New York Times, Saturday, June 13, 2020

The inspiration for this puzzle was noticing that although SHOGI has been in the NYT crossword multiple times, XIANGQI had yet to appear, despite — or perhaps, because of — its strikingly unusual arrangement of letters. I probably wouldn't be much better at it than I am at chess, but I still think it looks pretty cool in the puzzle. [Side note: I'm more of a Scrabble guy, myself, but when it comes to abstract strategy games, the GIPF Project games are awesome.]

Once I had built the two intersecting stacks of sevens in the lower-left corner, I considered my possibilities for branching out, and when I found the FAST TRACK / TOM SWIFTY combination, I knew I was onto something. I remember trying to build the upper-left corner and coming up with something that was clean enough but just felt lackluster to me, especially in comparison to the lower-left. Eventually, I tried moving a black square and changed WWII to SAW II, which wasn't my favorite answer, but along with ORGS, it allowed for what you see here, which feels like a pretty lively way to kick off the puzzle.

I decided maintaining this level of liveliness in the rest of the puzzle would be well worth a few compromises in shorter fill. I think the upper-right corner especially exemplifies this, with APTS and AGUE allowing for ODD DUCK (next to TANAGER), and the flashy crossing of XEROPHYTE and X-FACTOR. I think this one turned out pretty well, and I particularly like how it has a nice mix of multi-word phrases and interesting one-word entries.

My favorites clues that survived the edit are those for 63-Across, 1-Down, 5-Down, 7-Down, and 12-Down. My clue for TOM SWIFTY was ["I'll never catch Moby Dick!" Captain Ahab wailed, e.g.], which I thought was fun, though I can certainly see why a more straightforward clue was used instead. I guess the puzzle's probably difficult enough as it is, and I hope it provides an enjoyable challenge for you this weekend!

Such a Charlsonesque way to kick off a puzzle, a Z in the first square. [Hyperbolic figure] had me fooled for a while, thinking about paraboloids, then liars, but whenever I get stuck in one of Trenton's puzzles, I asked the one question sure to gain me traction: where could the JQXZ go? A-ha! A JILLION is a hyperbolic (exaggerated) figure.

Drat.

I bet Trenton is on Wikipedia as we speak, trying to make JOOM OUT a real thing so he can use it in this next themeless. Better yet, JOOM QUT.

I enjoy rare letters when they're worked in smoothly, for my benefit. I wasn't sure that was the case with XIANGQI. When a Chinese guy who's played a fair amount of Chinese chess raises his eyebrows at XIANGQI …

Well, there is the fact that I was kicked out of Chinese school as a kid.

Given that I'm much more a soldier than a general in a real-life game of Chinese chess, maybe XIANGQI is okay. Still, I imagine some solvers will grumble that this entry is more fun for Trenton than for them, and I would sympathize.

ZEROPHYTE — er, XEROPHYTE — fell somewhere in between. I'd heard the word before, and I admire the kooky spelling. It doesn't provide nearly the delight of ZILLION / ZOOM OUT, though. It's a risk you take when you employ a word that not everyone will know right off the bat. (Xero- means "dry," derived from Greek.)

I also had trouble with the REM / METIER crossing. Both are fair entries, but man oh man is it devilish to clue REM not as REM sleep or the band but [Ad ___]. Saturday puzzles should be hard, but that clue makes the crossing downright painful.

Still, I enjoyed so much of Trenton's choices of marquee entries, TOM SWIFTY, SWEET TALK, FAST TRACK, ODD DUCK. I'd love to see what he could do if he simply tried to maximize his colorful long entries, rare letters be damned.