WORD LADDERS

Sam Trabucco is an American cryptocurrency trader based in Hong Kong. When he's not working, he enjoys playing board and card games, especially Magic: The Gathering and poker. Sam says one of his top priorities as a crossword constructor is to make his fill relatable to younger solvers. "I want this hobby to remain relevant forever!"

This is his 25th puzzle for The Times.

This arose from a "how can I do something new with old theme types" brainstorm. Word ladders are classic crossword themes, and I've seen them maligned as hackneyed the last few times they appeared. I have fond memories of solving word ladder-related puzzles as a kid, but I do agree that a crossword relying on one for its theme needs something fresh to justify it. I hope this provides that! The grid was a nightmare to make (ten squares are technically quadruple-checked!), and I hope the resulting fill sacrifices (looking at you, especially, IUM/MY B/TENUTA) doesn't give solvers an analogous nightmare.

I recommend picking up the 2020 Boswords puzzles if you haven't yet — five great puzzles (plus one by me whose quality I won't pretend to be impartial about).

A couple of years ago, I was at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, chatting with Patrick Berry about a devious (read: infamous) puzzle he'd made for the contest. It was a similar conceit to Sam's, where two answers share middle strings, forming a wide capital I. He said it he'd originally tried to make it in a 21x21 format but had eventually given up. It was only in a weird-size grid (acceptable for a crossword tournament) that he'd been able to make it work.

When Patrick Berry, the Great One, has a tough time building around a theme — that speaks louder than any possible words!

I talked with solvers trudging out of the room afterward, with a wide range of responses. Anne Ellison, a top speed-solver, shrugged, saying that she finished it in a few minutes, but had no idea what the theme was. After another 45 minutes, time was up, and a wave of bleary-eyed zombies came out, asking each other if they'd finished even half of it. The answer was mostly no.

Sam has a clever idea here, a nice twist on word ladders. I missed some of the feature answers on the first go-around, unfortunately, for the life of me unable to see FOR THE LIFE OF ME. The way the answers cross make it tough for the eye to pick up.

It's no surprise that Sam had a tough time with this construction, even going up to 145! words. When you have one Across theme answer intersecting a Down theme answer, the region surrounding that crossing is inevitably difficult.

Then, toss in an additional constraint? The area right around each circled word becomes nearly intractable. More black squares inside each might have helped, but it's hardly a trivial problem to solve.

I might have enjoyed a simpler overall approach, just two pairs of super-long themers, one pair around RISE at the top, and one pair around FALL at the bottom. Maybe some clever RISE and FALL revealer tying them together in the middle? Something about the tides? The ROMAN EMPIRE?

Overall, an admirably audacious concept that tries to blaze new trails. It does have compromises, both in fill quality and solving satisfaction — I imagine MIXED REVIEWS will be apt today — but I'd err on the side of shooting for the moon any day.