J.

This was indeed a beautiful puzzle. I appreciate the challenge of creating a crossword that has only ONE L - no more, no less - for every single answer, and I love how deceptively effortless this appears. Kudos to you, Marshal with one "L," for an admirable first appearance, and I hope we see more of your work in the future. Well done.

I'm just happy to have solved the puzzle without exploding! Well played, Aidan!

I thoroughly enjoyed the clever wordplay in this week's puzzle. Thank you for the opportunity to flex my mental muscles. More like this, please.

I've been a gamer almost all my life. I played some of the Mario games on NES but never was any good at them (which is why I got PRINCESS PEACH almost instantly but I never made it to BOWSER'S CASTLE). Still, I finished 15 minutes earlier than usual. Kudos to the constructor for a cute, fun puzzle! Also, if you didn't like this week's entry, you might be a SNOOT...

Very well done! It wasn't a difficult solve with the cluing and given the "Escape Room" theme, that was enough of a giveway that there was a puzzle within a puzzle. I solved in a half hour but the only clue I missed was "under the sea (c)." But by that time, it was obvious what the third letter was. Fiendishly clever and enjoyable! I hope to see more like that in the future.