"Here's looking at you, kid"? leading to MAA is one of the worst clues that has ever been in the NYT crossword. Utter rot.
I honestly do not understand the hate heaped on this puzzle from a few hours ago. It was different, original, novel, a new experience - pick your descriptor - and fun to solve! I can not imagine the effort that goes in to making something like this work. Please, Mr. Sclossberg, do not be discouraged by some of the comments that you read here. A lot of us LOVED this puzzle and welcomed a new twist on the usual Sunday fare.
@NYC Traveler I agree. (From 'Now in Lafayette, CO')- 10 miles from Boulder
@NYC Traveler I loved the puzzle (wow! that took a ton of design and planning!) but was annoyed with the online experience and instructions--I was "twisting" the letters as I finished each lock, so I couldn't understand why my puzzle was coming out as incorrect. It wasn't until I went back and untwisted all of them that it worked!
Just returned from a two week trip which included a trip to Dallas. Two highlights in Dallas- 1) great view of the eclipse, which has the same number of letters as TRANSIT, so that took a while to fix 2) my nephew subscribes to the print edition of the NYT, so I solved the word in pen rather than computer for four days. Loved it-Nostalgia. I enjoyed this puzzle but had added time because I was 100% sure that the Portugal export was cork. In any case, since I didn't do the puzzle for a few days, I am starting a new streak on the first day of my 87th year on planet Earth.
@coloradoz A very Happy Birthday to you and many more! Enjoy your new streak of 12,045 that's started today. All the best always to you!
How about a shout-out to Joel Fagliano? Here's a baseball metaphor for y'all. Imagine what it might be like to be an early career relief pitcher called in from the bullpen to replace Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax. Pretty daunting assignment. That's the crossword equivalent of what Joel is doing. Along with the team, he's producing terrific work under what must be trying circumstances. We all hope to see Will Shortz back in The Big Chair soon. Will, if you're reading: we're all rooting for your return to good health! But this is no slight to Joel's great work filling in for you. My two cents. Happy Sunday.
@RI guy Your two cents were well spent, RI guy. Hear hear!!
@RI guy Agree, to a certain degree. Methinks Mr. Fagliano has been on an all-star team for quite some time. Maybe he's more like Rollie Fingers at this point in the game? If Will was put out to pasture, and needed a closer, Joel would be my "hammer of God, Mariano Rivera!
@RI guy While I too pray Shortz recovers, we must realize he may be wanting to retire at this point, as he is 71 (I retired ten years earlier than that. A body gets pooped, even if one loves their job). He has given us many years of puzzle joy, for which I'm grateful. Meanwhile, Fagliano is doing a great job.
After 45 minutes staring at the puzzle, painstakingly checking every single clue, I give up, click on the info icon at the top in hopes that the wordplay blog has some insight, and only then discover that there is a setter's note. A crossword with un-crossed blocks, inscrutable without some additional explanation? Next time give me the explanation first please. My "error", of course, was that "Block (up)" can be both DAM and JAM.
@MattS It took me an age to find that too.
MattS, The squares are not crossed, but they are checked. That "dial" needed a 180 degree rotation to put O at the top. Thus, the first letter of 104A had to make a word as the last letter of 103A. LOAJ isn't a word; LOAD is.
@MattS This is where the puzzle gimmick helps you: if you mentally rotate the inner letters, that "J" or "D" has to make another word. That cleared up the choice for me.
Once again, too clever by half. Cute, sorta, but anyway not very helpful for the solve, and not rewarding even at the end. Meh.
I cannot even *imagine* the brainpower required to construct a crossword as sophisticated as this. What I particularly enjoyed was that, after getting the grid filled in, I had a mistake but the *theme* saved the day. I went around, lock by lock, and in the bottom left, I had JAM, meaning that 103A would, upon rotation, become LOAJ. A quick JAM to DAM, and JACKPOT! I love it when a plan comes together, and I love Dr. Schlossberg's puzzles, can't wait for the next one!
