Games

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

Josh Goodman has some good advice for us.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — I enjoy themed crosswords, mostly because taking the time to understand a puzzle’s theme offers an extra bit of enjoyment for me. It’s like savoring a good dessert after — or even during — a meal.But sometimes the very thing that defines a theme — a set of ideas that all share something in common — can make solving it a bit of a letdown. Once you understand the reasoning behind one or two theme entries in a puzzle, it’s not that difficult to figure out the others.But what if today’s puzzle, by Josh Goodman, mixed things up a little? What if a crossword theme set contained entries that all had something in common, but the way you got to each answer was different? Now that would be interesting, and it would be interesting throughout the entire solve.Enjoy that dessert, my friends.Today’s ThemeMr. Goodman’s theme offers great advice for navigating the world, even though we didn’t exactly ask for it. Each tip begins with the word “Don’t …” and a hint about where to apply that advice, as in 17A’s [A proverb about risk: Don’t …]. That’s our overall theme. Now we just have to figure out what Mr. Goodman is trying to say to us.The puzzle contains rebuses in both senses of the word. Each theme entry must be interpreted by using the letters in the circled squares to understand the entry phrase. In addition, 17A contains a traditional crossword rebus in that it requires solvers to write more than one letter in each of the circled squares.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

Casey Callaghan and Will Nediger reach new heights in their collaboration debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Tourist season may be winding down in the Northern Hemisphere, but Casey Callaghan and Will Nediger are whisking us away for a last-minute vacation: Their crossword theme takes us on a sightseeing tour of Rome. As I prepare to spend all of my remaining vacation days for the year on a trip to the Maritime Provinces of Canada — which also means that this column will feature several guest stars over the next week or two — I’m thrilled about this bonus bit of travel.I’ll admit, however, that this grid is one of the more challenging Wednesday puzzles I’ve solved in recent memory, and that certain trivia-based entries made the puzzle feel more like a Friday crossword. That shouldn’t deter you from solving! I simply recommend tackling the grid from the safety of your comfiest chair, with a glass of whatever you please beside you.Today’s ThemeTo crack this multifaceted theme, start with 67A, an [Architectural attraction in Rome depicted by this puzzle’s grid?]. One must assume it has something to do with the circled letters that create a diagonal strip down the grid from left to right.This revealer clue, just like 29D, uses a question mark to indicate wordplay. THE SPANISH STEPS aren’t just an architectural attraction; they’re also hinted at by the Spanish numbers UNO, DOS, TRES and CUATRO in the circled squares, whose positions evoke the shape of a staircase.Then, we’ve got the [House of worship at the top of 67-Across] (17A). That’s the TRINITÀ DEI MONTI, a 16th-century Gothic church at the top of the Spanish Steps. Don’t feel bad if you got stuck here — unless you’re already familiar, this answer and THE SPANISH STEPS are nearly impossible to figure out without crossings. (Let that also be a reminder to us all to Use the Crossings, Luke.)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

Howard Neuthaler makes his New York Times Crossword debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Do you believe in magic? There might be some of it in today’s crossword puzzle, constructed by Howard Neuthaler. I don’t know that I have convictions either way, but a skilled magician can, at the very least, persuade me to withhold my skepticism for an evening. Last year, for instance, I watched Penn & Teller perform a successful card trick on roughly 1,000 guests at a gala over Zoom. I have barely managed to pull my jaw off the floor since.Mr. Neuthaler’s talents will become evident once you start solving, though his trick is more about language than legerdemain. Today’s ThemeIf you begin your solve from the top-left corner, 17A is the first themed entry you’ll encounter. [“AB negatve?” or “B poditive”?] are two examples of a BLOOD TYPO. This is a play on “blood type.”At 28A, [Odysseus vis-à-vis Ulysses?] is the SAME HERO, because Ulysses is just a Latinized version of Odysseus. Here, the joke is subtler: It’s playing on a figure of speech, “same here.”We’ve just witnessed a brilliant illusion, and it’s explained by the phrase “Presto CHANGO!” (23D): At 17-, 28-, 41- and 52A, common expressions have their final E’s exchanged for O’s — which I’d suggest is also true of the word CHANGO, even though it’s spelled that way in the dictionary. Shouldn’t it be “change-O,” if anything? Aren’t you, too, compelled to rhyme CHANGO with “mango”?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

Boaz Moser makes his New York Times Crossword debut.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — It didn’t happen often, but on occasion, I used to sit down to solve a Friday puzzle only to discover that the grid contained a theme. That must be a mistake, I thought, with my brow furrowed. Fridays are always themeless puzzles. If the subsequent reader commentary and emails were any way to gauge the reaction to this supposed impossibility, I wasn’t alone in that assumption.I haven’t seen a themed Friday grid in a while, and while Boaz Moser’s debut for the New York Times Crossword does not actually contain a theme, I thought it did when I started solving. I have to admit, I got a little excited at the prospect of solving something a bit different.I originally thought Mr. Moser’s grid contained a theme was because of 1D and 26D. The two entries have twin clues and synonymous answers. They are both on the perimeter of the puzzle, which has been used as a place to “hide” theme entries, as this 2003 crossword does.Alas, that’s as far as today’s theme-that-was-not-a-theme goes, but no matter. Mr. Moser’s puzzle is packed with fun and unique entries, and I am looking forward to seeing more from him, theme or no theme.Tricky Clues1A. The “jackknives” in [What jackknives can help to carve] are exercises, not actual carving tools. They look like this and target, among other muscle groups, the ABS.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