New York Times, Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Building a puzzle around ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS with each of the three possible outcomes depicted was one of my very first theme ideas, long before I was familiar with enough crossword mechanics to make it work. When I revisited the idea several months later, ROCK breaking SCISSORS was still the hardest to wrangle, leading to some *very* tortured iterations.

A number of early drafts included a single ROCK rebus, which I ultimately abandoned in favor of what seemed to be the most straightforward approach: including each "winning" item as a standalone answer with each "losing" item visually represented as circled letters. Many thanks to Brooke Husic for being a helpful sounding board.

I'm gratified that most of the clues are mine, especially my three favorites — 44A, 5D, and 49D — and hope you enjoy!

Test-solving this one, I forgot to add in the circles to the draft file, giving me the impression the puzzle was simply ROCK PAPER SCISSORS in random locations. Clearly, I've been hit in the head with ROCK too many times and should be PAPERed up.

CUT!

Neat graphical depiction of the three winning actions, PA PER cut by SCISSORS, SCIS SORS broken by ROCK, and RO/CK covered by PAPER. I've seen many ROSHAMBO puzzles over the years, but this one stands out with that cool visual explanation.

The weakest pictogram was PAPER covering ROCK, since usually I describe this action with one hand wrapping over a fist. It works okay, but perhaps a slight wrap-around would have helped. Even something subtle, like adding another P at the first S of PEGASUS, would have hinted more at that wrap-around coverage.

I loved the way Rebecca kicked off this puzzle, clue-echoing 1- and 2-Down. What a difference punctuation makes! Changing the placement of the end quote creates a significant shift in meaning. Clever way to use the same hint in two vastly different senses — that's good thinking, indeed!

Fantastic clue for USED CD, too. I don't have a way to play CDs anymore, but I'd gladly buy something to hear a USED CD "secondhand."

I nearly failed at the north, with the ASAHI / NACRE / CHOI crossings. I was convinced it had to be CHOY / DRYER at first — thank goodness for the triple-check in SCIS SORS!

Standout ROSHAMBO puzzle, fun every couple of years to see one that builds on previous ones. I'm curious to see what next-level thinking we'll get in the next one.