Games

Zhouqin Burnikel opens our solving weekend.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — Zhouqin Burnikel arrived on the New York Times Crossword scene in 2012, and her smooth, lively puzzles soon earned her the nickname “queen of the early-week grids.” (That distinction is shared with fellow constructors Andrea Carla Michaels and Lynn Lempel.)The puzzles created by these three women have two things in common: They make you feel as if you could solve the puzzle from start to finish without stopping because the clues are both clear and fun. And while you are cruising through the grid, it delights you with interesting junk-free fill.Ms. Burnikel has now published 80 crosswords in The Times and has had at least one puzzle published on each day of the week. Watching her star rise has been a pleasure because she is a truly good person (not really relevant but nice to know) and I love solving her puzzles.Tricky Clues5A. The [Tablet that’s impossible to swallow?] is an IPAD.15A. [Fair sight] sounds vague unless you interpret it as “something you might see at a fair.” The answer is BOOTH.31A. Something that has its [Pluses and minuses, e.g.] has both good and bad qualities, but the addition of “e.g.” means that we are really looking for a category in which the pluses and minuses belong. They are mathematical SIGNS.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Rena Cohen makes her New York Times Crossword debut, and that’s the truth.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — One of the benefits of writing Wordplay columns is the opportunity to get to know how certain constructors’ and editors’ brains work. Once I have worked a few crosswords by a particular constructor, I can solve fairly quickly, because it’s easy to predict where the puzzle is going: Even though the grids and themes are all different, every constructor has a recognizable voice and style. Being able to race through a puzzle with this familiarity is a great ego booster.Then a new constructor comes along and I feel like a beginner again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I hope I maintain the ability to look at the world through a beginner’s eyes, because that state of mind is how I learn the most.Rena Cohen is a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, and she was a member of the third Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship. ”She picked things up really quickly,” Christina Iverson, one of the puzzle editors who mentored Ms. Cohen, said. “She has a lot of ideas, and is clearly very passionate about puzzles.”Today’s puzzle is her debut, and I offer her kudos, because she stumped me until I entered my last answer. I thought I understood the theme until I realized that I didn’t.Therefore, I am proud to bestow upon Ms. Cohen’s puzzle the 2024 “Ohh, That’s What She Meant!” Wordplay award.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Luke K. Schreiber mixes business with leisure.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Despite what you might have been led to believe, solving crossword puzzles is supposed to be fun. Relaxing, even! I know that some grids can be challenging to the point of utter frustration — I break out into a sweat whenever I see Sam Ezersky’s byline on a Saturday puzzle — but their joyful intention remains pure.In today’s crossword, Luke K. Schreiber has layered one soothing diversion onto another. His theme hinges on a rather tranquil video game whose popularity peaked in 2020, when it served as a form of escapism from the doom and gloom of the daily news cycle. Today, thanks to Mr. Schreiber’s clever puzzle, we get to experience its gentle joy in a whole new way.Today’s ThemeThe animal kingdom is well represented in this grid, and for good reason: Every species in this puzzle is part of a certain [Nintendo video game series suggested by every answer running through this one?] at 14D, which is ANIMAL CROSSING.But we’re not finished yet — that question mark in the revealer clue means there’s wordplay afoot. Each of the letters in the entry ANIMAL CROSSING is intersected by an Across entry that names a kind of animal: ANTEATER at 14A, NEMATODE at 17A, GUINEA PIG at 18A, CLAM at 22A and so on.I’ve never played Animal Crossing, but I did spend several weeks immersed in the burbly nonsense language that its characters use, which is my own brand of diversion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Alexander Liebeskind opens our solving week.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — One thing I was surprised to learn from the puzzle editors when I took this job is just how hard it is to create a top-quality Monday puzzle. Constructors who have a puzzle published in The New York Times are, in nearly all cases, top-quality wordsmiths who have a command of the English language that most of us mortals can barely dream of. So it can be tough for those people to turn it down a bit so that the rest of us can have some fun.Once I learned that, I gained a new appreciation for Mondays. The approachable fill and the clever cluing keep me coming back for these puzzles week after week. Take a moment to appreciate the relaxed solving experience of a good Monday puzzle like this one. The week only gets harder from here.Today’s ThemeI thought this puzzle’s theme was pretty straightforward; the theme answers are all phrases that include names of notes of payment (STATEMENT and CHECK, for example). I found the fill to be supremely smooth, but there were a couple of spots that I thought might trip people up. I’ll cover them in the next section.Tricky Clues27A. The AMHERST area is home to the Five College Consortium, whose members are the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College and my alma mater, Hampshire College.11D. Not a drop as in one of water, but to drop as in fall. The answer is SINK.60D. PDA is an abbreviation for public display of affection.Join Our Other Game DiscussionsWant to be part of the conversation about New York Times Games, or maybe get some help with a particularly thorny puzzle? Here are the:Spelling Bee ForumWordle ReviewConnections CompanionImprove Your Crossword SolvingWork your way through our guide, “How to Solve the New York Times Crossword.” It contains an explanation of most of the types of clues you will see in the puzzles and a practice Mini at the end of each section.Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.For tips on how to get started, read our series “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.”The Tipping PointAlmost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.Spoiler alert: Subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.Trying to get back to the main Gameplay page? You can find it here. More

