NYT Crossword Answers for March 29, 2024

Jump to: Tricky Clues

FRIDAY PUZZLE — I know people who are strictly solo solvers when it comes to working crosswords. Friends who peek at a puzzle over the solver’s shoulder and say “The answer to 40A is ___” take their lives in their hands. Solo solvers do not want help, and there is nothing wrong with that. As the second New York Times Crossword editor, Will Weng, once said, “It’s your puzzle, and you can do it any way you please.”

There are also solvers like me who are grateful to have people in their lives who have decidedly different wheelhouses than they do, because asking for help acts as a kind of social icebreaker. More than once, my younger child, Devin, has saved me from crashing and burning during a tough solve. He is my go-to person when it comes to clues about mythology, computer programming and video games. My older child, Carly, is a great resource when it comes to clues about art and anime. All sports clues that I cannot answer on my own are bounced off my husband, Charles. I have had wonderful discussions about the puzzle with my family.

I bring this up because there was one clue in particular in Jake Bunch’s Times crossword debut that absolutely stopped me in my tracks. It has to do with a computer game that is well known, but the clue is particularly opaque, especially since I haven’t played the game. Devin explained it to me and led me to the right answer, so not only did I make progress on that section of Mr. Bunch’s lively puzzle, but I also learned something new and had a delightful chat with my son.

It doesn’t get much better than that, in my opinion.

Tricky Clues

1A. “Thrower of a reception” made me think of a party, but in this puzzle a ball is what’s being received. The answer is PASSER.

14A. Once again I was misled, and I loved it. “Place for bucks at the bar?” sounds as if we were supposed to be thinking about tip jars, but the bucks in this clue refer to the movements of a MECHANICAL BULL.