New York Times, Wednesday, April 29, 2015

It may surprise some to hear that I have fond memories of high school geometry. But I hope that even solvers who don't share my appreciation for the subject matter will pick up on the fact that this is more than just a connect-the-dots puzzle; the clues to the theme entries invoke the standard labeling convention for POLYGONs (starting at one VERTEX and going either clockwise or counterclockwise).

My goal when thinking up this puzzle was to create a grid featuring multiple images created by connecting common nodes. To maintain clarity, I kept it simple and went with basic shapes. This made for a pretty blah set of theme answers, taken at face value, but I think the conceit of the cluing redeems this.

I imagine there may be some geometrical nitpicking about the RIGHT TRIANGLE outlier — it's the only non-quadrilateral, and it's more specific than any of the other polygons (the TRAPEZOID in the grid is technically a "right trapezoid" too). But I think the right triangle has enough of its own identity as a basic shape to merit inclusion. Also, every RECTANGLE is technically a PARALLELOGRAM as well, but I decided to go with the casual name for each polygon, so this didn't really concern me — no one in their right mind would see a rectangle and immediately think "parallelogram."

I hope you all enjoy the puzzle. I'm especially looking forward to seeing the XWord Info guys work their color-coding/animation magic on all the polygons — I always get a kick out of that stuff!

Great concept. Jim and I often debate what's important in a crossword — he usually argues that the theme is by far and away the most important aspect, while I prefer a balance of theme and smooth execution. Today though, I agree with him. The theme tickled me so much that the few slight dings rolled off my back.

Great idea to lay out a set of letters such that certain groupings form certain shapes — and regular words to boot! Geometry was my gateway drug into math and math puzzles, so seeing GEAR laid out as a PARALLELOGRAM and LEAK as the only RECTANGLE was really cool.

It would have been absolutely perfect if the letter set was a little tighter, for instance if ELK were the only RIGHT TRIANGLE that spelled a real word, or even if all RIGHT TRIANGLES (like ARK and LEG and GEL) had been pointed out. POLYGON is a neat catch-all, but it would have been even neater if it pointed out only the shapes which didn't fall into the other classes. Kind of strange that ELK was pointed out in two places, while KEG was ignored.

Loved these clues:

• [Find (out)] makes FERRET such a fun entry. The animal itself is cute and interesting, but FERRET OUT is a vivid term.
• LOB is slang for an [Easy question]. GRAPEFRUIT is even better, but I still like getting a LOB.
• [Jet setting] confused the heck out of me, obscuring that NW corner. Beautiful a-ha to figure out that a HANGAR is a setting for many jets.

I could do without the creepy NECRO prefix in my puzzle, but getting DOGGONE and the bonus themer of VERTEX was worth it.

This puzzle interested me so much that it made me curious to dig deeper and study its execution. I love when that happens.