@MP Rogers Ditto! All that, AND Michael Schlossberg gave us a pangram crossword! Xword Info reports only "2.9% of Modern Era daily crosswords are pangrams."
@MP Rogers That was exactly my experience as well! DAM the jam, lol. I'm very impressed by the construction of this puzzle, and enjoyed doing the mental gymnastics to figure out the rotating dials. I'm sorry to read that some were frustrated by the theme, it was actually a lot of fun and one of my faster Sunday solves.
Suggestion: Until things get worked out in the editing department, don’t do puzzles as gimmicky as this. The puzzle itself actually had some terrific cluing and hats off to the constructors: three months ago this might have been a gem. But me, I just followed (I think? How would I know?) the “instructions” and am still apparently not done. Do I want to spend more time on it? This feels more like troubleshooting my WiFi than doing a crossword puzzle. Maybe it’s time for me just to let go and drop my streak.
Random thoughts: • What a remarkable mind to come up with this concept! Turning a puzzle into a safe with knobs that have to be turned into the right position, and figuring out a payoff for when the safe opens up. This is a mind with a fertile imagination. • What a build! The nuts and bolts of translating this concept into a working grid – coming up with the dials, getting each dial to create two and only two positions that work with the surrounding letters. Oh, the constrictions! Oh, the experimentation that had to be done to make it work! This took admirable skill and fortitude. • Thus, a puzzle with art and science behind it. • All this is for naught, however, if not in service to the solver, if it is not satisfying to solve. I found areas that filled in easily, spiced up with some knotty spots that got my brain to sit up and get cracking – a combination I savor. I also found the theme in service to my solve, where mentally turning those knobs confirmed an answer, or gave me a letter I needed. I love standard wordplay themes, but I also love seeing the envelope pushed – when it works. And work it did for me today. This was a delight, Michael. Thank you, and I greatly look forward to what you will come up with next!
What the puzzle note said: "Standing between you and the score of a lifetime are the seven locks of this safe. After completing this puzzle, rotate each dial 90°, 180° or 270° to the only other position that forms four valid crossword answers. The new letters in the 12 o’clock (circled) positions will spell out an appropriate exclamation. What the reality was: "There is nothing standing between you and the puzzle solution, not even the seven locks of this safe. After completing this puzzle, there is a sketchy and inconsistent code that will rotate each lock automatically to another position that forms four valid words that have nothing to do with the crossword clues or answers. No mental effort is required on your part. The new letters in the 12 o’clock (circled) positions will spell out an exclamation, which is, at best, tangential to the supposed theme."
Reading the comments, I can now see where there was a divide between those of us who assumed the rotations would be done in our heads to get to the secret word, and those who were led to believe the letters needed to actually be turned around to reveal the secret word. This seems to be a case of a very unfortunate glitch in the instructions which betrayed a lack of absolute clarity. This is truly unfortunate since the puzzle itself, and the constructor's conceit and execution, are sheer genius. Mistakes will happen, of course, as they did with the instructions. Still, I'm very sorry for Dr. Schlossberg that his creation suffered for this, and my heart goes out to those who did the switcheroo manually only to have to undo it. As a side note, a shout-out to the tech team for the brilliant final display. It would have delighted everyone, had it been allowed its pow without any prior frustration. As for those who've resorted to expressing gripes using anger and attacks, I marvel at a puzzle taking center stage in your emotional life, and concurrently cringe at the poison you spew. I wish you peace and perspective, for your sake and for the sake of this forum as well.
Something different - a twist to the Sunday solve! Mayhaps the graphics put a DAM in your solving mojo? Alas, from the tone of some early posters, the more things change, the more they stay the same . . . . and so, cue another volcanic episode of, "I didn't get it, so it's _______" : ▪︎ wrong ▪︎ bad ▪︎ stupid ▪︎ confusing ▪︎ a waste of time Of course, there's the dreaded beast that chews into your mother lode of crossword ORE: ▪︎ a STREAK breaker! (Streaks are for windows and exhibitionists, kids) Michael let it roll, and his grid was a JACKPOT with MOI. 😉
@Whoa Nellie Sigh, and once again the false claims that anyone who finds a puzzle poorly done just couldn't complete it or understand it. ("I didn't get it".) This is why I don't frequent the forum. Many of us GET the puzzle, finish the puzzle without issue ,and get the theme. We just find it all really badly done. This one was the the ugliest and most boring in recent memory. I finished it quickly and my streak is fine. The puzzle stank.
