New York Times, Thursday, September 27, 2018

The Revenge of the Grid

I believe the art of the crossword puzzle will wither and die if we don't keep breaking it open to make it new again. I get bored if all I do is create variations on proven concepts. So, whether you liked this puzzle or not, I did it to explore something new, to break a few rules, and to take advantage of a platform (the NYT) that celebrates the idea of taking risks.

In this puzzle, I was intrigued by the idea of exploring whether the grid itself could provide its own theme clues. I like to think that if puzzle grids had personalities and could talk, some grids (extroverted types) would say they wanted to be more center stage, to participate in the same things that the clues always do.

"Hey, why do you words always get to give the clues? Why can't we grids ever do that!? It's always empty square, black square, empty square, black square…"

I like to think that my grid is smiling at the idea that its theme fill points back to the grid. The theme fill is, in a way, subordinated to the grid. When the grid lives ABOVE the fill, it's a good day in grid-dom.

When pondering this puzzle, I wondered how far I could go with the design. Would I have to do it using already-accepted methods? Would Will Shortz be interested? How much would I be allowed to challenge standard grid design? My first draft even included CLUELESS in the fill, clued as "How one might feel trying to solve 17-, 33-, 42-, and 62-Across". In the end, Will advised that the CLUELESS entry was not necessary. The puzzle's grid would speak for itself. He got the point I was trying to make even more than I did.

I love it when constructors do kooky things with print grids. It's neat when a puzzle works much better on paper than in (most) electronic formats — score one for the dead tree edition!

Daniel gives us four examples of self-referential themers, i.e. SHADES OF GRAY goes into boxes that are actually SHADES OF GRAY. INSIDE THE BOX is literally INSIDE THE BOX. Meta!

The difference between INSIDE THE BOX and BETWEEN THE LINES is small — the two sides are bolded on the former, but not the latter — so these didn't feel quite different enough for my taste. Still, four solid themers overall.

(We've taken some liberties in the visual below, adding color to help accentuate the differences between the last two themers.)

Nice grid execution, too. I was already delighted by the strangeness in the grid lines, but my solving experience was enhanced even further when encountering goodies like SEA LEGS, MINIONS, FAKE ID, HEATER as baseball lingo. Well worth the price of a bit of ESS STL SADR.

Great idea, memorable puzzle. I'd love for more constructors come up with ideas on kookifying print grids. There's something so satisfying to this old-schooler when a print version outshines its electronic kin.