Games

Caroline Sommers and Freddie Cheng place a few orders.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Certain suffixes are such obvious fodder for wordplay that catchphrases form to wink back at them. Endings that rhyme with “er,” for example, have long attracted a bawdy rejoinder — “Catcher? I hardly know ’er!” — and I have friends who insist on making a call-and-response game of “-le” endings. One offers, “A hammer won’t fix your car, but an axle,” and the other affirms it with “Yes it will!”One such suffix is sent up in today’s crossword, constructed by Caroline Sommers and Freddie Cheng. This is a debut collaboration for Mr. Cheng and Ms. Sommers in The New York Times, and it’s Ms. Sommers’s first Times puzzle. While their theme’s wordplay may be familiar, the constructors have managed to give it a wonderfully fresh coat of puzzle paint. Trivia references and original clue phrasing abound, and they kept me guessing all the way through until I finally prospered. (Prosper? I hardly know ’er!) (OK, some of them don’t work.)Today’s ThemeI hope you’ve studied up on your 24As, because each of today’s themed entries plays on the name of a STAR. These names would normally end in ETT, but their clues turn them into directives ending in IT. For example: “Hey, Mr. Gazillionaire from Omaha — go shine the car!” (20A) solves to WARREN, BUFF IT (normally spelled Buffett). And if you wanted to let “Julia Roberts’s ex” Lyle Lovett know that he was “doing great!” you’d say LYLE, LOVE IT (34A).I found the directives difficult to infer only when I didn’t already know the name of the celebrity in question. I was surprised to learn, for instance, that the “shut up!” in 42-Across solved partly to CLAMP IT — playing on the last name of the character Jed Clampett from “The Beverly Hillbillies” — since that phrase has never appeared on its own in a Times Crossword.Tricky Clues18A. This “Bit of Indian music” is a RAGA, which is a collection of pitches whose structure and phrasing can be used to evoke distinct moods or themes in music.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

Peter Gordon rises to the occasion.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Solve crosswords for long enough, and you may start to perceive entries not as words, but as mere strings of letters whose meaning rests entirely on their clues. At 29-Across, for example, we have a “Witty reply to ‘You’re the kind of person who asks too many questions’” — AM I? But if the clue were “French friend,” we would interpret this same string as AMI. The same ambiguity could be true of “Door.” As one word, it represents a “Way out.” As two words, the entry fills in the blank for “____ die.”Peter Gordon also relies on multiple meanings for his theme in today’s crossword. In this case, however, seeing through the ruse isn’t so much about peering downward into the puzzle as it is about looking up.Today’s ThemeThe good news about Mr. Gordon’s theme, in contrast to the subject of its theme, is that you won’t need any special glasses to take it in. This TOTAL ECLIPSE, revealed to the naked eye at 46-Across, is clued as both an “Event across the U.S.” and part of a “1983 Bonnie Tyler hit” perfect for such an occasion. With 57-Across, we complete the hit’s title: “TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART.”The rest of the theme set makes up what one might call the ideal eclipse playlist, filled with songs deemed “apt to play” during the moon’s passage between the Earth and the sun. There’s “MOONSHADOW” (17A) by Cat Stevens, Santana’s “INTO THE NIGHT” (23A) and U2’s “STARING AT THE SUN” (36A).Do you have any songs to add to Mr. Gordon’s list? I would love to hear your recommendations for eclipse-viewing music. (New York City, while not in the path of totality, will still have an impressive partial eclipse if clear skies prevail.)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

Rebecca Goldstein says hello from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — The 46th American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be held this weekend in Stamford, Conn. Even though the live tournament is full, solvers can participate in a virtual tournament.If you would like to attend next year, the signup at the link above usually opens in January. And remember: You, too, can look this happy and relaxed while solving puzzles in front of a gigantic timer.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesRebecca Goldstein says in her notes that she will be at the tournament, and she has left us a terrific puzzle to solve while she’s away. It was a challenge for me, but I’m glad I solved it: Her grid is packed with sparkling fill, and I learned something new from it.Tricky Clues6A. I solved BANC through the crossings because the word was not familiar to me as a “Chaise alternative.”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 makes a delicious solo crossword debut in The New York Times.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — I don’t always drink alcohol, but when I do, there is only one drink I want, and it’s the subject of Kevin Curry’s puzzle. You probably guessed the beverage thanks to the black-square design in the grid. That shape alone put a smile on my face.I highly recommend that you finish it — the crossword, not the drink — because there is a nice surprise at the end.Today’s ThemeThe first MARTINI (57A) I ever sipped was a lemon drop, on a vacation to a Caribbean island long ago. It was made with fresh lemons, Grey Goose vodka, passion and love, all topped by a sparkling lemon-sugar rim. The bartender made it with what I can only describe as BRAVURA (59A), working up a sweat as he muddled and poured.My great-aunt Rose used to use the word “luscious” to describe tasting experiences like this. After my first sip, I declared to my companion that this drink was not only luscious; it was life-affirming. Just so you know, this statement was made without the influence of any other adult beverages, because I know what you’re thinking: Deb would not rhapsodize about a drink to this extent unless she was already three sheets to the wind.But to this day, I compare all other MARTINIs to that one.On the other end of the spectrum was a pickle MARTINI I once tried with a friend in New York City. The less said about that drink, the better.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

