnightly Topic Challenges.}

NOTE
The suggestion is copied to this post for posterity.

Variety Crossword Grids

Normal crosswords has the entries go right-to-left and top-to-bottom, one letter per cell. Bah! That's too simple. The challenge here is to make a variety crossword where the words go in different directions and/or have variable letters per cell. Some ideas:

• Words that go diagonally
• Words that go "backwards" (left-to-right or bottom-to-top) in a grid with words that also go "forwards"
• Words that go in circles
• Words that don't go in straight lines
• A grid where each cell contains 1, 2, or 3 letters.
• A grid with triangular or hexagonal cells.

Examples of what I would consider variety grids are Around the Bend and Marching Bands crosswords.

The actual words and clues can be completely normal - or they can be "variety" as well. Just the grids have to be variety. Feel free to use currently-existing variety crossword types or make up your own.

Answer 1

List of all questions published as part of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge #43:

• Gladys's Gapped Cryptic by jafe
• Self-contained math crossword with if-then-else clues by melfnt
• 3D cryptic brain melter by jafe
• A Cryptic Hourglass by Jeremy Dover
• A Tribute to Psych by JS1
• Animal Cross(word)ing by Stiv
• Six Directions of Cryptic Cluebulence by jafe
• This ain't your grandpa's word square! by bobble
• Coming back with a 4D Crossword! by Omega Krypton
• Stacking word bouncer by Retudin
• Another Straightforward 4-letters Crossword? by athin
• A 4-D Cryptic Crossword by Jeremy Dover
• add further entries in the form https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/<question-ID> by [username](https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/<user-ID>)

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The highest-voted three of these are:

• Animal Cross(word)ing by Stiv, with a score of 36 at the end of the fortnight.
• Self-contained math crossword with if-then-else clues by melfnt, with a score of 32 at the end of the fortnight.
• This ain't your grandpa's word square! by bobble, with a score of 21 at the end of the fortnight.

The most viewed three of these are:

• Animal Cross(word)ing by Stiv, with 1836 views at the end of the fortnight.
• Self-contained math crossword with if-then-else clues by melfnt, with 1021 views at the end of the fortnight.
• This ain't your grandpa's word square! by bobble, with 698 views at the end of the fortnight.

Answer 2

Is this puzzle a good candidate for this challenge?

Self-contained math crossword with if-then-else clues

The grid has no variety of any sort but the circular clues and the if-then-else clues are definitely strange.