Day: September 9, 2022

Your mom’s home cooking vis-à-vis your mom’s home cooking in exchange for helping her change her online banking password, for example [5]

I don’t know if I’ve ever solved one of this constructor’s CROSSWEIRD puzzles before, and shame on me for that, but this is why I keep telling people to look out for indie puzzles, because they’ve got really hip voices that they’re not afraid to use (or at least, that won’t get misshapenly edited out). This clue in particular is great, hinging on some actual knowledge, of the comparative vis-à-vis, but framed in a very endearing (and not actually repetitive) fashion, especially if you’re from one of those generations where every conversation with your parents might turn you into tech support at any minute. At any rate, the answer FREER is simple, but it’s elevated by the clue, and a good puzzle should always be doing that in at least one of the two directions (fill to clue also works), the occasional bit of unavoidably basic abbreviated glue aside. Other spotlights include Software keys? (5) for SYNTH, the neatly phrased Heaven, at least for seven minutes (6) as CLOSET, and the very nice misdirect of Spot-gaps? (8) for DOG DOORS. In all that, we’ve also got casual references to the Magic WandTM, The Room (You’re tearing him apart, Lisa! (6), one of the only cases where I’m okay shifting from character to an actor who is even more of a character–WISEAU), and modernisms like “How come?” in textspeak (4), which looks like nonsense on the page, but makes perfect sense as Y THO. It’s all just very, very solid and, more importantly, fun.

by Aaron Riccio

Best-selling video game celebrated in this grid [6]

Has there ever been better, more appropriate grid art in a puzzle? I think not. The editorial staff of the New York Times wisely agreed to temporarily suspend their rules on symmetry and extend the normal 15×15 grid an extra four lines, making this technically a 15×19, but with the caveat that there’s only one entry (59D), the themer I mentioned in the title of this post, extending down. Is it unfair to not have four crossing letters? Possibly, but if you’re talking about one of the most popular and well-known video games of all time, starting with TE****; if all of the blocks in the normal grid are tetronominos; if the word itself is completing, by example, the name of the action for filling in four lines at once; if you’ve got three great theme answers “Don’t be a stranger”… or an apt request from a 59-Down player?, Hugely successful film… or an apt description of a 59-Down player?, and Trick of being suddenly nowhere to be found… or an apt description of victory for a 59-Down player? all pointing the way…. (That’d be DROP ME A LINE, BLOCKBUSTERS, and DISAPPEARING ACT.) Rules are made to be broken, and this puzzle’s the perfect example of when and where to do so, in celebration of that six-letter answer TETRIS. Also, it’s worth noting that the rest of the fill and cluing is still rather good, especially this fun Ironic-sounding plot device in “Total Recall” (AMNESIA).

by Aaron Riccio