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@matthew I agree with two out of three of these…however, as a person who plays games I definitely would say BOSS FIGHT and not BOSS BATTLE (and have many times!). My only issue with this puzzle was “AMUCK”. My brain went AMOK when I saw that!
My only question was, what the heck is “gnar”?? I looked it up afterwards. I thought it was meant as a sound effect, but it is actually a word. See what you learn? :-)
Not a fan of this one. It was okay but too much niche knowledge on the crossing answers in places. Also would have preferred that the magnet answers were actual words instead of the random collection of letters making the end of a word; that would have been more elegant at least, and at a minimum a crossword should only have words not letter jumbles.
This was very hard. Of course Saturday is expected to be hard but this was a bit much. It was the nature of the hardness, I think. Way too many cultural niche items. It gave me flashbacks to the Eugene Maleska crosswords of old, honestly.
@Ken Burk I didn’t know “sinter” but I guess I do now! A couple of answers seemed a little obscure for a Sunday solve but they were guessable from the crossings so I will chalk it up to learning something new to keep in mind for future puzzling. After all that’s how we get better at these.
Overall, just meh. The gimmick didn’t seem to have much of anything to do with the puzzle itself, so there isn’t any “aha!” once the puzzle is solved.
@Francis Try googling the NATO alphabet, in which each letter of the alphabet is assigned a word for clarity in communication as many letters sound similar when spelling a word (ie. is it S or F? B or D?) A = alpha B = bravo C = Charlie Etc., including G = Golf. So, according to the “trick”, it has to be “Golf” course because Golf = G in the NATO alphabet. I liked this puzzle, actually.
This was a fun puzzle. I learned how old I am though…77 across was completely new to me; it was the last word/letter of the puzzle for me and I laughed out loud sitting by myself in my living room. Perfect!
Not a fan of this one. It’s rare that I end up not caring about finishing it, especially when I was only about ten squares or so away. I got the across roundabout gimmick easily enough but I didn’t quite get the way the down roundabouts were supposed to go. Ultimately I gave up and looked up an answer in the northeast quadrant and then it finally came to me and I was able to finish the rest. I guess this one just wasn’t for me, for a number of reasons.
Not my favorite, but I didn’t hate it. It seems I am alone in that; everyone in the comments section seems to have loved it. I figured out the rebus part, though I was in the dark about it being the fourth square so I didn’t understand where the consistency was with the rebuses. That was what I found a little frustrating. Just a me thing, I guess. Perhaps I am just grouchy today and need to eat my breakfast. Now that I have read the column, I can fully appreciate the elegance of the construction though.
@Aaron P. Yes, I was taken aback when I saw that Iago was there twice. It made me doubt myself, actually, whether I was really so certain that they were correct. But that freed my mind for allowing that other answers might be duplicated too and the rest is history!
I finished without getting the theme until I read the article…very tricky, sir! I like it!
Loved this one! Very creative! A good Sunday vibe. Thanks
@Michael Muscato I feel your pain, as a person of a certain age who has no grandchildren I have no idea what the new slang is. I guess this is our means of staying “hip”
The theme is fine if you are of the right age group, but otherwise I think it’s a bit niche. I finished it without knowing the theme until I read the article, so that’s fine, but part of the enjoyment of the Sunday puzzle is figuring out the theme. I’ll give this one a “meh” but just because it’s more for my (adult) kids’ age group than mine.
I very much enjoyed this puzzle but I never did figure out the trick. I was trying to mix up the designated letters a bit too much, I think. Another “trick” to stash away for future reference!
@Tom I would respectfully disagree about the adult themed stuff. The entry you specifically referenced was a result of the theme but I guess I can see your point there from a certain perspective. I found it mildly amusing and I would guess it would garner a bit of a snicker from most kids, not much more. Other than that I am not sure I have ever noticed anything. Certainly any child old enough to do this crossword is plenty old enough to know/read/be aware of anything I can remember contained within this or any other NYT crossword.
@RG The puzzles include all kinds of current social references. As a member of the “boomers” if someone says “okay boomer” it’s annoying but having it in the puzzle, and even clued that way, would be fine. It exists, that’s all, and it’s not a slur. It may be a little disrespectful and annoying, but so is calling someone a twerp and I’ll bet that has been in the NYT puzzles before.
I’m not a fan of the cryptics actually. I finished this one with really no clue what the trick was though. I used to like Thursdays but lately the tricks aren’t really working for me…I used to like the Aha of figuring it out but now it’s more like a facepalm and an Ugh.
@Steve L. I was singing the song in my head as soon as I saw the clue…and I still am. Why can I remember lyrics from a TV show theme song from decades ago but half the time I have to check my watch to find out what day it is? (Don’t answer that!)
Not my favorite Thursday. I got stuck in the upper right and I didn’t get the theme even once the puzzle was done until I came here. I guess my overall feeling is that the puzzle was the right difficulty for Thursday but I was a bit underwhelmed by the theme once I knew what it was.
@Kelly H maybe short for “lavatory” - that’s what I always thought. We never called it that though, certainly not in middle school!
@Francis Personally I would not consider this one a rebus in the strictest crossword puzzle sense of the word - I think of a rebus in a crossword as using squares containing more than one letter, not a meaning substitution like this one is or some other similar “trick”.
@dan I did too. Don’t worry, you’ll get there someday. :-)
@SmirkMorgan that’s something that maybe should be fixed in the app but it’s not a problem with the puzzle itself. I do mine on my iPad and there is a rebus button to choose. There needs to be a place where you can look up how to do this function if there are going to be rebuses.
@Renegator I think the point is, the preference is that the answer make sense with “red” in the puzzle - it might not answer the clue that way but at least it is composed of actual real words or phrases.
@Joe yes, this happened to me. I am using an iPad so I wonder if it’s just a technical glitch. I got the idea, though. I hardly ever encounter technical glitches like this so I don’t really mind today.
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