So, if you move SOME letters (negating the clues) it can...spell out a phrase? Kind of? And said phrase has to do with cracking a safe? I guess??? What a lame gimmick, a boring execution and an overall dull puzzle. Schlossberg, Fagliano? Color me 28 Across.
@David O Selznick The instructions in the puzzle note were very clear. You rotate the locks 90,180 or 270 degrees to spell different words (and only one position works). When you do so the position spells JACKPOT, which is certainly what you might say after cracking a safe in a heist. There are a lot of legitimate reasons to dislike this puzzle but unclarity about the theme or its construction shouldn’t be one of them. Unless you don’t read the puzzle notes but honestly unless you are completely new to NYT crosswords you should always go there first on a Sunday especially when you see a gimmicky grid like this.
@David O Selznick I found the puzzle fascinating. Lots of fun. A fresh idea. Your comments seem out of place for the puzzle I did.
When the instructions say, "After completing this puzzle rotate each dial …” you are saying you need to complete the puzzle AND THEN there will be one more step to solve. But NO. At least in the app, on an iPhone, you cracked the code for me. I didn’t ask you to do that! As soon as I saw the grid, and read the instructions, I was looking forward to cracking the code. But I didn’t get the pleasure of doing that. Great construction, poor app execution. 😔
Looked like fun, but this one fell flat for me in the end. I thought I had to rotate the "locks" manually, then didn't manage to get the letters all back in the right spaces and spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out which letter was wrong. If a puzzle is going to include an unchecked letter segment, it needs clear instructions to avoid miscues and avoidable frustration.
Ok, I got it and it was my fault. After many comical attempts at turning the safe locks, I checked the puzzle for the millionth time and, voila, there was a typo! I had crog for CROW! The 🎶 played and then the locks started turning! Gimmicky but fun! Of course I was spoiled for choices for 62D, “Noted export of Portugal.” I put port but that seemed to be wrong for the clue. Of course it is TILE. If you are ever here, I recommend going to the Tile Museum in Lisbon. Since it’s so deeply part of the culture here, a museum dedicated to tile is anything but boring. It follows tile production back nearly 1,000 years to modern designs. I live in a very Portuguese house, and there are tiles everywhere. The whole kitchen, every bathroom, the floors, the walls — all tile. The other floors are also tile. They commit to a material! The house is cool in the summer and retains heat from the fireplaces in the winter. Good thinking, Portuguese! Feliz domingo!
I’m completely confused. Are we supposed to turn the clues in the puzzle? It won’t work for me, and I haven’t heard the happy music yet.
@Alex Kent Agree. I can't figure out on my laptop how to "rotate the dial." Help is appreciated!
@dadof2wizards they rotated automatically for me when I entered the final correct letter.
@ nrk. Thanks but I’m giving up. I’ve spent far too much time going over the whole grid and can’t find anything wrong. Bust my streak. But I have better things to do than worry about these stupid puzzles.
My least favorite activity is working hard to solve the puzzle, including figuring out how to rotate the dials to get JACKPOT. And then wasting 2-3 hours looking for an error or a typo, finding none. And then in desperation going back to the original configuration (not giving JACKPOT) and finally get the win. I like rebuses and tricky clues and all challenges. This gimmicky grid was too cute by half, and very annoying.
Mr. Schlossberg- if you are reading the negative comments, take heart. Even Aaron Judge, among the best players of the New York Yankees in recent years, got booed by the home crowd yesterday. It is human nature to diss something you don't like but not so much to praise it if you like it. Therefore, I think there are thousands, like me, who enjoyed your puzzle. Looking forward to more puzzles from you.
