Washington's official state sport since 2022 / MON 3-11-24 / Sturdy shoe, or an Irish accent / Spiral-shelled mollusk / Guide to navigating an internet resource / Beanbag-tossing sport / App craze of the early 2010s, familiarly / Mattel offering with cards for making "hilarious comparisons"

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Rachel Fabi

Relative difficulty: Easy (Easy-Medium to Medium if you were solving Downs-only, as I was)

THEME: THE HUNGER GAMES (55A: Dystopian novel/film series ... or what the answers to the starred clues are?) — games with foods in their titles:

Theme answers:

• APPLES TO APPLES (16A: *Mattel offering with cards for making "hilarious comparisons")
• PICKLEBALL (23A: *Washington's official state sport since 2022)
• CORNHOLE (35A: *Beanbag-tossing sport)
• CANDY CRUSH (46A: *App craze of the early 2010s, familiarly)

Word of the Day: APPLES TO APPLES (16A) —

Apples to Apples is a party game originally published by Out of the Box Publishing Inc., and now by Mattel. Players start with a hand of seven "red apple" cards, which feature nouns. A player is selected to be the first judge, and that judge plays a "green apple" card, which features an adjective. The round is won by playing the "red apple" card that the judge determines to be the best match for the "green apple" card. The role of the judge rotates, and the number of rounds is determined by the number of players. The game is designed for four to ten players and played for 30–75 minutes.

Apples to Apples was chosen by Mensa International in 1999 as a "Mensa Select" prizewinner, an award given to five games each year. It was also named "Party Game of the Year" in the December 1999 issue of Games magazine and received the National Parenting Center's seal of approval in May 1999. The popularity of the game led to an increased interest in similar card-matching/answer-judging party games. On September 8, 2007, Out of the Box Publishing sold the rights for Apples to Apples to Mattel. (wikipedia)

Hey, I know these two people. Rachel is my good friend and neighbor to the north (Syracuse!), and Rebecca is a prolific constructor Whose Puzzle (co-constructed with Adam Wagner) I Just Finished Guest-Editing for the the soon-to-be-released These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 collection! (More on that collection in this coming Sunday's blog). Nobody I know ever tells me when they have puzzles coming out, so it's always a delightful surprise. Is this the debut of PICKLEBALL!? No. That credit goes to David Steinberg, who debuted the word almost a year ago now. My primary care physician (whom I adore) is ... I wanna say state PICKLEBALL champion in her age group? I may have that wrong, but I do know that she competes For Real, and it always cheers up hypochondriacal me to hear her talk about her PICKLEBALL adventures. She's such a calm, reassuring, optimistic person, but you can tell she would kill you on the PICKLEBALL court. I just know she has a ruthless streak in her somewhere, underneath that kindly exterior. Anyway, whenever I see PICKLEBALL, I think of Dr. Yu, my doctor for 20+ years, just The Best. I've never played APPLES TO APPLES or CANDY CRUSH, but I'm aware that they exist. CORNHOLE is kind of a standard family get-together game around these parts. I haven't played in like a decade, since my kid was much much younger, and before our friends and neighbors Dave & Diane moved away (I'm sure I played it elsewhere, but my only specific memories of playing it involved playing it at their house, just around the block from us). It's fun. You throw beanbags. At a hole. Not sure where corn comes into it, but ... good times. I like that all these games are so different from one another. Digital, tabletop, court-based, backyard-based. It's kind of a leap from food to HUNGER (I kept thinking "huh, food games, wonder how they're gonna tie this all together..."), but not too big a leap. Cute theme. Thumbs up.