Charles

front runner for worst puzzle of the year. 26 proper nouns - how is this enjoyable? this isn't SOLVING. this is trivia - sometimes i don't think nyt understands the medium. not to mention SNORRI/GOURDE/YUL/FALA/ICI/SOUSA/ORRIN... what a deeply unserious effort this was.

26 proper nouns. naticks everywhere. the NE corner was a joke. and adding numerals on top of trivia that were poorly clued. this is an all-time disaster of a puzzle. just an absolute slog.

20 proper nouns, most of which are niche, and nearly all of them crossing each other. not only is this not a monday, it's also not a crossword. crossword requires solving. the nytxw continues wandering more towards bar trivia/jeopardy! than what a crossword ought to be. y'all are losing the plot.

really didn't enjoy this puzzle. too many proper nouns, SAHL/SHAH crossing, and i've never heard of NUYORICAN ?!? frustrating to have to do lookups on a tuesday

20 proper nouns, not to mention the additional slang sprinkled throughout. i don't understand why the nytxw continues to move in this direction. trivia already exists. just a truly horrible puzzle. this is not enjoyable.

poor cluing, too many proper nouns. absolute slog of a puzzle.

what a fantastic puzzle - proof that you can create a really neat theme, weave it throughout the entire puzzle [literally all but 2 rows of the grid] and also not be lazy and force a ridiculous amount of proper nouns into the puzzle to 'force' the theme into existence [cough, cough]. bravo, luke - this is top tier puzzling and solving. absolutely top notch.

what in the world was that? what an abomination. changing GREEN to GO is clunky - changing a 'G' to a 'G' is... weird, unsatisfying, not obvious? also, still recovering from STETTED x PITSAWS x TSKTSK x VOCE x SHOD x OHM x NOM x COSEC x URANO x DATS x NOODGE ... can we get back to the majority of puzzles not being trivia and words with 1% usage? this is just another absolute slog that doesn't want to be solved

a tuesday that involves being able to read sheet music, know mandarin, speak yiddish, and understand italian seems... a bit much. the theme is solid but this is not a tuesday.

started off strong, but the SE corner was ... uh... rather brutal. AUNATUREL [?] x MNEMONICS x PARENTESE [?] with 3 trivia clues thrown in led to a section that did not want to be solved. MULLETS are not a part of lesbian culture. RICECOOKER does not use a thermostat. the idea was there, the execution was not...

this was thoroughly not enjoyable. theme was weak, there was no problem solving to work through, just way, way too many obscure clues clustered together. several i looked up i still don't understand. really felt like the creator was trying to prove something that none of us are privy to. Pewit, Uppish, Catsear, Arum, Arikara, Vellum, Errata, Ohm, 1978 movies i've never heard of... also, skorts aren't really worn leisurely. it's really athletic attire only. no one wears skorts outside of the activity.

i value the joy in solving the puzzle... however, each of the 4 puzzles within the puzzle added zero value to solving the next puzzle within the puzzle. there's no ah-ha moment or breadcrumb to go figure out the next item. it's just 4 arbitrary items shoved into a puzzle that was not the best clued, imo. i appreciate the effort it took to create this puzzle, but i feel like there should be more of a payoff for the solver rather than just arbitrary items dropped in.

MELISMA, UNA, OBELI, HUP, RAWR, ESE, DIS, ARO, MOCHI, SHIM, SERA, RAND, ABRA, SIAM, ROSACEA, HEWTO... umm... what are we doing here?!? what an awful puzzle...

one of the worst tuesdays i've seen in a while. DRILY/MOOLA/NERTS/CHIANG/TORME again, far too many proper nouns. it's not fun.

another monday, another round of bar trivia disguised as a nytxw. shoving proper nouns into the puzzle everywhere does not make a theme.

23 proper nouns... when you are working the downs beginning at 10D, of the next 15 clues, 9 of them are proper nouns. then, crossing LOCKE / FRESE / AKERS. one of the laziest nytxws i've seen published.

too many proper nouns killed the fun. it's impossible to solve when you shove this many proper nouns in a puzzle. really didn't enjoy today's effort.

17 proper nouns... i guess this is just becoming trivia now.

Brutal slog of proper nouns that removed any opportunity of getting a toe hold into the puzzle to actually solve this. Another poor effort in the ongoing nytxw obsessive drive towards pub trivia.

Outstanding puzzle w great clues. The ADIN x ADUE x GUNLAP was.... Less than ideal...

this is awful. 20 proper nouns? this is not a serious puzzle. what are we doing here?

i thought the purpose of a puzzle was to be solved. the clues in this are so vague and forced, it's brutal. and that's before even getting to the theme. best case, this is a saturday puzzle. and that's being generous. we really gotta stop forcing so many ideas that are not fully-formed. take some time and work the idea into a solvable puzzle. this is not the way.

