New York Times, Saturday, March 31, 2018

It's unclear to me how difficult it will be for solvers to grasp the theme, but I think two things will help: the clue for 19-A pins the answer fairly directly, and each section has answers going down or across in the normal direction which serve as toeholds. To make these toeholds more gettable, the clues are quite straightforward for a Saturday puzzle, and otherwise I suspect the puzzle would be near impossible to complete. Some of the more oblique clues were changed in the interest of solvability — for example, "Carnival offerings" for STATEROOMS and "One imagining a better future for herself" for DREAMER. Once the theme is revealed, keeping track of which rows and columns are reversed and entering those words backwards adds a twist to the typical themeless experience.

According to my notes, this puzzle sets my personal record for length in the queue — it was accepted in the summer of 2014 at the same time as the puzzle that ran on October 15, 2015. I think it's typical for creators of all types to look back on old work and wish for a lot of changes. That's the case here. In terms of grid design, I would have preferred having four theme entries going in each of the possible directions, but the pair of length 13 makes this difficult because they necessarily intersect the other pair. The 13's also necessitate a quad stack in the corners which can be mitigated with three sections, but which results in a high word count. I'm also not sure why I chose stacks of seven in each corner rather than eight and six, which I suspect could have resulted in a livelier grid.

I imagine that some people will LOVE this puzzle and some will HATE it. We've had some puzzles where some entries are reversed. We've even had some where every other row is reversed. I don't think I've ever seen one where every other row AND every other column are reversed. Talk about melting the minds of solvers everywhere!

I liked most of the thematic material. ONE WAY STREETS was a good descriptor of the puzzle. GOING IN ALL DIRECTIONS, too. TOTAL GRIDLOCK, though — don't all crosswords exhibit total gridlock? Interlock and all, yeah? I love it as a phrase, but I don't think it does a good job describing the conceit.

Okay, maybe there was TOTAL GRIDLOCK in my head as I tried nearly in vain to even crack open one corner of the puzzle.

Some awesome fill: HOT ZONE, STATEROOMS, DEMITASSES. And not much gluey fill for the level of construction difficulty, just some minor ROBO IDNO dings. If it hadn't been for the cringey ETUI, I would have given Kevin a gold star for near-impeccable craftsmanship. He has written his own software, so it's easier for him to automate rule-breaking grids like this, but it's still impressive.

I understand Will's decision to run this on a Saturday. I had a few brain eruptions during the solving process, gray matter leaking out my ears. Kevin delights in making puzzles that are harder than the hardest of hardies, so I think he wildly succeeded in today.

It's such a neat and creative rule-breaker that I would have preferred to get it on a Thursday, with the clues GREATLY eased up. It would have made for a delightful a-ha moment, such a tricky delight. And that way, I would have gotten the themeless I've come to expect on Saturdays. Give me my hard themeless challenge!

I worry that some (many? most?) solvers will just give up on this one and not appreciate the great idea and strong execution here. Puzzles are meant to be taken on as a challenge and ultimately solved — not meant to beat the solver senseless and leave him/her to bleed. I probably would have given up if I didn't want to write about every single NYT puzzle. Just too darn hard by a long shot.