Games

Malaika Handa’s puzzle is lively and satisfying.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — This is Malaika Handa’s sixth crossword in The New York Times, and, as far as I’m concerned, her work just keeps getting better. Ms. Handa constructs for several other outlets, so she’s not a beginner; it’s just that most of my exposure to her work is through The Times.But, as I said, she has grown as a puzzle maker, and today’s grid is packed with the “fun and breezy” entries that she mentions in her notes below. I’d like to avoid spoilers, but you’ll know these entries when you see them. They’re the ones that will make you smile as you fill them in. I had that experience several times while I solved her puzzle.Tricky Clues11A. This is a very clever clue. [What connects money to everything?] is the word ISN’T, which completes the saying “Money isn’t everything.”17A. Who doesn’t love a CRAZY STRAW? [It has many twists and turns] and makes drinking any beverage more fun.42A. A [Fashion line?] is the branded work of a clothing designer, but with the question mark in the clue, we know that the answer can’t be that simple. This line in fashion is a STRIPE.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

Mat Shelden takes us for a ride.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — The hardest part of making a crossword puzzle is getting through your first submission. It’s the anxiety that gets you.You spent countless hours trying to make a puzzle that you think people will enjoy solving, got stuck countless times while trying to fill the puzzle, mulled over your clues without knowing exactly how hard they’re supposed to be and now it’s time to send it off to the editors.You fill out the submission form, attach your puzzle in the format the editors requested and, with palms sweating, you hit “send.” From there, it goes into a black hole, never to be seen again.Ha-ha, just kidding! That’s how it feels, but, in reality, the puzzle editors receive your creation, and it goes onto the pile of crosswords that have yet to be reviewed. From there, the editors discuss your creation at length and talk about what tweaks will need to be performed on your baby to make it ready for prime time. You try not to picture the puzzle editors laughing at your puzzle.Submitting crosswords becomes less anxiety-producing as time goes on. Today’s grid reminded me of the stress of the submission process because it is Mat Shelden’s New York Times Crossword debut. In fact, it is his first publication anywhere, but not his first submission, so he’s already been through the anxiety.“I felt confident in what I made, uncertain in how it would be received and was prepared to wait for an answer,” Mr. Shelden said in an email. “I had received rejections in the past, so my optimism was tempered.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

Hal Moore lets things escalate.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Considering how many films I’ve consumed over the course of my life, it feels disingenuous to claim I have a favorite movie. Just one favorite? Impossible. But today’s crossword brought to mind one of my top contenders for the slot, an animated French movie from 2003 called (in translation) “The Triplets of Belleville.”To describe the film in any detail would spoil the secrets of Hal Moore’s puzzle when you’ve hardly scrolled past the headline. Rather than letting you spin your wheels to figure out the theme, though, I’ll take you on a 48A of it below.Today’s ThemeRight away, we notice two diagonal strings of circled letters in the upper-left quadrant of the grid. That’s our first cue to expect a somewhat visual theme. But what could they mean?48A is a good place to start, with a [Three-week bike race, such as the one featured in this puzzle]. The answer is GRAND TOUR. Three European races hold this designation, but the best known among them is the Tour de France. Lucky us: That happens to be the one featured in Mr. Moore’s puzzle, as we discover with the [Typical ending point for this puzzle’s race] (16D) — the CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES.Now that we’ve got these details down, we can address the meaning of the circled letters, hinted at by the revealer clue at 40A: [Hard patterns to break … or a punny description of the climbs up the circled letters]. Using crossings from our regular entries, we can identify those strings of climbs — ALPS and PYRENEES.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

Gary Larson and Amy Ensz weigh their options.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — In middle school, I had an English teacher who was exacting about our pronunciation of words. He became red-faced with exasperation whenever a friend of mine tried to say the word “horror” in class — she had a habit of collapsing the word into a single syllable, which the rest of us, for N.S.F.W. reasons, found deeply entertaining.An emphasis on clear pronunciation can be useful. It helps not to mince words while speaking publicly, for example, or when repeatedly begging an automated customer service line for a “REPRESENTATIVE!” But these prescriptive attitudes about language have no place in the New York Times Crossword, where puzzles’ themes regularly rely on alternate pronunciations or unexpected spellings.Expect to find such pronounced mischief in Gary Larson and Amy Ensz’s crossword, which features familiar pairings in verbal disguise. This is a Times debut for Ms. Ensz, and the eighth puzzle for Mr. Larson. Much like the pairs in their puzzle, they’ve accomplished something delightful together.Today’s ThemeThe pairs I alluded to are common expressions that solve question-marked clues at 17-, 26-, 45- and 61-Across. The question mark, for those unaware, indicates a witty twist on a clue.A [Sting operation at a senior center?] (17A) is a BOOMER BUST. Bizarre. But if we replace the -er with the slant homophone “or,” we get a phrase that’s more familiar: “boom or bust,” which refers to a situation whose outcome may be either prosperous or catastrophic. A [Mission for an F-16?] (26A) is a FIGHTER FLIGHT — alter it in the same way, and you’ll discover the human response to danger, FIGHT or FLIGHT.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

