D

Pretty shocked to learn that the constructor used AI to create this puzzle (though, it definitely confirms my suspicions on some past puzzles). ChatGPT and all AI is a blight, a total wreck on the environment, and a marker of lazy (yes, LAZY) puzzle-making. Yall will defend it, stay mad. I don’t care how much or little someone used AI to create their puzzle. It shouldn’t be allowed and NYT standards should be higher. All for a middling puzzle. Pass.

Love Nick Offerman. Appreciate the work done by Christina Iverson. This puzzle largely Wasn’t It™️ The theme was inane and its answers were largely unsolvable on their own merit (heck, even with the crossing clues, how was one meant to decipher some of those). And before you comment, dear readers — hi, yes, I’m sure you had no problem. Cookie for you. It’s still bad. :) LIBRA is a CRAZY answer for that clue. Scale works much better. That whole middle top box felt largely impenetrable. Again, hi, hello, you want another cookie? The majority of this was fine, if a little uninspired. But the lows lowed for me in a way that the highs never highed. 🍪🍪🍪

Lots of proper nouns and awkward answers made this a puzzle full of naticks. Generally unpleasant experience and a poor start to the week.

I think the nice way of saying what I want to say here is the constructor and I were "on another wavelength." Maybe even other planets, galaxies, etc. This was miserable for me. A total slog that BURIED me early on and I felt like I was fighting for my life with every letter I had to run through the alphabet. Many words and phrases that are not a part of my daily lexicon or that have been so deeply in the cabinets of my brain that the BEES have decided they could build a nest there. Again, just not on the same page with Ms Joyce. However, I really don't have many DINGs for this one. I thought it was a really tight, well-made puzzle. I personally didn't find the clues as intuitive as some others seem to have but I thought they were clever enough. To see that this is a debut makes it extra impressive. I guess if I could offer any critique, it would be that making two of the longest entries in the puzzle celebrity names (no matter how well-known you believe them to be, dear reader) is a choice -- good or bad, your call. I think it's a bad one. I'm still not sure I understand MACS. Alas. It's a Friday. I didn't solve it without a multitude of help. (Seriously, can we rework the "Tricky Clues" section to include some of the actual tricky clues? And hi, yes I know it's subjective. Save your comment.) Onto the weekend. Ta-ta!

Thoroughly unenjoyable trivia-fest.

This Wednesday-level puzzle really disappointed me, and I think I’m writing this out of that disappointment, so buckle up. This had a lot of problems, which others have already mentioned but I thought I’d throw in my two cents. The difficulty is too hard for a Tuesday, just barely squeezing into the upper limits of what should run on this day. Editorial caught napping again? The revealer was garbage, and I say this as someone whose bibliophilic heart so wanted a good bookish puzzle. The clue is clunky and overly-worded, trying to do far too much. Worse, it just doesn’t make sense. It was inconsistent (not all themed answers could be “halved” as the clue says), and, per the clue, ENDS should be the bookend, right? Why BOOK? Or could it be BOOK and then END after? Is putting a word in front of another word really putting it at the END? It’s a jumbled mess that unfortunately stains the majority of fun in this puzzle. What we’re left with is fill like BRAH OTOH UMHI ASOF AUS ASCII SEEYA AMYS, the list goes on and on… I really really wanted to like this puzzle but I just did not on the whole. But, since this page loves a little positivity, I adored GOOGLEABLE, that blew me away. Honestly, this felt like it needed a couple more minutes in the oven. I’ve expressed my disappointment with editorial in the past, and I fear this is another puzzle that was could have been great but was let down. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. Happy Tuesday!

I’ve bemoaned Thursday tricks before but this was just the worst, most appallingly poor excuse for a puzzle I’ve come across. Let’s please never do this again, eh?

Some cute answers but overall highly tedious. I had more “I guess?” reactions to the fill than feeling satisfied.

I don’t have particularly strong feelings about this puzzle. It’s just there. The theme was cute in theory but wasn’t the most intuitive in execution. Found it to be more of an annoying hindrance than anything, which took away from the enjoyment of its message. The rest just wasn’t very fun? I’m not sure how else to say that other than I just didn’t find this to be an enjoyable experience. Oh well. Happy midweek! PS — can we have a moratorium on including ICE, especially smack dab in the middle of your puzzles? 🙄

Well and truly not worth anyone’s time.

Watching people go in circles tripping over themselves to defend bad cluing is hilarious. This puzzle was garbage.

Very fun puzzle! This is how you do tricks!

