The inspiration for this puzzle was a dinner with other young constructors at the ACPT. A whole group of us went out to an Italian restaurant in Stamford (called Zazu, which inspired us all to try constructing mini puzzles with ZAZA at 1-Across after our meal) one night and then to a Mexican restaurant the next night (whose name was regrettably much less interesting from a crossword constructor's standpoint). We had a lot of fun talking shop and tossing around crossword ideas on the spot! I'm quite sure I'm forgetting some names, but I know the group included Kevin Der, Sam Ezersky, Joel Fagliano, Neville Fogarty, Josh Knapp, Natan Last, Kyle Mahowald, and Finn Vigeland. There wasn't a single person at the table whose work I don't consistently admire, so it was truly an honor to be included!
Anyway, I believe it was Natan who brought up the idea of puzzles themed around games. As a group, we recalled that Frogger, Pac-Man, Clue, and Monopoly puzzles had already been done. At the time, none of us could think of any games that hadn't been done and that might lend themselves well to puzzles. Nonetheless, the idea stuck in the back of my head, and I continued to think about other possibilities throughout the tournament. Finally, on the journey from Stamford to Stanford, the idea of doing a Space Invaders puzzle suddenly came to me! I also decided on the spot that the puzzle would be a Sunday rather than a daily. When I got back to my dorm room, I probably should've focused on making up all the schoolwork I'd missed while at the ACPT. But I felt inspired, so I set to work on the puzzle instead! (The work did eventually get done, of course.)
Right off the bat, I knew I wanted to represent the aliens as ETs, though I wasn't sure how many to include or even how they would work thematically. I tried several other arrangements before settling on the one you see. My most compelling alternative was having four ETs in each row, but I didn't like how short all the ET entries would have to be (since the grid is only 21 columns wide). I also wasn't finding enough ET entries that were legit with or without the ET using any other arrangement.
Next came the MOTHERSHIP at the top. For the longest time I was convinced it wasn't going to work as I experimented with block pattern after block pattern! I tried having the M where the P was and even having the word read counterclockwise. Then somehow, by a stroke of luck (which I partially credit to having happened to have added SKI BOOT to my word list just a few months earlier), I found this solution. I was relieved to see that the surrounding fill in the upper center wasn't a complete disaster. Next came the safe zones at the bottom. I was originally shooting for three such zones, but that just wasn't working—I didn't want any "extraneous" blocks to mess up the visual and I also wanted to squeeze in the revealer SPACE INVADERS. I was initially distressed about the unchecked squares, but once I realized that SAFE would fit into them, they became an asset in my book! I then stuck in the CANNON and started filling.
The LASER was actually a complete coincidence. One of the fills I was looking at happened to include PRESALE. Looking more closely at the fill, I was ecstatic to notice that it contained LASER backwards! So that fill ended up being the keeper for the upper left. Another challenge was that the grid originally had 142 words. Knowing that Will's word limit is 140 and that he prefers even lower word counts, I knocked out a pair of blocks in the second-to-bottom row of the grid. As a result, I was no longer able to keep other ETs out of the fill (and the short fill got a bit yucky in places—I'm looking at you, EEE, SSR, and RET!), but I figured these were small prices to pay for the awesome ROCKET FUEL. Getting the semithematic ROCKET FUEL and AIRPORT BAR to fit symmetrically in the lower part of the grid was yet another lucky coincidence!
The hardest part for me was the middle right. I really, really didn't want to get stuck with EARED SEALS at 45-Down, especially since I already had the obscurish (to me, at least) ALGREN in that area and several other weaker entries. I lowered the minimum score in my word list as far as I could, and all of the sudden, I hit upon a fill with ELDERBERRY! The reason it wasn't showing up before was A GUT, which I'd given a really low score for being a partial that didn't feel particularly in-the-language. I mean, no one my age ever says "bust a gut." It's always LOL, LMAO, Hahaha, or even Bahaha (that one's for you, Sam Ezersky!) these days. In any case, this reminded me of the value of not deleting anything from your word list, because you never know when it might rescue you from the dreaded EARED SEALS.
Despite all the trouble I had with this one, the construction process proceeded quite rapidly, and I was soon ready to work on the clues. For me, the biggest cluing challenge was the ET entries. I wasn't sure whether I should, say, clue both PRETEEN and PREEN or just one of the two. I ultimately decided to clue only PREEN so as to get the idea of SPACE INVADERS across as cleanly as possible. Will and Joel changed more of my clues than usual this time, which I totally don't blame them for, especially since I'm much more used to writing clues targeted at Friday/Saturday audiences than at Sunday ones. I was disappointed to see "Center of the high school pot scene?" for ART ROOM disappear, but my "Place to get drunk before getting high?" for AIRPORT BAR fortunately made the cut!
Well, I could ramble on for hours about any crossword puzzle, but I'll stop boring you now. I would like to mention, though, that I realized from the get-go that this puzzle would be quite polarizing. In other words, solvers were either going to know the game and get the theme or not know the game and be confused. I also realized that some of the visuals were a little off in terms of size when compared to those in the original game. For these reasons, I tried to insert as much liveliness into the nonthematic fill as I could so that there'd hopefully be something for everyone!
With that, I hope you enjoy my puzzle!