@coloradoz Yeah, I thought it was a ton of fun. Really clever. Having said that, I’ve solved the trick correctly but have an error somewhere else so haven’t finished. Wondering if it matters whether the “locks” need to be in their open or shut state.
coloradoz, Amen ... and happy birthday! Emus are not indigenous to Iowa
I'm feeling a bit deflated by this one, although I'm sure it was fun for those more intelligent than I am. Gimmick aside, I found it very tricky and there weren't enough accessible clues to help me guess the trickier ones by their crossings, especially in the North/Central region. I was driven to the interwebs for answers, which I prefer not to have to do. Así es la vida.
This is the kind of genius in the idea and execution departments that simply blows me away. How is it even possible? And, no, I didn't have an easy time with certain sections of the fill, nor did I breeze through the puzzle. The jAM/DAM mistake got me good and I had to check puzzle to find it, so I didn't get the gold. But what I did get? Precious jewels. Pouring out of the safes when they were opened. Oozing from all over this puzzle. Precious jewels everywhere. The rotation of the dials to create four new words which then, on top of it all, clicks JACKPOT into place is an extraordinary feat. And I'm in awe. Bravo, Dr. Schlossberg, and thank you for your amazing mind!
@sotto voce, I'm in total agreement with you in your praise of this puzzle. It is so important to recognize and acknowledge the outstanding things that we experience in everyday life. I wanted to follow up with you from our lively (for me) conversation of a couple of weeks ago. I did manage to fly to Dallas to see the total eclipse, and it was awesome! For much of the time leading up to totality, the clouds were obscuring the beginning and middle stages of the eclipse (the partial phase), but you could see its progress through the solar glasses as the clouds would part momentarily to reveal the cosmic event taking place, then close again. But I was keeping my eye on a blue patch of sky just to the right of the sun, hoping that it would move into position for us. Sure enough, just as totality was approaching, the sun aligned with the hole in the clouds and we could see it all -- the "diamond ring" effect just before the sun disappeared, the corona streaming out in all directions, the small red dot of a solar flare at the bottom edge, darkness falling over the landscape, and stars coming out around the sun. It was spectacular. Totality lasted for four minutes, which is a very long time for a solar eclipse, and we had a grand view of it all. The experience was made even better by being able to share it with my three-year-old grandson, who dutifully used his solar glasses while it was partial, but who was far more interested in the colorful fish in the nearby koi pond!
The puzzle was great fun, hit the right combination, but no happy music. It is so frustrating when that happens. Problem? I had put JAM instead of DAM (of course, LEAJ made no sense). Anyway, excellent puzzle!
Didn't like it at all. Hardly ever say that. but the lock graphics made it hard to see the boxes to fill. I got the words amiss message but by then my eyes were too tired to go looking for my errors, so there goes my streak!
@lhwp Same here! It was so hard to solve on my phone, and my eyes were so tired that I gave in without checking. Turned out I had just *one* letter wrong. Sigh. A lot of annoyingly small words and vague cluing, and a not very fun pay off at the end of it.
I'm getting my brewed beverages from the vault before I start my day. Safe tea first! (I'll chai to remember this.)
@Mike Best to take not oolong or you'll wind up with a cold cuppa. You could fill a mug and sit on the floor to drink it, if you wanted a Bigelow tea.
@Mike Such an herb-ane comment. Tisane-y body's guess how you come up with these. Must be a steep learning curve. But you always get it in the bag. Steady and teapendable. Newly minted, every day. You might say, you offer a Constant Comment!
When the puzzle has tricky clues I enjoy the challenge! When the puzzle has a new, unusual feature I've never encountered before I enjoy the challenge! When the puzzle has an answer that is different from what I originally thought it was I enjoy the challenge! If I didn't love doing the puzzle every day, I wouldn't do it. I relish the variety and unpredictability of the crossword. Thanks to all involved!