Jake Bunch opens our solving weekend.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — Jake Bunch, the constructor of today’s puzzle, made his New York Times debut in March. In his second offering, he tries to pack as many unattached black squares as possible into the grid, which is an interesting setup for a themeless crossword.That may cut off some opportunities for the extra-long entries that themeless grids are known for, but I still found Mr. Bunch’s puzzle satisfying and a pleasure to solve.Tricky Clues13A. The “root” in [Root words?] could mean the root of a plant or word, but in this case it means to cheer on a player or a team. These encouraging words are GO TEAM GO.14A. [Well-insulated homes] are IGLOOS, which are made of compressed snow. The snow is roughly 95 percent trapped air, making it a good insulator that traps the warm air from your body inside such structures. Off-topic comment: Hand up if you think the plural of IGLOO should be “igli” or “iglae.”22A. The answer to [What comes between dusk and dawn?] is TIL because the clue refers to the phrase “from dusk TIL dawn.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

You may not know which way you’re going in this New York Times Crossword debut by Jesse Guzman.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — You don’t have to be an expert player to make a crossword puzzle. Solving and constructing are really two different skill sets. Sure, it helps to have some solving experience, because understanding what works and what doesn’t informs your puzzle making. But the main skills constructors need are an open mind and the ability to notice linguistic quirks.Take Jesse Guzman, today’s constructor, for example. To clarify, he himself is not a linguistic quirk, but he sure knows how to recognize one. This puzzle is his New York Times Crossword debut, and he admits in his notes below that he is not an advanced solver.And yet he was able to make a challenging crossword with a truly tight theme, clean fill and fun clues. I don’t know whether he had any guidance, but I always recommend finding a mentor. Working with experienced puzzle makers — who generously give their time to beginners free of charge — hastens the learning process. Sharing your byline with a known constructor can help attract an editor’s attention, instead of just landing you in the slush pile with other first-timers. At the very least, you will have made a friend in the puzzle-making community, and that alone is valuable.Today’s ThemePrediction: There will be complaints. And as someone who has been writing about Thursday puzzles for 13 years, I’m used to them. There are solvers who say that a crossword should just be about crossing words and not having to figure out that you need to stand on your head to understand the clues. For the most part, I don’t think that’s unreasonable, even though I love the tricks. But that’s not what the Thursday Crossword is about.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Freddie Cheng experiments with the initial phase of constructing.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — I’ve written about two of Freddie Cheng’s puzzles since I started working at The New York Times, which is a small fraction of the number he has constructed. But it took only those two grids for me to appreciate Mr. Cheng’s talent for identifying subtle patterns in the English language. He can play with diverse definitions of a single word. He can use a shared ending of proper nouns as a springboard for puns. His sense of humor shines through each puzzle, and it’s wonderfully original.Today’s crossword continues this artistic streak as Mr. Cheng curates a few phrases that share a notable grammatical feature. I never would have thought about the feature if not for this puzzle, and I’m thrilled that he’s brought it to our attention.Today’s ThemeAbbreviations often appear as crossword entries, but rarely do they make up the theme of an entire puzzle! Each of today’s themed entries is a common expression that ends with a three-letter abbreviation: At 17A, the way [Some movies were released, pre-streaming] — what a concept! — is DIRECT-TO-DVD. At 29A, the [Bruce Springsteen album with a red, white and blue cover] is BORN IN THE USA, released in 1984. And at 44A, the [Question to someone who’s on the way] is WHAT’S YOUR ETA?The final clue — [A piece of cake, so to speak] (59A) — is the only toughie, funnily enough, because two nearly identical phrases ending in three-letter terms fit the spaces. Only one phrase satisfies the constraints of the theme, though: It’s AS EASY AS ABC, because “pie” is not an abbreviation.If you want to be fussy — and at The Times, we often do — then don’t refer to the three-letter abbreviations in this puzzle as acronyms. They’re technically initialisms, which are distinct from acronyms in that they are pronounced by their letters rather than as words (think N.F.L. versus NAFTA).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Jackson Matz opens our solving weekend.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — Jackson Matz, the constructor of today’s puzzle, is a high school senior who is going through the college application process, a notoriously stressful time in a teenager’s life. I don’t know if we can persuade his first choice of school to admit him, but perhaps if we all cross our fingers and send him good wishes we can help him out.While he’s waiting to hear back from colleges, Mr. Matz is making puzzles, which is a perfectly normal and relaxing thing to do when you’re under stress. (That’s a lot funnier if you’ve ever tried to construct a crossword.)Today’s puzzle has intersecting 15s, a feature that I love. It’s fun to take an overall guess at a grid-spanning entry, write in the letters one by one and hope that, by the time you get to the end of it, you have the entire thing correct. When a crossword has many of these crossing spanners, the fun increases, as does the amount of 10D that I can conquer in the grid by simply solving a few entries.Shorter answers can help fill in crossing entries, but for my money it’s those long answers that make solving themeless puzzles so much fun.Your thoughts?Tricky Clues1A. The philosophy of THEISM was [influenced by Aristotle’s concept of the Unmoved Mover], a being that represents God. According to Britannica.com:“Aristotle’s fundamental principle is that everything that is in motion is moved by something else, and he offers a number of (unconvincing) arguments to this effect. He then argues that there cannot be an infinite series of moved movers. If it is true that when A is in motion there must be some B that moves A, then if B is itself in motion there must be some C moving B, and so on. This series cannot go on forever, and so it must come to a halt in some X that is a cause of motion but does not move itself — an unmoved mover.”7A. As soon as I saw the phrase “pig tales” (as opposed to the hairstyle called “pig tails”) in the clue [Four-year-old in pig tales?], I assumed the answer was Fern, the young girl who rescued Wilbur, the pig in “Charlotte’s Web.” Unfortunately, that name didn’t fit the five-letter slot. Once I had the first and the last letter of 7A filled in, I realized that the answer was PEPPA Pig.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More