Bookish Sorts

Jump to: This Puzzle's Theme | Interesting Clues

THE PUZZLE (old version here) — I have been a crossword lover for quite a while now, but have never properly set aside time to try making one myself. My friends will confirm that I really enjoy wordplay and silly puns, and I found that I was indeed able to engage the same parts of my brain that regularly come up with corny jokes when designing this puzzle.

Before diving deeper into the puzzle's theme, I want to share a bit about the process of creating this puzzle! After settling on a theme, used Crosswyrd (a free crossword puzzle creation website) to manage grid design and help with making sure I didn't end up with an un-finishable board. After planning out the whole grid, I used the internet to find inspiration for (and for some words, to directly copy) clues.

This endeavor was a lot more challenging than I expected! I relied upon internet tools significantly to make this puzzle, and have a newfound appreciation for the daily Times crosswords. I'm not sure when I'll get to making my second puzzle, but I'm looking forward to it—hopefully it gets a bit easier from here on out.

This Puzzle's Theme

If you know me, you won't be very surprised by the theme I chose for this puzzle: ultimate frisbee. While this choice of theme makes this puzzle near impossible and far less enjoyable for non-disc-lovers, I hope the extreme delight I felt coming up with frisbee-themed clues makes up for that somewhat.

I wanted to capture the essence of ultimate in this puzzle, and 37-Across "SPIRIT OF THE GAME" seemed like the perfect phrase for that. The clue "The ghost of an animal hunted for sport", although a little more morbid than most clues featured in the Times, felt like a clever way to hint at this answer.

(It's hard parodying this column about my own puzzle; it's weird to praise my own clues...).

The thing that "People in a long queue might hate you for" (17A) is an UPLINE CUT; "What one might do to identify a galaxy in the sky" (23A) is a UNIVERSE POINT; "Wonder woman's stance" (48A) is a POWER POSITION; and "How one might deliver a present, if in a rush" (60A) is a GIVE AND GO.

There's something I really enjoy about absurd hints like these. Thank you to the theme for affording me this sort of cheekiness!

Sprinkled throughout the rest of the puzzle are hints that, although not explicitly linked to the theme, may also look extra familiar to any frisbee players completing the puzzle. POACH (34A), BRUTE (65A), VERT (66A), ESPNU (2D), and PONY (56D) are all nods to ultimate-related terms and teams.

Interesting Clues

31A. "Graph prefix" is AUTO.

44A. "Craft where things get fired up" is POTTERY. This description of the craft was also a (very subtle) nod to the puzzle's theme, as a popular frisbee cheer involves getting "fired up."

62A. The "Popular typesetting software" that may only be popular amongst STEM majors is LATEX. I haven't seen this one used in other crosswords before, probably because it's a little too niche for a general audience—since this whole puzzle was niche, I enjoyed the opportunity to try out this clue.

11D. A silly clue, definitely not one that would make it into a real Times crossword. "The first half of a locale referenced by Nicki fans" is SRI, for Sri Lanka, and this clue is a reference to this video.

26D. "Something that may debut at the Super Bowl" is a NEW AD.

61D. I wrestled with the wording of this clue for a while, and am still not satisfied with it. It used to be "what a 'team' has, importantly", which is NO I. This is also a nod to the theme, and comes from the saying "there's no 'I' in team." The updated version is a little more obvious, with the clue "There's ___ in team."

Constructor Notes

Since I am the constructor as well as Wordplay 2.0's only columnist, this section will be short.

I really enjoyed making this puzzle and hope to try my hand at another one soon! If you did it and have feedback on the clue phrasing, difficulty, anything, please let me know. I'm always trying to improve : )