We've seen plenty of these drop-down themes before, but I liked the discovery of TOQUE in CALLING INTO QUESTION and BERET in CYBERETHICS. The first one I hit was THE BOOK O(F EZ)RA, and I embarrassingly thought that THE BOOK OF RA was some Egyptian offshoot of the Bible. (We've taken the liberty of highlighting the hats below, just in case it's still not clear.)
Get it? isn't CALLINGINTSTION, but CALLING IN(TO QUE)STION, with the TOQUE "dropped" down. grab yourself a print copy of The Times, and enjoy this year's Puzzle Mania!īefore you go sending that angry THIS F'IN PUZZLE MAKES NO SENSE! email to me, look at the fixed-up answers below. As I outlined in my latest article on crosswords, keeping the solver in mind is what matters most. Thus, this took tons of reworking, but the time and effort to produce a particularly enjoyable grid versus one that just fit the bill felt worth it. TL DR: I played a giant game of Tetris in order to fit all the thematic pieces into one 21x21 puzzle, while still holding myself to my usual high fill standards.
and now we're up to three theme answers being accounted for. Don't forget that CY(B)HICS / BERETTA still needs to find its way into the grid somewhere. Then there's crossing SAFE ZONES with the symmetrically placed revealer, and having to connect BOOK O(F) RA at the F. Really, though, crossing ADD TO QUEUE with CALLING IN (T)STION adds so much more of a constraint to the rest of the grid. Note to aspiring puzzle makers: Be wary of interlocking theme answers. The revealer was all his idea I just happened to flesh out the exact wordplay and build the whole thing myself instead of seeing through on a collaborative effort. Today's puzzle is hereby dedicated to my housemate, Nick.
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