New York Times, Saturday, December 1, 2018

This was my first attempt at a 15x16 grid — I wanted to try an open middle design with stacked 14s, which I quickly found was much more difficult than the stacked 11s and 12s that I'd been more used to working with. BOTOX INJECTION was the seed entry and is the obvious highlight of the puzzle, along with its cutesy "head shot" clue that pairs with the clue for SOCCER STARS. BROGRAMMER is a term I'd seen out in the wild and found interesting, though I'm not entirely convinced it'll stand the test of time. Otherwise, the grid is pretty conservative compared to my typical puzzles, though not without some tricky clues.

As with most all of Ryan's puzzles, I thought there was some amazing gridwork. He's an up-and-comer in a space that few constructors dip into — the ultra-low-word-count grid. It's so darn hard to fill a grid like this one with color and cleanliness, yet Ryan worked in BOTOX INJECTION, FITNESS CENTERS, with INK BLOT TEST, SOCCER STARS (head shots, ha!) and BATMOBILE running through them. Lovely!

And I love STICKY RICE (usually with condensed milk and mango), and AIRPORT BAR. That last one made me laugh with its clue, "craft" beer referring to aircraft. Didn't totally work, since there aren't any actual crafts in an AIRPORT BAR, but who's counting.

Impeccable gridsmanship, nary a gluey bit to be found. That's an amazing accomplishment for this level of construction difficulty.

Although ... I've been thinking more and more about why Patrick Berry is so highly revered by so many people. A big part of it is that he's so careful to stay away from entries that might seem TOO fresh, potentially alienating large swaths of solvers.

Doing and analyzing Ryan's themelesses has opened my eyes to a point I hadn't considered before. In one of his previous puzzles, I heard many gripes about DANK MEMES, seeming to severely sour some people's perspective on what I thought was a pretty darn good puzzle. It baffled me that a single entry could have such an overwhelming effect. It's at least gettable, so you can ignore it if you don't like it, yeah?

Judging a puzzle by its worst entry doesn't seem fair to me, but I can see how a lone entry might alienate some solvers. Maybe it makes you feel dumb, or out of the loop, or like the puzzle is trying too hard. Like Ryan, I wondered about BROGRAMMER in that vein.

Now, I think the term is amusing, having first heard it on "Silicon Valley." (It refers to dudes bro-ing their way in tech start-ups heavily dominated by 20-something men.) It also seems gettable, a mash-up of BRO and PROGRAMMER.

But I think these days, I'd personally try to avoid it. Such a tough call — would you rather go extremely memorable for some solvers, while alienating others? Or try to aim for the middle, risking losing your color?

Not sure what the right answer is. Tell me if you figure it out!