New York Times, Wednesday, March 15, 2023

For one glorious year of my early childhood, I went to daycare in a bowling alley. When we weren't perched on stools watching Sesame Street on the bar's TV, we got to hang out in the arcade and play all the classics.

Just a few decades later, I have my own kids and not just one, but two full-sized stand-up arcade machines in our house. This puzzle began with thoughts of Donkey Kong, one of my all-time favorites from those early days. The phrase, "over a barrel" occurred to me as a fun way to clue it, and the puzzle grew from there. Funny enough, that clue didn't even make the final cut.

Much appreciation goes out to my deeply supportive friends and family, especially my friend Dan who texts with me about the NYT crossword just about every single day. I hope that Marjorie Pedersen, who taught me crossword puzzle construction (for credit!) at Tufts University 29 years ago, will be proud of this debut.

Back in college, I spent many hours playing SONIC THE HEDGEHOG with a bunch of dormmates. Idyllic times, doggedly redoing levels over and over to attain maximum ring collection, swearing up a blue streak at Dr. Robotnik. Trying to Tetris in enough studying to get by was even harder with our attempts to beat TETRIS.

OUT OF REACH and NOT A CHANCE aptly summed up my shot at graduating with any sort of honors.

Although I've played thousands of hours of video games in my life, I'm not sure I'd have ever come up with the connections Michael did. [Ghost in the machine] hinting at the ghosts in a PAC-MAN arcade machine is clever!

DONKEY KONG got some side-eye. [Barrel of monkeys] … Donkey Kong does throw barrels, but he's a gorilla, not a monkey. This clue only makes sense if you get deep into the games. (Or if you exhibit less annoying anality.) There are monkeys in subsequent games who interact with okay, you've stopped listening. Understandable.

When ANGRY BIRDS came out, I was steadfastly adhering to my Motorola flip-phone, so I don't know much about the game. [Knock me over with a feather] sort of works, but it's not like you're launching individual feathers at the pigs.

Are you?

Pray for me as I download ANGRY BIRDS "for research." I'll see you in about 50 hours.

The connections between the themer clues and the video games were too tenuous overall for my taste, but I appreciate the creativity and the solid gridwork.