Constructor: Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: Medium (12-ish)
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THEME:"Game Hunting"— theme answers have board game names in them, and are clued as if someone was speaking about board games (i.e. wackily):
Theme answers:
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There are just so many things wrong here. First, the title: "hunting" has nothing to do with the theme. Nothing at all. Second, this theme has been done before; or, rather, a tighter, more modest version of it has been done before (here, April 12, 2010). Third, the cluing conceit, the whole gimmick, results in extreme awkwardness. PLEASE DON'T GO, in a game context, makes absolutely no sense. It's like PLEASE DON'T LIFE or PLEASE DON'T MONOPOLY, i.e. a game name cannot be a verb. Also, the last theme clue doesn't have the word "game" in it—unlike literally every other theme clue; if you're going to do a running theme clue ... thing, at least follow through. As for the fill, it's all over the map; there's some great stuff, but a lot of it looks like it was filled in by software powered by a purchased wordlist. There's longer stuff that is unusual but also kinda dull, like ONE'S COLUMN and SADDLE JOINT and the plural (?) MARGINS OF ERROR. Also, ULTRA MAN—what the hell is that?; I teach comics, I don't know what that is. Google is insisting that it's a '60s Japanese TV series, so I'm very confused. Anyway, NO BALLS? COMAKER? This isn't good fill. This is stuff a computer told you was valid. Humans should make human choices to please humans. It's great to get assistance from software, but reasonable human judgment is still required.
I thought this was easy enough, but then got very, very held up around words I didn't know. The first was COMAKER (!?!), a word that hasn't been in the puzzle since '04. Because it's dumb. If you asked me to to define COMAKER, I would've thought, well, that's easy: someone who makes something (say, a quilt) with others. But no. It has some dumb financial meaning that skews the meaning of "make" beyond recognition. Also, the "M" cross could easily have been an "H"(92A: Common filler words = UMS, and I kept wanting UHS). The other, larger tough section was everything in and around the SADDLE in SADDLE JOINT. HAD AT and not SET AT??? HARD SET (!?!?!?!). CAJOLERY! And with the "J" hidden behind a very vague clue for HAJ (59A: It's a trek). The thing that made this section really miserable, though, was figuring out, finally, that the answer to 56A: Laughs and laughs was ... HAS. Imagine, *imagine* having a very basic, infinitely cluable English word like HAS in your grid and thinking, "You know what would be fun...?" Dear lord. Again, stupendously bad human judgment.
Five things:
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Relative difficulty: Medium (12-ish)
Theme answers:
- THE RISK IS TOO HIGH (23A: "We can't play that game—I can't reach it on our shelf!")
- SORRY NOT SORRY (38A: "My sincerest apologies, but that game is off the table")
- I HAVEN'T A CLUE (54A: "We can't play that game unless we borrow someone else's")
- PLEASE DON'T GO (76A: "I'm begging you, let's not play that game!")
- LIFE'S TOO SHORT (85A: "No, that game would be over in a flash")
- ASKING FOR TROUBLE (103A: "I've finally decided! I'm ...")
: one that participates in an agreementspecifically : one who stands to meet a financial obligation in the event of the maker's default (m-w.com)
• • •
I thought this was easy enough, but then got very, very held up around words I didn't know. The first was COMAKER (!?!), a word that hasn't been in the puzzle since '04. Because it's dumb. If you asked me to to define COMAKER, I would've thought, well, that's easy: someone who makes something (say, a quilt) with others. But no. It has some dumb financial meaning that skews the meaning of "make" beyond recognition. Also, the "M" cross could easily have been an "H"(92A: Common filler words = UMS, and I kept wanting UHS). The other, larger tough section was everything in and around the SADDLE in SADDLE JOINT. HAD AT and not SET AT??? HARD SET (!?!?!?!). CAJOLERY! And with the "J" hidden behind a very vague clue for HAJ (59A: It's a trek). The thing that made this section really miserable, though, was figuring out, finally, that the answer to 56A: Laughs and laughs was ... HAS. Imagine, *imagine* having a very basic, infinitely cluable English word like HAS in your grid and thinking, "You know what would be fun...?" Dear lord. Again, stupendously bad human judgment.
["Nobody likes to be *too* close to Lubbock"]
Five things:
- 113A: Officials in ancient Rome (TRIBUNES) — again, I don't understand the decision here. Why isn't this TRIBUTES—a much more common word with (and this is the important part) infinitely more cluing possibilities? TRIBUNES is more obscure *and* it locks you into a very restricted set of clues. Not so TRIBUTES. Maybe FIT (which would be the second "T" cross in this scenario) is already in the grid somewhere ... that's the only reason I could think of not to go with TRIBUTES.
- 53A: What's plucked in "she loves me, she loves me not" (COROLLA)— ugh, no, stop. Shove your botany, this is "she loves me," no one is plucking a COROLLA. They're plucking petals. *Petals*. Be human!
- 18D: Kind of number not much seen nowadays (FAX) — I figured the clue was doing that "number" switcheroo gag and so I wanted a three-letter synonym of ETHER
- 81A: Island greetings (ALOHAS) — there are a lot of dumb plurals today. Well, there's this, and UNISONS. Oh, right, and of course MARGINS OF ERROR, who could forget?
- 36A: Turning point in history (ONE B.C.) — I would've thought ONE A.D. was the "turning point, ONE B.C. being just another year as far as anyone knew then. But whatever.
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