Constructor: Jake Halperin
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
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THEME:[Travel edition of a classic board game?]— same clue for four punny answers:
Theme answers:
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Back from Boston and a little travel-hungover. Five hours driving on the heels of a pretty indulgent couple of days (food/drink-wise), followed by a long walk in the woods with my dogs and an early dinner ... all that had me good and wiped out by 9pm, and I only just woke up (6:40). Managed to crash despite the fact that our neighbors were attacking us on all sides with explosive devices, or so it sounded. I'm just grateful I don't have truly skittish dogs, because the detonation was pretty relentless there for about an hour or two. Some people's dogs hide. Some (tragically) run away. Mine just stare at me like "... why?""People are horrible," I tell them. They nod and sigh.
This puzzle was DEF on the hard side, and not just 'because I did it immediately upon waking. Pun answers where clues are all the same and you have to figure out What game's involved and How ... phrases don't even have proper, helpful clues. I had no idea what was going on for a good while. Got the first part of first themer and kept racking my brain for games called CART something (doesn't help that CART is something one might "travel" in, at least in theory). First themer I actually got was FLIGHT RISK, and I wasn't sure if FLIGHT was a game (too) or not. So I didn't know if whole answer was made up of games, or if just last word was, or first sometimes last other times. Ugh. LIFE ON THE RUN isn't a great phrase. No more love on the run. Band on the run. You take it on the run. Baby. LIFE ON THE RUN?? And GO is not a "class board game" in the same way the others are. Not by a long shot. Theme is D.O.A. for this reason. Having GO in here is like having CHECKERS or CHESS in here. It's not a modern, brand-name board game, in the sense that we use the phrase "board game." GO is 2500 years old. I guarantee you TROUBLE is not 2500 years old. It's 52, actually. You play GO on a board, but a "board game"? No. RISK yes, TROUBLE yes, LIFE yes. GO no.
Also, GO ON VACATION will have wrecked (at least temporarily) a lot of you, both because of that first "N" cross (N-TESTS) (Is it an A? An H? ... no, it's an "N," but there's No way to know what without knowing the themer), and because even if you do finish with your grid correct, you may find yourself asking, as my wife did this morning, "So there's a game called VACATION?" Me: "No, I don't think so..." Her: "There's a game called GOON!?" Me: "GO space ON." She thought maybe it had something to do with the Goonies ... going on vacation ... which, now, is a movie I can't believe they didn't make.
Then there was the ridiculously hard "?" clue on FOOD GROUP. I needed virtually ever cross to get that one, and so the whole NE corner slowed right down. The "?" clue is bad. Not just hard. Bad. [Cooking class?] See, sometimes you reach for the funny, and ... well, there should be some kind of shock or buzzer ... or else a lock of some kind that won't let you have the funny without good reason. A FOOD GROUP is a class (as in "classification") of food. If I eat an apple, I haven't cooked jack, but I have eaten from a FOOD GROUP. That "?" clue is far too elliptical. You shouldn't have to do math, carry the one, write a proof, etc. to justify an answer. Also, not sure what BOON has to do with "heaven." When you tell me a gift is from "heaven," I assume something biblical is coming. Something actually, concretely, properly biblical. BOON shmoon. My only real error was TA(C)QUERIA for 33D: Place to grab a bit in Mexico (TACO STAND), and my only real flat-out ignorance was OLEG (31D: ___ Burov, K.G.B. officer on "The Americans"). I like the puzzle's basic theme idea, and I love some of the fill (esp ANIMATED GIF). But "Go" gets you a technical D.Q. One of these things is not like the other, and Go is it. Also, NOES and O-RAMA are nauseating and inexcusable.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. because some of you will ask: [Channel 2?] = ENS because there are two ENS in "channel." I know. I know.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Theme answers:
- CAR TROUBLE
- LIFE ON THE RUN
- GO ON VACATION
- FLIGHT RISK
Go [...] is an abstract strategyboard game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. // The game was invented in ancient China more than 2,500 years ago, and is therefore believed to be the oldest board game continuously played today. It was considered one of the four essential arts of the cultured aristocratic Chinese scholar caste in antiquity. The earliest written reference to the game is generally recognized as the historical annal Zuo Zhuan (c. 4th century BCE). // Despite its relatively simple rules, Go is very complex, even more so than chess, and possesses more possibilities than the total number of atoms in the visible universe. Compared to chess, Go has both a larger board with more scope for play and longer games, and, on average, many more alternatives to consider per move. (wikipedia)
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This puzzle was DEF on the hard side, and not just 'because I did it immediately upon waking. Pun answers where clues are all the same and you have to figure out What game's involved and How ... phrases don't even have proper, helpful clues. I had no idea what was going on for a good while. Got the first part of first themer and kept racking my brain for games called CART something (doesn't help that CART is something one might "travel" in, at least in theory). First themer I actually got was FLIGHT RISK, and I wasn't sure if FLIGHT was a game (too) or not. So I didn't know if whole answer was made up of games, or if just last word was, or first sometimes last other times. Ugh. LIFE ON THE RUN isn't a great phrase. No more love on the run. Band on the run. You take it on the run. Baby. LIFE ON THE RUN?? And GO is not a "class board game" in the same way the others are. Not by a long shot. Theme is D.O.A. for this reason. Having GO in here is like having CHECKERS or CHESS in here. It's not a modern, brand-name board game, in the sense that we use the phrase "board game." GO is 2500 years old. I guarantee you TROUBLE is not 2500 years old. It's 52, actually. You play GO on a board, but a "board game"? No. RISK yes, TROUBLE yes, LIFE yes. GO no.
Also, GO ON VACATION will have wrecked (at least temporarily) a lot of you, both because of that first "N" cross (N-TESTS) (Is it an A? An H? ... no, it's an "N," but there's No way to know what without knowing the themer), and because even if you do finish with your grid correct, you may find yourself asking, as my wife did this morning, "So there's a game called VACATION?" Me: "No, I don't think so..." Her: "There's a game called GOON!?" Me: "GO space ON." She thought maybe it had something to do with the Goonies ... going on vacation ... which, now, is a movie I can't believe they didn't make.
Then there was the ridiculously hard "?" clue on FOOD GROUP. I needed virtually ever cross to get that one, and so the whole NE corner slowed right down. The "?" clue is bad. Not just hard. Bad. [Cooking class?] See, sometimes you reach for the funny, and ... well, there should be some kind of shock or buzzer ... or else a lock of some kind that won't let you have the funny without good reason. A FOOD GROUP is a class (as in "classification") of food. If I eat an apple, I haven't cooked jack, but I have eaten from a FOOD GROUP. That "?" clue is far too elliptical. You shouldn't have to do math, carry the one, write a proof, etc. to justify an answer. Also, not sure what BOON has to do with "heaven." When you tell me a gift is from "heaven," I assume something biblical is coming. Something actually, concretely, properly biblical. BOON shmoon. My only real error was TA(C)QUERIA for 33D: Place to grab a bit in Mexico (TACO STAND), and my only real flat-out ignorance was OLEG (31D: ___ Burov, K.G.B. officer on "The Americans"). I like the puzzle's basic theme idea, and I love some of the fill (esp ANIMATED GIF). But "Go" gets you a technical D.Q. One of these things is not like the other, and Go is it. Also, NOES and O-RAMA are nauseating and inexcusable.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. because some of you will ask: [Channel 2?] = ENS because there are two ENS in "channel." I know. I know.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]