Cliff

@Matt It’s quite amusing to see some people that typically have a condescending tone in shambles over this one. I think it comes from a snooty opinion of video games as a whole but I guess condescending is as condescending does

@Anne C. The same could be said about literally any theme/clue regarding trivia. Let’s go back a few Thursday ago with the 13 colonies, just bc it’s not important to you doesn’t mean it’s not important to someone else. Take an opportunity to learn about a hugely important part of video game history/just history

@Jake 1. Not sure what the problem with that one is, tricky clue and fun wordplay 2. Kinda the idea behind misdirection clues, crosses eventually help in solving. Pet carriers is not an uncommon term 3. Libretto is an extremely common term in opera which features heavily in crosswords as well as Aria 4. Slam poetry is the type of poetry, poetry slam is the event in which the former takes place. The clue specifically said “event” not the type of poetry

@Laura Stratton Super Mario bros came out in the 80s, get out of hear with the “for young people” take. It’s extremely tired

@Matt Each one is the old man and the C

@dana Maybe a little tongue in cheek humor there as the constructor “goofed off” while coming up with another word

@D Same could be said in reverse though, glass houses and all

@B Holy, let’s quit the tired usage of “sportsball”, it’s as clever and witty as you think this puzzle is

@Brian What a strange thing to say

@Jesse R. As I understand it, the specific type of shuffle mentioned happens when the cards alternate, hence the same shaded letters appear to be offset by one on the corresponding deck post shuffle. As for the one “not” shuffled, if you were to apply the riffle shuffle rule to GOOFOFFS, the corresponding alternates would still be the same. In other words if you switched letters 1-4 to 1,3,5,7 it would still be the same word. So in a sense, the word is shuffled

@Francis To say they’re isn’t a significantly higher percentage of “Meh” “Nope nope this was bad” And “I don’t know the subject matter so this puzzle is bad” is quite disingenuous. It’s quite rich really. But by all means, please continue proving my point

@a If there were comments for those I bet they’d be saying the same thing about the contemporary puzzles of their times

@Bec only inputting the first letter is acceptable and counts towards finishing, if it doesn't finish it means something else is wrong

@Matt I’m confused, are you arguing that it should have been FOURLEAGUES?

@Andrzej The only correct answer. My rule for myself is no looking up anything for new puzzles, and minimal looking up is permitted for archived ones, or as I like to call them, training puzzles.

@Matt It is formulated exactly how the jeopardy question (or answer) was

@Matt Unclear from the comment

@sandi It didn’t work for everyone but there was an animation in the middle and the cube was “solved” to unscramble the circled letters to spell Enro Rubi. Wouldn’t call that “dullsville” my self but you welcome to try and construct a better one…

And how exactly does having either of those two things disqualify someone from partaking in trying out something new like it was back then. Please, be more condescending

@acjones Incredible deflection to what Andrzej was saying, I'm honestly quite impressed you were able to make the "why don't you show me your puzzle" whine from the content of his response. On the topic of the clue, LEPER has been used synonymously with terms such as outcast and pariah for quite some time. The love of the NYT XW and conflation of terms runs deeper than the pits of Tartarus, and on that scale, this one ranks near the rim

@Lynn IIRC it was in response to my admonishment of the original posters comment, suggesting that his disdain for the puzzle, and more so his attack on Shortz was a "skill issue." Probably not the most mature response on my part, but to parrot what others have been saying, I think stating a personal preference, or in this case, personal aversion to trivia heavy grids is just that, personal. Direct attacks on the constructors and/or the editors are just as absurd as they are lazy. I personally enjoyed the puzzle, but then again, I enjoy most of them to a certain extent as I try not to look at them with a critics eye and focus on the areas I enjoyed

@Barry Ancona Then what was I in, people called it a pep band, but it’s seems I was in some non existent thing that might have come out of the liminal space.

@Francis Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask I guess) the game is all about maximum value added now, which is what home runs do very well, at least they do it more efficiently than small ball. Same goes for the three pointer in basket ball, the game has been essentially figured out until something drastic happens.

Which again has nothing to do with the matter at hand. Plenty of people the exact same thing were able to be exposed to it. Enough with the post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense

@Francis BACKSTREET BOYS!* *See: Who's line is it Anyway

@Francis As a current chemist, even I was triggered by this

@LA Sunshine ehhhh it’s a valid term

@Steve L IIRC he was retroactively given credit for the answer but I could be wrong

@Matt My antipathy for the tired, played out, and unimaginative railing of said event must rival yours. But yeah, fun puzzle

@C It 100% does exist, but it’s a bit of an outdated term. Just because it doesn’t exist for you doesn’t mean it won’t for others

@Hitch Did not know what APUTRILOGY was, but was able to find TRILOGY based on crosses and then clue, and I guessed that it would APU as it is a common Indian name (as well as an answer in another puzzle this week). Most “arcane” answers are gonna be made up of more common words that eventually get spelled out with some time.

@R.J. Smith It’s a Rubik’s cube

@Daniel Action is a common term in gambling for a participants turn to decide what to do. So they would be able to make a side bet aside from the main bet already made

@Justin Why's that?

@Cliff *here Got got by autocorrect

@Cliff Whose...

@MikeW It switched to the “insert” button for me, which I suppose is apt for a rebus but why the sudden change

@Super8ing 15 min is definitely doable with some practice. I think a disconnect is also underestimating how long 13 seconds actually is to process a word, not to mention that some words take much less than 13 seconds. If you’d like a good example of this I’d recommend checking out Chris Remo on YouTube. He finished today’s in under 12 minutes, and aside from being an adept solver, he’s extremely approachable and explains answers as he’s solving. Watching his videos has changed the way I approach the puzzles.

@Francis Less of a reference to listen to Backstreet Boys, more of a reference to a joke made on whose line is it anyway, often seen as one of the best examples of the chemistry between Ryan and Colin

@Mig I too put MUNI at first. I think we can chalk this one up to a "well technically it does run through San Francisco" but I see where you're coming from