Alex Eaton-Salners leaves space for the unknown.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Some of the most impressive crossword themes to behold are those that achieve either the ample presence or total absence of a single letter. In a puzzle from February 1999, Janet R. Bender subtly restricted her vowel use to the letter E, managing to squeeze it into her grid a whopping 78 times. In a puzzle from May 2012, Patrick D. Berry used every letter of the alphabet except E. These themes tend to resist apprehension until the grids are entirely filled — which makes the discovery of them all the more satisfying.Alex Eaton-Salners takes a different tack in today’s crossword: He makes letters disappear and reappear at will. He even manages to slide them under our noses incognito. But I’ll make no more pronouncements on the matter and let the puzzle do the rest of the talking.Today’s ThemeYou probably noticed that some letters were missing from the themed clues and that they were easy enough to deduce from the words they should complete: “Lip_on produc_s” (17A), for example, was clearly missing its T’s. But this, dear readers, is hardly half of the riddle: We still have to solve the clue and figure out what those circles in the entry row might be trying to tell us.17A’s answer is INSTANT TEAS (the bold type denotes the circled letters). Why isn’t that third T circled? The pattern is repeated at 28A, when “_lum-colored _lants” leads us to PURPLE PEAS. Here, too, the third P isn’t part of the circled set, so the entry circles must indicate something other than the letters missing from their clues.It all clicked for me at “Fr_endly fac_al tra_t” (55A), which solved to SMILING EYES. Suddenly, I heard what I was meant to see all along: the EYES were the I’s. The sounds of the circled letters were reflected in the second words of their homophonic 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

Billy Bratton has decided to extend his stay.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — In the constructor notes that accompanied his last New York Times Crossword, in July 2023, Billy Bratton left us on a cliffhanger:This may be my last one for a while, but I shall return …With these words — and our reaction to them — Mr. Bratton may have unwittingly given us a major hint to today’s puzzle, in which the theme hinges on a synonym for the phrase “Stop right there!” In any case, I’m glad that he has decided to return to us mere months later, as his latest grid offers the perfect Tuesday challenge: It’s crunchy in all the right places, but satisfyingly simple to unwrap. And it doesn’t crumble! (Am I talking about a puzzle or a granola bar at this point? It’s anyone’s guess.)Let’s descend into the valley of the solve.Today’s ThemeThe revealer at 39-Across asks us to come up with another way to say “Stop right there!” But we have to figure out an expression that might also serve as a “hint to the first words of 17-, 23-, 47- and 59-Across.”Let’s run briefly through our theme set:A “Black Friday offer, e.g.” (17A) is known as a DOOR BUSTER, even if most of these deals are no longer worth busting down any doors for.“Something extended to a borrower” (23A) is a LINE OF CREDIT.A “Gymnastics sequence involving tumbling” — or triple-double flips, in the case of Simone Biles — is a FLOOR ROUTINE (47A).The “Expansive medical center headquartered in Rochester, Minn.,” (59A) is the MAYO CLINIC.Per the revealer, we’re concerned with only the first words of these entries: DOOR, LINE, FLOOR and MAYO (if you play Connections, another one of our games, you may find this similar to a round of that game). What could precede each of these words to form four distinct expressions? Another way of saying “Stop right there!” is HOLD IT. And voilà: Hold the DOOR, hold the LINE, hold the FLOOR and hold the MAYO.A note for newer solvers: I tend to unpack the theme here in the order that best explains it, but those revealer “hints” can be used in whatever way helps you crack the puzzle. Let’s say, for instance, you had only the entries containing MAYO and FLOOR. You might then discover HOLD IT, at 39A, and deduce the other themed entries by guessing at expressions with the word “hold.” Some prefer to solve the puzzle entirely before identifying the theme; others kick things off with themed entries. It’s really your journey! I’m just the walking stick. Or something.Tricky Clues16A. “Debriefed?” is an adjective here, and a winking one at that. It signifies someone without briefs on: in other words, NAKED.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

Alan Arbesfeld gives his assent.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Though some may anticipate the arrival of April Fools’ Day, I have found by and large that, for those who have both aged out of schoolyard pranks and tired of try-hard antics from corporate brands on social media, this day is nothing more than an occasion for curmudgeonly skepticism. We should trust nothing and no one, because he or she is probably kidding. (It may also be that, in our “post-truth era,” a day dedicated to fudging the facts feels unnecessary — we’re living it.)I thought that I had approached today’s crossword, constructed by Alan Arbesfeld, with the appropriate amount of suspicion. I nonetheless found myself duped, as any solvers looking to identify what special trickery lies in store may be. The puzzle itself turns out to be entirely serious — it’s the editors who are having a lark.“The twist here is that we’re running a gimmick we wouldn’t normally run on a Monday,” said Tracy Bennett, a puzzle editor for The New York Times. She added, however, that editors had “worked hard to make the clues friendly, both in the theme answers and their crossings,” and that she hoped newer solvers would “enjoy the extra challenge.”While I can’t attest to the value of Mr. Arbesfeld’s theme as an April Fools’ joke, I can certainly recommend it on its own merits. In fact, I’m head over heels for it.Today’s ThemeWhen I finally cracked Mr. Arbesfeld’s theme, I flipped — or the clues did. If you were wondering why a clue like “Malfunctioning, literally?” solved to GNITCA, you needed only to turn upside down. It’s the word ACTING, written upward — ACTING up, as it were. To “Start behaving more responsibly, literally?” reads FAELWENA at first; but we can also read this as turning over A NEW LEAF.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

Jake Bunch makes his New York Times Crossword debut.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY 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 Clues1A. “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.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