Constructor: Brandon Koppy
Relative difficulty: Medium (Challenging if you had to wrestle with the website or the app, LOL)
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Lots to cover here. First of all ... I don't know if I would've thought to fill in those blank squares if I hadn't had the "Puzzle Notes" ... I don't know what those notes looked like on the app or online, but in my software, they just popped right up. Actually, what showed up is this:
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The puzzle started very inauspiciously, with PHLEGMY. Please consider the vibe of your puzzles. No one but no one wants to encounter PHLEGM in their puzzles, and PHLEGMY is somehow worse. I would accept PHLEGMATIC, since it can be taken figuratively, i.e. in non-bodily fluid fashion. But oof, PHLEGMY, that's just ... unpleasant ... and wow, yeah, on top of "WAP" (27A: 2020 #1 hit for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion), PHLEGMY is really Really ... something. Speaking of "WAP," congrats to this puzzle on getting both "pussy" (the "P" in "WAP") and "fuck" (the "F" in "WTF") into the grid ... and the "fuck"-like FRAK to boot! (88D: Softened expletive on "Battlestar Galactica"). Throw in CASUAL SEX and pop star DUA LIPA and you can see puzzle is trying really really hard to get you to feel its edgy youthness, and I guess I don't mind. It's better than the complacently old-fashioned vibe that still manages to pervade so many puzzles. I'll take all the swears and sex references over the genuinely off-putting stuff like PHLEGMY, or ELON, for god's sakes (ugh why lord why? Can't I go one day without hearing that [grawlix grawlix grawlix] name!?) (69A: First name among billionaires)
Relative difficulty: Medium (Challenging if you had to wrestle with the website or the app, LOL)
THEME: "Blank Expressions" — there are eight blank squares in the puzzle, each of which occurs at the crossing of two two-part phrases (the blank square separates the two parts of each answer). What goes in those squares? Well, nothing ... but if, when you're done, you fill each square with a letter that makes sense in both directions (irrespective of the clues), then those letters, reading from L to R, top to bottom, spell the phrase: SPACE OUT (it's a pun!)
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: warp zone (the hypothetical, "P"-added phrase at 36-Across) — - GOOD EATS / HOT POT (S)
- WAR ZONE / HARD ASS (P)
- DEAD HEAD / LEGAL ID (A)
- TOOK OVER / ARM HAIR (C)
- B SIDES / BAR BACK (E)
- HARP ON / GAS LINE (O)
- SWEATS IT / PER SE (U)
- STAR DATE / TOP HAT (T)
A warp, also known as a portal or teleporter, is an element in video game design that allows a player character instant travel between two locations or levels. Specific area that allow such travel is referred to as warp zone. A warp zone might be a secret passage, accessible only to players capable of finding it, but they are also commonly used as a primary means of travel in certain games. Warps might be deliberately installed within puzzles, be used to avoid danger in sections of a game that have been previously accomplished, be something a player can abuse for cheating or be used as a punishment to a player straying from the "correct" path.In some games, a player can only use warps to travel to locations they have visited before. Because of this, a player has to make the journey by normal route at least once, but are not required to travel the same paths again if they need to revisit earlier areas in the game. Finding warp zones might become a natural goal of a gaming session, being used as a checkpoint.
Though it is unclear which video game first made use of teleportation areas or devices, the element has been traced back to MUDs, where it allowed connected rooms to not be "topologically correct" if necessary. The element was later popularized by Super Mario Bros., in which secret areas referred to within the game as warp zones allowed players to skip forward through the game.
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But it went by so fast (I must've hit a key or the cursor before reading the message) that I assumed the notes had popped up and went looking for them. And they read as follows:
The "blank" gimmick became obvious pretty quickly, at the DEAD HEAD / LEGAL ID crossing, so I just solved this thing like a themeless that had a bunch of surprise blank squares in it. Somewhere around the 1/3 mark I noticed that HARD ASS was just HARD PASS without a "P," which led me to see if I could fill other blank squares with plausible letters. I saw that the first three squares went "SPA-" and I knew I was onto something. But this didn't alter the way the puzzle played. It was basically a themeless with holes. Absolutely zero actual puzzle content (that is, clues / answers) relate to blankness or holes or spaces or whatever. The theme is entirely structural / visual, with the bonus phrase being the one real wordplay payoff. And I don't mind that. I think the "bonus phrase" is cute, and the grid (for once, on a Sunday) is strong enough on its own to make the solving experience generally enjoyable. I'm not sure precisely how SPACE OUT is intended to be taken. You have to put the space in to make the clues work ... but I guess if you fill those spaces with letters, then those crossing answers no longer have spaces in them, so the spaces have been taken out ... yeah, that's good enough for me. I won't comment on the absolute disaster that the online solving experience has been for many solvers already, because that wasn't my experience, but let's just say that if you had trouble getting the website or app to take your finished grid, you aren't alone, not by a long shot. I'm told that just putting an "X" in those spaces works ... but it all seems pretty confusing and sketchy. There's a reason I don't care about "streaks" and continue to solve NYT crosswords in the good "old"-fashioned .puz format (or on paper).
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| [122D ... sorta] |
Notes:
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 117D: Shining brightly (AGLEAM) — ah, the whimsical old-timey A- prefix, AGASP AGAPE AGOG APACE etc. Today, AGLEAM. Even with AGL- in place, I still had two wrong answers before I arrived at AGLEAM. First, AGLINT. Then, AGLARE. Those may seem improbable, but I don't think they're any more improbable than AGLEAM.
- 29D: Fad accessory of the 1980s (SWATCH)— I mean, I guess, but there are still SWATCH stores all over the world. I bought two SWATCHes in Montreal in 2019. "Fad" shmad.
- 138D: Scrooge McDuck, for one (SCOT)— holy cow this one was hard. I guess I know this about him, but I've read a bunch of Carl Barks tales of the Duck-verse, and it's not like his dialogue is written in Scottish dialect, so I just forgot he was a SCOT.
- 18A: Film critic with a cameo in 1978's "Superman" (REX REED) — every year, I invariably receive a handful of letters addressed to (and even checks made out to) REX REED. And yet the letters arrive and the checks clear, what a world.
- 108A: Spacecraft's reflective attachment (SOLAR SAIL) — I don't really know what this is, but I believe it exists, and it looks pretty, so hurray.
- 143A: 2013 Bong Joon Ho thrilled ("SNOWPIERCER") — speaking of looking pretty, "SNOWPIERCER" over "E.T. PHONE HOME" is one of the prettiest short stacks I've ever seen. It might be my favorite thing about the puzzle.
- 54D: Has online? (LOL) — easily the hardest answer of the puzzle for me. Got it, but no idea, none, how it was supposed to work ... until I remembered how much the puzzle loves its "laugh syllables" ... so not "has" (as in "possesses" or "owns"), but HAs, as in ... multiple "laugh syllables." Thanks, I HAte it.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]