I read the instructions three times before starting but still didn’t understand what I was supposed to do. I decided to try anyway and see how far I got. I ending up solving the puzzle (enjoyably!), but I didn’t really solve it, it seems, and I still don’t understand even after reading the column. Rotate the locks?
@Darcy V If you solved on the app or online, when you complete the puzzle correctly, all the locks will rotate automatically and together they will spell out an exclamation of victory. But you have to make sure that every letter's placement in each word works twice within the lock. For example, 28A solves to BLASE and 29A solves to TARP. The trick is that when you turn the lock (in your mind) 180 degrees, BLASE can be BLAST and TARP can be EARP. Each lock works similarly but at different angle rotation. They all have to spell valid words, though they are not answers for the clue, after turned. So, EARP is not a sheet under a tent, of course, but they have to be valid words. Also, a lot of people mixed up jAM and DAM at 104A, so you might want to check that if you didn't get happy music.
I HATED this puzzle! Stupid clues and an asinine, nonsensical theme.
Yeah no this wasn’t fun for me at all. I don’t do the crossword to get an extra game in the game.
@Julia I don’t either but I usually enjoy it when I do. I probably should add this extra nonsense to get this comment pass the emu filter that sometimes assumes that shorter comments have nothing meaningful to say.
Wow. Crossword puzzles should be challenging without being frustrating. This one fell into the frustrating category. I almost never leave a puzzle unsolved, but with about 75% of it done, I still don't get it. I'm waving the white flag.
Call me Negatron, the anti-poster to the eternally positive Lewis in Asheville, but I found this a very unpleasant puzzle. First off, any gimmick which requires a 53-word preliminary explanation is needlessly complicated and contrived. The grid art--all the circles within circles and shaded squares made it difficult to read, not to mention navigate with a cursor, as I am solving on a laptop. The new words formed from the rotated letters seemed completely random, and, in a dialect where the strings M-A-A and F-O-M-O are Valid Crossword Answers, the whole notion of "validity" is called into question. Why not PBT and JARP? I'm sure I could find a way to clue those: ([To break, as an Easter egg]). By the time I ran the Qwerty at EL_OWL and _OMO (Neither elms nor elk are common in the SW--why didn't I see "elf"?) and got the Happy Music, I was in such a snit I didn't even care about the circled letters. Anyway, the irritating grid art was made all the more irritating by the animation, sorta like the sensory overload I feel when walking through a casino. (Have you ever noticed that the bells on slot machines are all tuned to the same key? If they weren't, the cacophony would drive off even the most addicted gamblers.) To alleviate my mood, I will turn to a 7 minute concerto brought to us by the Jacobs School of Music at IU Bloomington, suggested by two of the entries--but which? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCFnzSCzoYA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCFnzSCzoYA</a>.
Hi Bill, I found the instructions clear and the puzzle very pleasant and relatively easy to solve ... on paper. And I had to rotate the dials myself (and just in my mind), so no irritating animation. Mileage. Or, in this case, medium. Emus.
Oh, for God's sake, please keep gimmicky !#*ery like this to the one day a week that's allotted to it and especially never on a Sunday.
Surprised so many have never heard of INXS: <a href="https://youtu.be/F93ywiGMDnQ?si=tV7hMc-B7N1MTYvB" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/F93ywiGMDnQ?si=tV7hMc-B7N1MTYvB</a> Seems like they have been in the puzzle grid for decades...
I still don’t know what “MAA” means in the context of “HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU KID”, any explanation?
@WillB What a goat says to its offspring....
@WillB Goats say: “maa.” A goat’s child is a “kid.” A goat would say “maa” to its kid.
@WillB - A KID is a young goat. And they say MAA-A-A-A! They might even say it while looking at another KID. Or, a human KID might say MAA while looking at a goat KID.
Caitlin writes: 77D. “Distracted Boyfriend, e.g.” falls into the “if you know, you know” category. Hi Caitlin, I beg to differ. I did not know, but I was quite sure "Distracted Boyfriend" was either a yoga pose or a meme. Only one fit.