AMSTEL x SAHARA x ASAHI x MANOAMANO x SHAOLIN x ANACIN all crossing each other was... a choice. i didn't realize the SW corner was a round of POTPOURRI in Jeopardy! 5 proper nouns crossing each other in 1 corner...

another neat, fun puzzle that gets ruined by way too many proper nouns. AGEE/HECHE/LAHIRI crossing each other really put a black mark on this.

first off, the theme itself is great and deserves applause. however, half the puzzle was outright trivia - there was almost no wordplay and problem solving throughout the puzzle. really frustrating to see a great theme slowly crumble due to the insertion ~30 different trivia clues about inane knowledge. this doesn't belong in a tuesday.

the idea of the puzzle was much better than the execution. the cluing was rather brutal. i enjoyed the puzzle til about halfway through when i was stuck with too many clues that were not well written which forced too many lookups. this needed more time in the editing room before getting published.

outstanding puzzle - the level of effort was incredible but still created a wickedly fun solve. bravo to the creator!!

just an absolutely abysmal puzzle. top L starts with 5 proper nouns all crossing each other. Top R has 3 quotes on top of each other, 2 of which i wouldn't have come up with if given a month, crossed with 'MOT' and another proper noun, then another 15 proper nouns scattered below. impossible to get to the theme when you find yourself unknowingly playing jeopardy!

Incredible puzzle - very fun, required the right amount of effort, and a very enjoyable revealer. Top class!

when the entire revealer and hints require trivia knowledge, the puzzle really loses its sizzle. not to mention a quadruple natick of CAIRO / GRAVITY / ASTOR / STYNE. an absolute slog of a puzzle.

very fun puzzle - great thursday!!

tough monday off the bat - great puzzle that required some effort!

absolutely brilliant puzzle. enjoyed the hell outta this - but like others, having 'SETTLE' over 'METTLE' made me want to throw my computer out the window LOL puzzle of the year nom for sure

i really enjoyed the theme but these clues were real stretches for a tuesday. tincts/aper/natter/ecru?? this felt forced and pushed out the door before it was ready for the limelight. great idea, fell short on execution.

love the puzzle... would love to see a graph of my skepticism and curiousity slowly rise, peak, and then the 'A-HA' moment when the theme began to [blank] in. slow monday for me, but no complaints! great puzzle!!

GALOIS x OCELO x LEASALONGA all crossing is obscene. Anyone with the level of trivia knowledge required to solve this hilariously impossible puzzle without lookups needs to get on J! and become a millionaire. This puzzle belongs in the trash.

charming idea, but this felt very forced. too many weird clues, spanish, japanese, french, trivia, and words that didn't lend itself to solving. what a slog i've never heard of SERIALCOMMA, PILAR [???]

great puzzle until the SW corner. Three proper nouns crossing each other and then the really poor clue for 'LONEEAGLE' when bald makes 100x more sense really ruined that entire corner. Really feels like you gave up in that corner, if i'm being honest.

i actually think the construction is quite good... but to not include any sort of hint or tip is a pretty gross miscalculation. when there are real answers that fit, you end up just frustrating the solver. what an incredibly avoidable and dumb way to ruin what could've been a great puzzle. if i've said it once...... a puzzle should want to be solved. this most certainly did not.

well said, deb. love the intro today!! constructors and solvers should always be embracing the 'growth mindset'

11 instances of a proper noun crossing a proper noun. 25A, a proper noun, has 4 proper nouns crossing it - 80% of the answer! another lazy puzzle.

just an absolute train wreck of proper nouns crossing each other all over the map. this was awful.

another round of bar trivia disguised as a nytxw. 24 proper nouns. i don't get why we keep doing this...

Too many proper nouns crossing which nuked the ability to solve the puzzle... Really liked the cluing but too again way, way too much trivia

somehow i solved the puzzle without ever understanding the theme. the wordplay isn't much help - this seemed like more fun for the constructor than the solver.

my favorite section was where SANDRALEE / ONEILL / ALBEE / NENEH / CORLEONES / NEHI / NERO are all crossing each other. why stop there? just make the entire puzzle out of proper nouns! it's so fun!

the theme is great but there are far too many proper nouns [again]. the theme made it possible to solve for a handful of the bad crossings, but we really need to chill out on shoving proper nouns all over the place when creating puzzles. EDNAMODE/MANDELBROT/ANWAR/THISBE is a bit ridiculous for a tuesday.

i thought there was no way the NYTXW would have CRAY as an actual answer... only to find out it had it TWICE lol great wednesday puzzle - solvable and the right amount of challenge for this day of the week. great puzzle, you guys!

14 proper nouns, not to mention DARKSHADOWS crosses with 5 others. the middle bottom is literally 5 proper nouns crossing each other. i think i can figure out where the puzzler gave up

absolute gem of a puzzle. glad to see we can still drop some top tier puzzles, nytxw. fantastic construction and a nice, slow burn to work through the theme. bravo!