Games

Anthony V. Grubb makes his New York Times debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesNote to readers: In the past, Wordplay indicated crossword clues with quotation marks. In crossword construction and editing, though, clues are typically indicated by brackets, a practice Wordplay is now following.MONDAY PUZZLE — The first day of sweltering summer heat can feel either welcome or dreadful, depending on your climate preferences. The heat wave last week made for a few exceptionally sticky days in New York City.I see this siesta-friendly season as a boon for puzzle lovers. So long as we have a little shade and a breeze — be it from a fan, an air-conditioning unit or an ocean — we can entertain ourselves with the simple pleasure of a daily crossword.Today that crossword comes to us from Anthony V. Grubb, in his New York Times debut. With a beginner-friendly theme but clues challenging enough to appeal to skilled solvers, this grid has something for everyone.Christina Iverson, a puzzle editor for The Times, said that editors were particularly impressed by Mr. Grubb’s theme set. “It was one of those ‘Oh, wow, how’d he find those?’ moments,” she said. “It’s a nice example of a common theme subject that is elevated by adding another layer.” Ms. Iverson’s compliment is especially — ahem — fit for this puzzle, given the theme subject.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

Were you on Billy Bratton’s wavelength?Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — In any themeless puzzle, there should ideally be a lot of open space (read: fewer black squares) so that the constructor can pack the grid with long, interesting entries. I consider these lively entries my reward for wrangling all of the shorter fill that I encounter earlier in the week. And when they are triple-stacked the way they are in Billy Bratton’s crossword, with exciting entries in all four quadrants, a good time is certain to be had by all. Or by most of us, anyway.I predict that there will be what I like to call the Goldilocks reaction to Mr. Bratton’s puzzle (“This puzzle is too easy!” or “No, this puzzle is too hard!”). But perhaps we can take a moment away from the competition to appreciate what we do have: a crossword with sizzling entries and fun clues. In particular, I loved 8D. The entry is a fairly common phrase, yet it is making its New York Times Crossword debut. It was fun to see the clue call our attention with a red siren emoji on each side of it.Whether you did or didn’t struggle with Mr. Bratton’s puzzle is unimportant, in my opinion. I just hope you enjoyed the experience. Remember, crosswords are games, and games are meant to be fun.Tricky Clues15A. The [Notes taken by a single person?] are musical notes, and that person is singing or playing a SOLO.16A. Not only is [Condescendingly spells out] a synonym for MANSPLAINS, but that spelling out is typically also done to someone who is already an expert in the area that is being explained.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

Ella Dershowitz calls us by (some of) our names — or does she?Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesNote to readers: In the past, Wordplay indicated crossword clues with quotation marks. In crossword construction and editing, though, clues are typically indicated by brackets, a practice Wordplay will follow starting today.THURSDAY PUZZLE — I’ve noticed that as I get older, I have a harder time keeping large amounts of information in my head. That’s perfectly natural — I forget who told me that — but add in an attention deficit disorder and it feels as if my short-term memory works like a sieve. Some facts are retained, but other important things, like my children’s names, fall through the little holes to make room for new information.That is why I write almost everything down. Taking notes and making lists helps with crossword solving, too. Ella Dershowitz’s clever puzzle requires you to hold certain aspects of the theme in your head, so I recommend writing the elements down as you solve it. It made a lot more sense to me that way.And you’ll be happy to know that we’ve solved the family names issue: We all wear name tags.Our dog wears one, too.Wikipedia CommonsToday’s ThemeIn four rows of Ms. Dershowitz’s puzzle, there are two theme entries consisting of pairs of words or phrases, and there are three circled squares in each of those entries.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

Brad Wiegmann has new takes on old wisdom.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Brad Wiegmann’s puzzle has no big reveal — unlike the magician in this column’s image, yuk yuk — but I think the piecemeal discovery of his theme inspires just as much of an electric jolt. I couldn’t decide what impressed me more: Mr. Wiegmann’s constructing skills, or the uncanny coincidences of the English language that made up his theme. In the end, I settled on admiring both.Today’s ThemeWhen devising a theme, constructors often make certain concessions regarding the intelligibility of their clues or entries. In Alissa Revness and Chloe Revery’s clever letter-swapping puzzle from January, for instance, the theme needed bizarrely elaborate clues and nonsensical entries in order to work.Mr. Wiegmann, however, has managed to include common expressions on both sides of the equation. His themed clues are idiomatic two-word phrases, and his themed entries are single compound words whose halves mirror the terms used in the idioms. “Wait + see” (16A) solves to STOPWATCH because “wait” can mean “stop,” and “see” can mean “watch.” Combine two synonyms for “Give + take” (25A), and you get HANDHOLD.Speaking of HANDHOLDing, I don’t mean to do any more! Go ahead and enjoy discovering the rest of these entries — 36-, 51- and 60A — at your leisure.Tricky Clues5A. The solution to “Person of the year, for short?” is going to be some kind of play on the clue, on account of that question mark. It’s an ALUM, as in a person from a given year’s graduating class.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