@Barry Ancona Oreos stale? Heaven forbid! Emus prefer Hydrox.
The. Worst. Payoff. Ever. Please go back to publishing puzzles for people who like crosswords.
@Dillon Yup. I used to love to start my day with the Times x-word. Now it's a chore. If it weren't for Connections, I'd unsubscribe to Games.
Clever theme, poorly executed because of the limitations of the app. What I don’t enjoy about puzzles like this is that when I complete the grid and it has the inevitable error somewhere, I don’t know if the issue is a typo or that I didn’t execute the theme correctly. In the case of today, I thought, “Oh I actually need to spin the dials to the alternative answers.” So l dutifully changed every square. No love. So I combed the rest of the grid for errors, found and fixed them. Still no love. So I then reverted every single theme square back to the original solve. Finally, my Gold Star. But I had to do all that work to find out there’s essentially no theme that I need to concern myself with.
I had a mistake in my grid, but assumed I needed to twist the dials manually before finishing the puzzle. Thankfully that error actually revealed my error DAM not GUM. Have to agree the instructions were clear as mud.
@Nom De Plume Thank You. I had JAM, not DAM. I don't like single letter squares that can't be confirmed with crosses. And, if I can still do arithmetic this puzzle had 7x4=28 single square traps. That said, for me the other 27 were straightforward. Now I return to twisting the locks.
Even before reading the Constructor Notes, it was clear to me this puzzle took a lot of time and effort to construct. And I appreciate the time and effort it took. Thank you, Michael. I wish it had taken me a bit more time and effort to solve.
@Barry Ancona BTW as you recommended I try a number of puzzles pre internet, and I found them to be considerably easier later in the week than they are now.
I have already commented on today's puzzle and then worked on an archived one. And I am back here to say that I immediately put down OLLIE for "Skate park trick!" Huzzah!! While this has probably been a gimme for many of you for a long time, it was a first for me! I could fill a skate park with all the things I don't know about skate parks and their tricks! But my crosswordese file in my brain seems to be expanding! I didn't even have any crossings, it was on my first go round! Again, I say huzzah!! Thank you for letting me briefly interrupt your praising or commiserating of today's puzzle, whichever way your mileage varied, with my unrelated joy. 😊
So I solved all the clues (bottom center was the hardest) and rotated the locks as suggested. Then I went through each clue again looking for mistakes. Then I checked the answer key and I had no mistakes. Then I realized I wasn’t supposed to rotate the letters myself and had to un-rotate them to get to solve.
@logical That sounds like what happened to me. Very frustrating because I had a mistake elsewhere in the grid that I didn’t catch until after I rotated the letters.
Thoroughly enjoyed this humdinger of a puzzle! The clever rotational component helped me solve some clues I otherwise would have been stymied by. Kudos to the creator!
These gimmicky concepts ruined my streak. I solved the puzzle using the online system and triple checked my answers but STILL was told I had incorrect entries. I edited my entries in the tumblers several times - not rotating them and then rotating them - along with comparing my other answers to the solution but with no success. I went to bed last night frustrated by it all. This morning, I attempted to resolve the matter but with no success. I finally had the software “check” my puzzle and, surprise, ALL of the letters in the tumblers were marked “wrong” even though they matched the answer key perfectly. If a puzzle’s cheesy gimmick doesn’t function across the platforms provided by the Times, then don’t publish it. Really disappointed by this weekend’s Sunday puzzle. Far too cute.
I just can't. A couple of months now since I interrupted my 2K NYT crossword streak, and with each passing day since, I'm grateful that I have broken free and no longer feel the pressure to solve all of them, that I can - without any sense of guilt - skip over the losers like this one. Happy solving, suckers!
@Ethan, Such a weird and misanthropic comment. I don’t bear you any ill will for giving up because the puzzles are too hard for you. But why would you call the rest of us who like to do them (and evidently are more skilled) “suckers”???