Unimpressed with the cluing in this puzzle. For all the lovers out there, let me tell you: difficulty does not equal quality. Hiding your highly-specific clue (that you looked up the day of your constructing) behind a vague, somewhat suggestive clue that may or may not lead your puzzler toward the correct answer makes you a bad constructor. This was a miserable slog of naticks and impossible to achieve answers with a smog of condescension on the part of the creator thick enough to choke on.

Quite shocked by the positive reception to this one. A stockpile of poor cluing and google-able fill made the north half impenetrable, and while the south half felt more doable, still some nasty naticks poked their heads up, grinding progress to a halt. Disappointing when constructors and the editorial team feel such construction is publishable. The usual cheap Thursday tricks are present, unfortunately, and there was no clue or hint how to solve those. A reliance on the Wordplay column to explain your gimmick does not a strong crossword puzzle make, I fear. Once “revealed”, the puzzler is left with no discernible theme, direction, or connection upon which they can hope to figure out the rest of the puzzle. Again, how these get by editorial is beyond me, but my experience has shown many are asleep at the wheel with these things. Chose to reveal the puzzle rather than bumble through it. Critics will say it’s a me problem, and hey, maybe so. I don’t feel the best this morning and my brain hasn’t quite woken up for crosswords. But I couldn’t find it in me to try today when faced with such an uninspiring slog of a puzzle, all things considered.

Really loved this one. I didn’t find the theme a hindrance or a necessity for solving the puzzle but rather a fun addition, exactly what I want them to be. The clues were tricky but largely fair, with a wide range of subjects, but nothing too obscure. I will echo others who ask that onomatopoetic words be left out of these puzzles as there isn’t a standardized spelling for them in several instances. Some may like that level of obfuscation, but I find it a bit too loosey-goosey, if you will, and crossing two of them together was a bit cruel. I did really, really hate the ZEE/ZED clue and found it, on its own, to be nearly impossible to get. That definitely could have been omitted. Overall a fun puzzle! Happy Tuesday!

The SW corner was inappropriately natick-y for a Monday. Otherwise, a fun puzzle!

Cute until the rebus ruined the fun. Some really bad fill. Overall fine, but nothing to write home about.

This was fun! Thankful Santa did not bring the rebus that would have stolen Christmas! 😅 Have a Merry Christmas, all!

I appreciate the work that goes into constructing this puzzle, and I imagine for people who like gimmicks more than puzzles, this will be a thrill. I found it a pretty miserable solving experience. Convoluted tricks over solid crossword hints and answers always lower its score for me. Pass.

Seems I hit a few nerves yesterday with my comments. Sorry to say today won’t be much better. Really quite a miserable one, huh? It really is something when a constructor scours Google for random obscure trivia to throw into a puzzle just to make it “harder”. Many of you will defend that, and that’s your choice. I say it’s cheap. Speaking of cheap, we come to the beloved Thursday trickery that so many seem to fawn over. Well, I actually thought today’s was extremely clever, and a neat twist on the crossword idea. Unfortunately, I don’t think it fully worked, as, per usual, the horizontal words were complete throwaways when solving, and, having nothing to do with the written clue, became another sad cheap trick at difficulty. Again, though, I know how many of you like that kind of thing. Finally, the cluing. I found some of it appropriate while some other clues completely mind boggling. Truly not sure what goes on at NYT Games editorial to allow some of these to pass, but I suppose standards can’t always be up to snuff. I look forward to the deluge of comments from the valiant defenders of the NYT Crossword comments section. If I were you, I would take a long look at why you’re so quick to defend mediocrity rather than ask for better.

“Since there are no identifiable theme clues, of course, you’d need some kind of ESP to get this theme very early in your solve, I think.” And “There are two states in each rebus square, which makes the puzzle’s title, “Swing States,” a clever hint (in hindsight, anyway, for me).” Both add some very apt commentary for this puzzle from the column’s write-up. This was HARD. Way too hard for me, and I’m afraid to admit that. But I do think it was hard for the wrong reasons. I just don’t understand rebus puzzles. Fundamentally and personally, I just don’t like them. I don’t find them clever or interesting. I think they’re cheap gimmicks to trick solvers and make them think the constructors are cleverer than they actually are. If you don’t feel that way, that’s okay. I don’t understand them, and I don’t get along with them. I don’t know how you’re supposed to figure them out while you’re solving. It seems like something that only clicks into focus in the rear view. Moving on. I found myself swimming through a lot of this puzzle quite well. I think a lot of the cluing that I managed to get was done well! There was a good mix of attainable answers sprinkled with some really difficult trivia. I think some of the answers felt written by a person of a certain age (TV ROOM anyone?), but I can’t fault them for that. I will be avoiding puzzles by this creator in the future, but of course wish them well. Have a happy Sunday, and some extra cookies from me! 🍪🍪🍪

This was quite enjoyable. The cluing and answers felt mostly fresh and intuitive. For editors and constructors, we can leave out clues like 18A’s Heaps solving as LOTS. It doesn’t present an interesting or fun challenge when this kind of clue is recycled to be LOTS/TONS/ALOT etc. The theme of this puzzle was adorable and made me happy. It wasn’t needed to solve the puzzle but definitely helped, which is exactly what a theme should do, in my opinion. Kudos for that! 🐣 Happy Tuesday!

