this is the thread where we complain about the new york times crossword puzzle

One more vote for feels like these are dumber than just a couple of years ago, even.

Dumber in what way? i'd say there are definitely more artificial, not-in-the-language entries like "TPING" than ever before. But the level of obscurity remains pretty consistent, therefore puzzles are not necessarily easier. Of course obscurity used to mean Latin scientific names and foreign rivers whereas now it means subsidiary characters in sci fi TV shows or some such.

Btw I have a namedrop too: I went to elementary school with Patrick Berry. I can attest to the fact that the dude was creating xword puzzles at age 9.

I would have impressed if you had named any of the Patrick's but The Crossword Jesus himself, I am doubly so.

I only realized it about 25 years after the fact when I finished a NYT puzzle and was like, damn that was a good one, and then looked at the credit… and then I was like, no way, is that the same dude from my school? So I made some inquiries and found out it was.

Dumber in the sense that during Sunday afternoons a while back, we might still have some work to do; on some tough Saturday clues, or even the occasional Friday holdout, or an actually difficult Sunday with a gimmick we haven't figured out (our attention spans are horrifically bad)

Now, by early Sunday afternoon, all of the week's crosswords have been completely and utterly defeated, not 8 blanks left from Saturday, nothing.

yeah that, and they seem to be going way faster, for the end of the week puzzles too. last go round i was generally doing it every day and those would take me forever, and often go unfinished. my impression now is that there are a lot more inane repeat clues that reward regular solvers, even more so than ye old oleos of yore or whatever. and an influx of post-smartphone internet cultural ephemera that has supplanted some more of the facty trivia-style clues/answers i remember being stumped by.

i'm also doing them diffrently, tho, which may matter for the subjective experience. i used to work in pen and be way more cautious about committing so i wouldn't have to cross anything out, but on the nyt web site when computer-solving i just delete stuff left and right when i see i used something that wouldn't work.

i mean it is also possible that my amazing brane has just gotten that much better in the intervening decade. actually, let's go with that.

RIP ankara btw
I feel like that answer just got straight-up banned at some point a couple of years ago. oleo may have suffered the same fate recently?

i saw an olio a while back

ha, nice James.

will shortz thinks rae sremmurd is one guy!!

oh

nevermind

I AM DULY CHASTENED

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7NaWvbVwAEw_i3.jpg:large

Nazi what

Are they confusing pan (horizontal) with zoom in?

yes

"emgrans"?

fuck off

somebody explain to me the reason why "UNACMETTED" happened to me yesterday - I fucking hate reasonable answer collisions

is DANK MEMES really what we’rve come to

Yes

And why is Saturday easy now

Oh wait j. and I complained about this a year ago

Does anyone do the mini each day on the app?

https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/leaderboards/invite/fde227aa-82b8-400c-807b-6512a6cba5e6

‘no soap’

Clue: They’re usually closed at night
Answer: eyes
😊

why won’t Wednesday load on my phone arrrrrrrgh

never heard of today's 35A before

Britishism, I believe.

nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel
nobelist wiesel

yeah that was bad. making up for it with a better clue about him in today’s sunday puzzle.

today’s puzzle very fun and ambitious but - and i know i’m always wrong when i think this, but hear me out - is there an error? the answer for 92 down actually goes with the clue for 93 down. and there is no clue for 92 down. leaving the answer for 93 an orphan with no clue. annoyingly i can’t quite solve that corner. but perhaps this is one further wrinkle in this puzzle that i haven’t figured out?

i mean... i beat it but I still don't understand the connecting clues. shit makes no sense today.

there was an error in the print edition

It has been brought to our attention there is a numbering error in this weekend's @NYTmag crossword. The row with a repeat "92" should read "93, 94, 95".

This error is not related to the puzzle's mystery hunt and the digital puzzle is unaffected. https://t.co/sHrwdtyDVu

— New York Times Games (@NYTimesGames) May 23, 2020

this puzzle was laaaame

yeah i'm not sure why any of those people were 'aptly' named??

the butler was gerard, the page was ellen, the porter was cole

but yeah, was very lame

but how is that “apt”?

i thought it was fun regardless. that said i’m starting to really appreciate the wednesday puzzle. no tricks, no puns. just straight up.

ok, just revisited that corner. calling the numbering mistake 'minor' is an undersell. it's really quite something. 3 clues with the wrong number. clue 95D is answered in 94D, clue 94D is answered in 93D and clue 93D is answered in 92D. what's more, there are two 92 acrosses in the grid, but only one 92A clue.

there’s logic to it, but “apt” is a weird word choice

the digital one didn't have any of the explanation about the butler, porter, etc! I didn't know what the fuck i was looking at until i opened the magazine.

crossing oleo with olio is an absolute cry for help

the digital one didn't have any of the explanation about the butler, porter, etc! I didn't know what the fuck i was looking at until i opened the magazine.

Ah, did not know that. Thanks.

I had the same thought re:olio/oleo

The constructor wrote:

My original version was more difficult: ELLEN, MINNIE, TIKI, etc. were clued normally — with no indication that they figured into the story. The solver needed to discover the names hidden in the rooms, unlocking the rest of the mystery. (I kept other first names out of the grid — a surprisingly challenging restriction!) But after extensive testing, Will and his team decided to indicate the suspects more overtly.

That would have made the meta much more interesting.

At some point it would be nice to frey a really challenging Sunday puzzle. Sunday Extreme.

a challenge today

Yes. I did the lower half. Taking a little break.

HATE IT

Easy breezy for me, got into a groove somehow where all the down answers leapt out

Yeah I think the down clues were closer to Tuesday difficulty to adjust for the gimmick, but it led to beating my Thursday average by like a half hour