Ethan, I am happy for you that you no longer feel compelled to attempt puzzles that don't look appealing to you. But since you chose not to attempt the puzzle, I am amused by your evaluation -- albeit brief -- of its merits.
@Ethan Suckers? Guess your mileage varied. I enjoyed figuring it out, but, hey, to each their own. Hope you enjoy the next one! (P.s. I too found giving up my streak liberating, but I suspect for different reasons.)
My least favorite kind of puzzle is when I don't know if I'm getting an error because I have an answer wrong or if I'm missing some trick in how to enter the letters. I didn't know if I had to rotate the dials to get the success message, or if I had a letter wrong. Turned out the latter but I wasted a lot of time trying to move those dials before I caught it.
@Carol Yes! That’s exactly why I don’t like this type of puzzle theme too.
Can someone please explain the answer to 49D?
@SLS I believe the “kid” addressed in the clue is a young goat. Hence their response, a goat-bleat maa
@SLS MAA would be something that a nanny goat says to their offspring — a “kid”, as it were. It got it by the crosses and had a forehead slap afterwards.
15 minutes more or less to solve the puzzle. 15 minutes more to figure out why I wasn’t getting a gold star. I read the note halfway through solving because I hadn’t figured out what the keyholes were about. I interpreted the note as saying that I had to move the letters around each keyhole myself, so I painstakingly switched them out and got the 28 new words and the magic word JACKPOT. What I didn’t get was the gold star. In my first pass through the grid to reorient the keyholes, I noticed I had misspelled AGASSI. Fixing that didn’t help, possibly because by that time, my C CLEF had become a V CLEF. Finally, on my third time through changing the letters around the keyholes, I hit the correct combination. (Some appear to be the original letters, e.g MEME rather than MEMO; some appear to be the new letters.) I still don’t whether if I hadn’t misspelled AGASSI whether the keyholes would have automatically rotated to the correct position to spell JACKPOT. (If the rotation was supposed to be automatic, what’s the point of the note telling the solver to “rotate each dial”?) This is a clever concept that I am sure was challenging to construct. But either bad programming or a poorly written note made it the most frustrating puzzle I’ve done in months.
@Eric Hougland In the Android app, the rotation is automatic with a correct solve. Some of the ios people seem to be reporting that you need to close and reopen the app for it to start. Don't know if that applied to everyone.
@Eric Hougland I agree. It seemed very clearly to require some action of rotation on my part which I tried and tried. Apparently I had one letter off somewhere when I “finished” because it didn’t solve. So I did the moves. Then went back. Then the moves. And finally, after over an hour, it worked. Unnecessarily confusing I think.
@Eric Hougland Same here - I rotated all the letters myself (a challenge for my short-term memory!) and didn't get the happy music. Reviewed all my answers and couldn't see anything wrong. I gave up and looked at the answer key, which showed the original, pre-rotated letters. Went back and moved them all around again (another short-term memory challenge) and got the prize. Cute gimmick but I agree, the note should have been clearer.
If you are going to have 28 (!) clues that can only be solved in one direction, you’d better make sure that there aren’t two possible solutions to any of them! 104 Across, Block (up) can be solved either as JAM or DAM. And if you are unfortunate enough to choose the former, good luck figuring out why the puzzle won’t solve. This one goes into the category of more annoying than fun.
@Murphy Shea exactly what happened to me - took me ages to figure it out, and the only way to know is that rotating it gives LOAJ instead of LOAD. Really frustrating, more than nullified whatever minimal fun I might have gotten from the theme.
@Murphy Shea. Thank you for the help. Couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting the solve.
@Murphy Shea Same here, what a struggle! I guess it’s a bit like trying to pick a lock, though: fiendishly trying! Got there in the end, but…
Loved it!!! EXCEPT that I didn't get the win with the letters rotated! That was annoying.
Loved this puzzle! It was a bit of a beast but in a fun, rewarding way. I'm still not understanding 49D "Here's looking at you, kid"? Why MAA? Is it a mother reference or a goat reference or maybe both? I got it from the crosses but it's just not clicking for me.