Daniel Bodily and Andrea Carla Michaels conspire to fool us.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Crossword constructors often bemoan the unique challenge of crafting a Monday puzzle for The New York Times. (It’s surprisingly hard to make an easy grid.) Andrea Carla Michaels is something of a Monday maven, having constructed over 60 such puzzles. Combine her prowess with that of Daniel Bodily, who brings consistent whimsy to his themes — his most recent one for The Times consisted of literal interpretations of the M.C. Hammer song lyric “You can’t touch this” — and you’ve got a winning recipe for a crossword.Wyna Liu, a puzzle editor for The Times, said that today’s grid stood out to editors precisely because of its cohesion. “We love the way this puzzle comes together,” Ms. Liu said. She complimented its “vibrant assortment of theme answers” and described the discovery of its theme as a “delightful surprise.” This is the first collaboration between Mr. Bodily and Ms. Michaels, but I hope there’s more to come.Today’s ThemeThe constructors have given us all a wonderful, ahem, grift. They wanted us to fall for their cleverly written clues, and we did: hooks, lines and thinkers.OK, I’ve gotten that out of my system. Let’s take a look at our revealer clue: At 60-Across, a phrase that means [“Boy, is that loud!”] doubles as a hint to the ends of 17-, 25-, 38- and 49-Across. A [Decorator’s suggestion] (17A) might be to incorporate a COLOR SCHEME. And a popular [Gathering for superhero fans] (25A) is a COMIC-CON. What do the “ends” of these two clues, SCHEME and -CON, have in common? Each can be described using the mystery phrase at 60A: WHAT A RACKET!Two more synonyms for a RACKET can be found in a [Kickflip or heelflip] (38A), a.k.a. a SKATEBOARD TRICK, and the most common [Hazard near a hive] (49A) is a BEE STING.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

Trent H. Evans opens our solving weekend with a fresh and lively puzzle.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — If you are not a constructor, you probably sit down to solve your crosswords without giving much thought to how difficult it is to fill a grid.That’s OK. Analyzing the puzzle and its construction is usually not part of the solving agenda. But it is something that constructors look at when they encounter other people’s puzzles.Without getting deep into the weeds, I’d like to point out a few things about today’s crossword, constructed by Trent H. Evans, that I believe merit a second look. Follow me past the jump below for a short discussion. If you don’t want spoilers, please skip to the Tricky Clues section.Spoiler Alert!

Spoilers No Spoilers GIFfrom Spoilers GIFs tenor.comThe thing I enjoy most about themeless crosswords is that, well, there is no theme. I love a good theme, mind you. It’s just that seating the theme in the grid entails placing a whole lot of black squares around them, which cuts up the spaces where long, exciting entries might go.Most constructors enjoy the extra space allowed in themeless grids, and there are a few ways in which they make their puzzles shine:They edit their word lists by adding fresh and unique words and phrases to excite their audiences. Junky entries in the lists are pruned judiciously.They try to find at least one top-of-the-line seed entry to be the first fill in the puzzle (and the seed often anchors the grid). I believe Mr. Evans’s seed was probably 35A, A LITTLE HELP HERE, which also makes a debut. That’s an entry that will put a smile on most people’s faces, because it’s colloquial and unusual to see in a crossword.They build lively stacks. A stack is a series of crossword entries that sit either on top of one another (like 1A, 15A and 17A) or beside one another (like 12D and 13D). If all of the entries sparkle, that usually ensures that at least that quadrant of the grid will be enjoyable for the solver. A stack that includes winners such as the Northwest’s TRUST FALL, SOCIAL CUE and ALL ABOARD is going to entice solvers to continue. The trick — and this is partly how I judge whether a stack is successful — is to make sure that the crossings in the stack are also interesting and not obscure words or abbreviations. In my opinion, all nine entries that cross 1A, 15A and 17A are good.So after you’ve solved, go back and take a closer look at Mr. Evans’s work. If you are noodling around with crossword grids and aspire to become a themeless constructor, this is a good example of the kind of submissions that are accepted by the puzzle editors. It’s more work than one might think, but the end result is worth it.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

Adam Vincent leans into the patriotic.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — Oh, hi. You must be here because you solved or tried to solve Adam Vincent’s very clever puzzle and are wondering what just happened to you. Please have a seat, the theme explainer will be right with you.First, on behalf of the Wordplay team, I would like to wish our readers a happy Independence Day. That wish is related to the theme of today’s crossword, and is a hint but not a spoiler.I’d have to go into a lot more detail to spoil the multilayered theme in this puzzle. Mr. Vincent’s grid put up a mighty fight, but I did eventually crack it, by which time I had worked up a sweat, plowed through my supply of anxiety chocolate and slapped my forehead silly.On the other hand, conquering it gave me a tremendous boost: There is evidence that the “aha!” moment we chase when solving is connected to the release of dopamine — the feel-good chemical — in the brain.So if you tried to solve this puzzle and quit, give it another chance. Try talking to yourself. I mean it — say the entries out loud as you enter them. It may help. And scientists say it may make you feel great.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

Juliana Tringali Golden looks ahead.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Readers, I apologize. I know it may seem as if I’m beating a dead horse (or feeding a fed horse, to some) by assuring you that recurring entries and themes in consecutive crossword puzzles are just coincidence. But I do it only because things like this keep happening: The theme of today’s crossword, constructed by Juliana Tringali Golden, bears an eerie resemblance to the one in yesterday’s puzzle, by Josh Goodman. What’s more, the constructors happen to share first- and last-name initials.Levelheaded as I am, I could understand why one might treat such convergences as some kind of otherworldly sign — to say nothing of the eight “signs” we found in yesterday’s grid. But I’m no psychic. I’ll let you divine the deeper meaning of Ms. Golden’s puzzle, if it exists.Today’s ThemeDid you guess today’s theme from my column’s introduction? If not, any of the divining objects featured in the entries might help. Ms. Golden’s puzzle features four modes of divination, wittily hinted at using common terms.So an [Observation deck?] (17A) consists of TAROT CARDS, and a CRYSTAL BALL is a [Glass eye?] (33A). I CHING COINS are tossed to yield spiritual insights, hence their description as [Metal detectors?] (41A). And if you can’t conjure up the final themed entry on your own, feel free to reveal it below.61A. [Predictive text?]OUIJA BOARDWe 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