Aaron M. Rosenberg compares and contrasts.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Every writer should be allowed one pedantic grievance. Mine is the use of “kind of” as a (kind of) disclaimer before making a comparison. I’ve been guilty of this in my own writing, too, but it’s something I try to avoid, because it suggests a lack of confidence in one’s own capacity for analogy or metaphor — the “No worries if not!” of journalism.For instance, in a music review I read recently, the author wrote of sounds that seemed to “linger in a kind of harmonic limbo.” Don’t stop there, I thought to myself. Call it a harmonic limbo!I had to quash these convictions in order to solve Aaron M. Rosenberg’s crossword puzzle, in which several clues rely on the “kinda” hedge. In this case, the hesitation is not only warranted but necessary, because it’s the key to understanding Mr. Rosenberg’s theme. I admit that I kind of loved it. No, wait … I loved it.Today’s ThemeEach themed clue in today’s puzzle makes a timid comparison. We’re looking for something “Kinda comedic and saucy?” (16A) or a “Kinda religious institution?” (28A). These would be ambiguous categories even without the added qualifier, so don’t be afraid to use your crossings from the outset.Once we’ve got a few letters filled in, our “comedic and saucy” descriptor emerges: BURLESQUE-ESQUE. That religious institution turns out to be a SEMI-SEMINARY. Get the picture, sort of? Each entry uses a different affix that echoes either the first or the second half of the word and doubles as an expression of uncertainty. So, something “Kinda squishy and sting-y?” (39A) might be described as JELLYFISH-ISH, and a “Kinda hunchbacked figure?” (50A) could be called QUASI-QUASIMODO.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

Kiran Pandey runs a tight ship.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Can you remember the first time you answered a riddle? I have a memory from summer camp. A counselor asked the group, “What’s brown and sticky?” — and I answered, “a tree.” An early adopter of wordplay among my age group (who needs popularity when you have puns, right?), I had heard “stick-y” and come up with the right answer.Riddles don’t tend to thrill adults the way they do children, but a cleverly crafted crossword theme comes close to capturing that feeling. The theme of today’s puzzle, by Kiran Pandey, offers such a sensation. If you haven’t already solved it yourself, read on for an explanation. There’s more to it than meets the, ahem, eyes.Today’s ThemeThanks to the use of circled letters, a pattern quickly emerges among the themed entries at 20-, 31- and 41-Across. THIS IS AMERICA is the “2018 Childish Gambino hit that won the Grammy for Song of the Year” (20A); the “Pixar film that takes place mostly underwater” (31A) is FINDING NEMO; and a certain “Holder of bait” (41A) is a FISHING HOOK. These entries feature two circled I’s — and, thus, are a partial phonetic rendering of an “Affirmative at sea”: AYE-AYE, CAPTAIN (55A).This seemed like a decent enough reveal, albeit a simple one. But on a second pass I noticed the qualifier in the revealer clue — “sequentially” — and realized that I’d appreciated only half of Mr. Pandey’s theme set.THIS IS AMERICA contains an AYE and an AYE, and then a CAPTAIN; in this case, AMERICA. The same pattern applies to reveal 31A’s captain, NEMO, and at 41A, with HOOK. To (nearly) quote Walt Whitman: “O Captains! My Captains!”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

Robyn Weintraub opens our solving weekend.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — What Friday and Saturday puzzles lack in theme, they more than make up for in clues and entries worthy of oohs and aahs. In fact, I’d describe today’s crossword, constructed by Robyn Weintraub, as an utter feast of wordplay.Who can resist the joyful alliteration of clues such as “Prestigious prizes” (5D) and “Paperless pups” (11D)? Or what about the irreverent use of long clues that solve to short entries — “Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana, e.g.” (14A) to THAI, or “Diethyltoluamide, more familiarly” (7D) to DEET?Every zig and zag of this solve was delightful, especially impressive considering that Ms. Weintraub is nearing her 50th crossword for The New York Times. One might expect a constructor to lose some enthusiasm over time. But Ms. Weintraub constructs as though she’s just hitting her stride.Tricky Clues24A. On its own, “Off” seems as though it might solve to a verb (meaning to kill) or an adjective (meaning askew or rotten). But it can also mean LESS when used in a sale price — 10 percent “off,” say.36A. Anyone else get stuck on imagining “Paper for an animator” to be some kind of cellulose sheet or storyboard canvas? After missing the subtle wink in this clue, I hardly deserve my own ART DEGREE.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

Kevin Curry offers a different read on things.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — I’ve developed a Pavlovian association with Thursday crosswords such that, if I so much as glance at the empty puzzle, my hackles go up. I solve as though I were a detective in the parlor scene of a murder mystery — there’s a dastardly theme in here somewhere, and every clue is a suspect.Kevin Curry was kind enough to relieve us of such sleuthing by making it clear where his themed clues lay in today’s crossword (they’re in all caps). It’s still a Thursday challenge, to be sure, but I believe we can solve it together.Today’s ThemeMr. Curry has concealed a series of idioms in this grid, representing them using capitalized clues and parentheses around certain letters. The trick is to read the letters phonetically and then note their locations in the words. 15-Across, for instance, reads “EM(B)RACE.” This solves to B IN TOUCH — because it’s the letter B inside a word that means “touch.” 23-Across reads “ALMIGHT(Y),” which solves to Y IN GOD’S NAME.Other themed phrases use the word OF instead of IN to indicate the parenthesized letter’s placement: “TROP(I)CAL STORM” (39A) solves to I OF THE HURRICANE.Can’t place the remaining phrases? You can click to reveal them below.53A. “(C)OMPASSION”C OF HUMANITY 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