New York Times, Thursday, January 30, 2020

There's some debate over whether rebus puzzles should have symmetric placement of the theme squares. Personally, as a solver, I like the challenge it adds when they don't because you not only have to figure out the trick, but you also can't predict where it's going to pop up. From a constructor's standpoint, it's much easier to put the rebus wherever you want and then fill around it, making symmetric rebuses is a more technically impressive feat. So I wanted to make a puzzle where asymmetry in the rebuses was essential to the theme and not just a construction crutch. And I thought the game within a game aspect of hide and seek would be fun and a little different than most crosswords I've done.

If I'm trying to be an objective evaluator, though, I think my execution lets down the creativity of this theme. Ambitious effort, but didn't quite stick the landing, and there's a lot of gluey short stuff holding things together. I hope the head-scratching this puzzle induces will be mostly the fun "what the heck is going on?" kind and less "how could anyone think EDILE, NEH, and TEHEES are good fill?" ...because I don't have a good answer to that.

My son often wants me to play with him, in a game I call "Jakearades." It's sort of like charades, except you have the bonus element of having to read the mind of a three-year-old who can't quite express his continually morphing ideas on the rules of the game or lack thereof. It usually ends in tears. And Jake cries, too!

Jim Horne, who grew up in Canada, said the theme mystified him and that he was looking forward to my explanation of this mysterious endeavor leading from IT to COLD to COOL to WARM to HOT to ME. (He didn't know what DUCK DUCK GOOSE was either, eh.) I was going to make up something elaborate, but I'm not sure I could imagine something as kooky as what was going on in today's puzzle.

I like the concept of integrating the game of "finding a hidden object by saying warmer or colder" into a crossword, but combining it with HIDE AND SEEK didn't make sense. Perhaps it's a non-Canadian / non-West Coaster thing?

Jake sometimes hides and then yells, "I'M HIDING IN THE BATHROOM" and then wails when I find him, screaming "YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO FIND ME!" Maybe he's today's target audience.

I did enjoy some elements of the gridwork, though — such goodies as LEGO SET and ITS A JOB helped keep my attention (and helped me ignore EDILE) as I tried in vain to figure out what was going on.