Keep It Simple Please

Nah

It's nice to have a challenging puzzle without any gimmicks. Keep it up please.

I found it a bit easy for a Wednesday. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the puzzle for June 12th to revolve around dads since that is the anniversary of my own dad's passing. A nice way to remember him and his jokes and quirks. Thank you.

All this time I thought we were working on crossWORD puzzles. Between Sudoku and Kenken, NYT has enough number puzzles without infringing on the crossWORD puzzle.

Not my cup of tea.

If I didn't read the blog, I wouldn't have had any idea what the gimmick was. Even so, this was an easy puzzle especially for a Thursday and I finished with one of my fastest times.

I found this tedious. I never got the gimmick until I read the blog. Oh well.

I don't like rebuses and I don't watch movies so I faced a double whammy. After a slow slog. I finally finished. Not one of my favorite puzzles.

I should have STOPPED earlier, but I kept GOing. That's 16 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Reading the comments, it seems a number of solvers are wasting time trying to figure out what to put in for the gimmick to work. What fun is that?

Well, that seemed easy for a Friday puzzle especially the clues for the longest answers.

It was nice to have a puzzle without gimmicks.

I'm not big on gimmick puzzles and this one did nothing to change my mind.

A very fast solve for me -- less than half my average solve time for a Thursday puzzle. Even so, I had no idea what the gimmick was until I read the blog.

Never got thr gimmick. Even so I found this to be a pretty easy puzzle.

Not a favorite of mine. Too many seemingly made up words ,(e.g. YHEAR, IZZATSO, etc. Spent too much time trying to figure out Latin phrases. Still, I finished in less than average time.

Well. That was a cool breeze.

Not too hard for a Friday puzzle. Finished six minutes faster than my average. Still, I found it enjoyable.

Gimmicks are never good. This was worse than most.

I detest rebus puzzles, but this one ate the pizza for me. I hated it. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out the answers, which I wrote down on a piece of paper, and then over 30 minutes to figure out how to cram them into the grid. No fun at all.

I guess I'm too much of a simple-minded literalist. I solved the puzzle in my average time, but without reading the blog, I would never have guessed what the theme was.

Another gimmick which I never caught onto until I had solved the puzzle using all the other clues. Sheesh.

Either I'm getting better or the puzzles are getting easier. I lean toward the latter. Yesterday was my fastest Wednesday puzzle ever. Today is my fastest Thursday puzzle -- even faster than yesterday. I'm expecting a monstrously difficult puzzle upcoming.

Easy for a Thursday. I could do without the cutesy clues.

Tikely and not too difficult, but extremely difficult to see on my phone. My eyes are aching.

I solved this quickly without ever discovering the trick. This still does nothing to make me a fan of rebuses and other trick puzzles.

I finished without ever figuring out the gimmick even though I wasted a lot of time trying to do so. If I didn't read the Wordplay, I never would have had a clue as to the gimmick. There were a lot of "normal" clues that were interesting, but, all in all, I'm still not a fan of gimmicks.

That probably was the easiest Sunday puzzle I have ever completed - less than half my usual time. Maybe it was an early Christmas present. Even so, I enjoyed it.

This puzzle while clever was distressing for people with visual impairments.

Well, that was easy. My fastest time ever for a Wednesday puzzle.

I wasted so much time trying to figure out how to enter the responses to the trick clues. Puzzles like this only serve to enforce my hatred of puzzles with tricks and rebuses.

Yuck. Just another sad puzzle that was easily solved with the crossing clues. No need to waste time trying to figure out the twisted premise.

I had some difficulty at first with the northeast corner, then it clicked, and I got my fastest Friday solve. And, no gimmicks. Yeah.

I solved this puzzle very quickly even though I didn't get the gimmick until I read the blog.

I solved in my usual time without ever catching on to the gimmick. Ugh.

Seems easy for a Thursday puzzle. Caught the gimmick rather quickly so I finished in much less than my average time

I got through this one in a little bit better than average time. Figuring out what to enter for the rebus boxes took the most time. This puzzle only served to reiterate my dislike of rebuses.

It's sad that it took more time to read the blog and decipher the gimmick than it took to solve the entire puzzle without ever discovering the gimmick.

I'm not a fan of gimmick puzzles, but the revealing clue gave it away early on and then I knew how to cram in the answers I had known but didn't know how to fit.

Sadly, I took longer to do this puzzle than last Sunday's puzzle. And, now that I'm done, I still don't get the gimmick. Sigh.

An enjoyable puzzle without all the gimmicks. Able to finish in half my average time.

Even after reading the blog, I still don't get the purpose of the grey shadowed boxes. Despite that, I solved in better than average time.

This seemed to be easy for a Thursday puzzle. Even so, I still don't like rebus puzzles. Just a personal preference.

I had no clue to the gimmick until the app flashed up with the answer. No fun at all.

At first look, I panicked. But, in the end, I finished in half my average time. And, there were no gimmicks! Yeah!

Relatively easy for a Friday. And no gimmicks. Yeah!

Thank goodness this was an easy puzzle to solve straight up because I only got the gimmick by reading the blog afterwards. The weird shapes in the gird, as seen on my phone, only served to hurt my eyes.

I kept looking for a theme, but I guess there isn't one. I'm just happy to have solved in a better than average time.