Use the rebus to enter 0-4 letters per square. (Use "XX" to mark the 0 letter squares. Each row and column will contain exactly one square with each letter amount (i.e. one with 0 letters, one with 1 letter, etc.) for a total of 10 letters per row/column (not counting "XX"s). If you've played either my "1-2-3" puzzles or my "empty squares" puzzles, this is sort of a mix of the two, with a magic square/sudoku-ish twist. Not giving a specific name to this puzzle because I don't know if I will ever make another of these lol. Slightly spoiler-y note: there is at least one instance of an entry's entire content being in one square (i.e. one empty square + one rebus square). I tried to avoid these at first, because it seemed like uncrosswordly behavior, but ultimately I decided to leave them in so that I could actually finish the puzzle :)
Agreed, very challenging (one Google (on King John), multiple checks, lots of thinking through word and length and breakdown possibilities), but quite fun!
very neat, great work on the construction. the sudoku aspect of it was really helpful in figuring out how to break up the words, and the way it guaranteed there'd be 10 letters in every row/column.
Really fun for me, surprised I managed to solve it considering how tough I found some of your similar puzzles! This Brit’s never heard of that bball team but it seemed a plausible collection of letters and Google confirmed. The Kings/protein crossing was very tough but managed to get HIST from the crosser and the spoilered context, then the number of kings only had one possibility. Thanks!