Going to avoid Saturdays for the foreseeable future. This was miserable and felt like the constructor needed work on his cluing. Pass.

Didn’t care for this. Author relied too heavily on several-word entries and vague trivia for it to be any fun. Ran the alphabet on a majority of the entries. Pass

Difficult for a Tuesday but not in an enjoyable or thought-provoking way. Felt like the constructor was intentionally cluing for one word and then revealed to another in an attempt at being “clever”. Didn’t feel like a satisfying solve.

This was awful. Horrendous fill with a trash gimmick. How is one supposed to figure out these words when they have absolutely no bearing on the clue? Pass.

Too many of you are being dazzled by the construction to realize this puzzle wasn’t all that fun to solve.

FANTASTIC puzzle today!!

Unfortunately a trivia-fest. I get Fridays are themeless but there’s so many specifics in this puzzle. If that’s your jam, have a cookie. Not for me. Got about half way and put it down. Not interested. 🍪👎

Today I had the crossword in one hand, and Google open with the other! Despite the dogpile I received yesterday for my criticisms, readers will be happy to know I enjoyed this a lot! I found some answers questionable, but when won’t I? 😉 Overall this was a strong construction, and an enjoyable experience to solve. The puzzle had some great footholds to get the player started as entryways into the longer clues. Definitely needed! Perhaps a little too much reliance on actor’s names, but I throughly enjoyed the, count ‘em, TWO(!) Shakespeare answers!! So, I’ll take what I can get and leave the actors for Google. 😊 Have a great Friday all!

BEAUTIFUL puzzle today, loved it!! Happy Friday!

As others have said, KAYO and DUNZO are problematic and shouldn’t have been included. I also had a problem with BOY as the answer to that clue. The theme didn’t click for me while playing but was helpful in getting some letters on the board, so that’s nice I guess. Overall not a bad puzzle at all and actually quite enjoyable. Just a few little kinks to work out but, hey, that’s what editorial is for. Happy Wednesday!

A thoroughly delightful puzzle which probably should have run yesterday, but lined up with the constructor’s birthday (HBD!! 🥳🎉). I have two main complaints. As others have said, some of the themed clues didn’t necessarily track with their answers. For me, that was calling Dorothy Gale a queen (maybe she does ascend the royalty in the books? But I’ve never heard that). Second, the NE corner was a mess. Editors, when we need to include three answers from one tiny section into the Tricky Clues section of Wordplay, we might consider reworking something there. Overall a much better experience than yesterday.

Such a fun one today. Some dense cluing made clearer by the intersecting words, just as a crossword should be. Loved this much more than yesterday’s.

Too difficult for a Tuesday. Overall enjoyable!

This was fun. When I saw Iverson I groaned. Not a fan of her puzzles. But liked the pushback this puzzle gave. NYSE, however, is a crazy answer for a Tuesday. And, can we please be done with clues like 27A and 34A? Intentional obfuscation and misdirects are valid for a crossword, but these kinds of answers (ALOT, ATON, AHHS, e.g.) don’t add satisfying difficulty, merely “guess what I’m thinking” Stay warm!

Yikes. What a disaster this puzzle was. Hope others found it more fun than I did. Wishing everyone a prosperous new year!

Kind of shocked we're giving Seinfeld any kind of cultural relevancy in the year 2026, but here we are. This was fine. Not having watched the show, the revealer didn't grab me, and I was able to solve the themed clues on their own merit. Really not sure why we bothered with using Seinfeld as connective tissue at all. I found the top half way more doable than the bottom. Not sure if the two constructors split this puzzle in its creation or what, but I felt that discordant shift at about the halfway point. Not the most elegant construction. The cluing was fun though. A lot of wordplay, a good range of subject matter. Maybe a few too many sports references for my personal taste, but hopefully it appeases those who claim sports clues never make it into these puzzles. The clue for EYE can go, though. Never should have been accepted. Happy Wednesday.