New York Times, Thursday, December 5, 2013

Jeff Chen (2/23/12) and Elizabeth Gorski (8/18/13) weren't kidding when they wrote about the challenges inherent in constructing a puzzle with theme answers on the perimeter. After I came up with this theme idea, I struggled for quite a while to find a combination of theme entries that interlocked as necessary and still allowed for decent fill around the central revealer.

It was definitely the most difficult time I've had making a 15 x 15 puzzle, but also the most satisfying when I came up with something that worked, kind of an "aha moment" on steroids. To top it off, Will liked the puzzle enough to accept it, and I'm pleased to be joining the ranks of Thursday constructors as a result. I hope solvers enjoy the CONFUSION!

How long did it take you to catch on to this puzzle's theme? Since this sort of theme has appeared several times before, maybe not long. The constructor's clue for 16A was "Stick ___ in the water." My assistant, Anna, suggested what you got, which I thought was pretty clever.

A clever idea for a theme! CONFUSION parsed as CON FUSION, i.e. requiring the fusion of CON to 10 perimeter answers in order to make sense of their clues. And to top it off, each of the 10 perimeter answers is a word in its own right. Pretty neat.

It's not often that we have puzzles with perimeter theme answers, and there's a reason why. Each corner is difficult to construct in its own right, and it's very difficult to get the fill from one corner to mesh cleanly with that of the other three corners. Toss in a middle entry and you've made your life very, very difficult. I keep on telling myself that I'll never do another one again, but I have a short memory. The eternal optimist in me says "It really isn't so bad, just do it!" And then I mentally disappear from everything else for five days. Clearly I need to go all Memento on myself*.

Dan has his best filling success in the north and south, where he's wisely used black squares to semi-segment these areas for easier filling. As a result, he puts in BATTEN DOWN and IN LA LA LAND while keeping things mostly clean. The south isn't quite as nice (LAR next to TATI) but including NBA DRAFT I think is worth the price. Nice stuff there.

The difficulty level ratchets up in big corners where the perimeter answers don't have a lot of options. I bet Dan came up with a list of possibilities and then figured out what he could intersect in the corners. The fact that the themers cross in the four corners is awfully elegant (cheater squares in the corners make things easier by opening up many more themer options), but it also makes it very difficult to fill those sections cleanly. Dan does a nice job in the NW, with VESPERS something I didn't know but enjoyed looking up.

The SE had me stumped though. ELEAZAR is fair for a Thursday, but PES and ON AN crossing it is unfortunate. Same sort of issue in the SW, with CMI atop RIBBER, with CIEL in close proximity. I can imagine Dan tried dozens if not hundreds of possibilities in these sections, and kudos to him for adding in cheater squares in order to try to make things work better. But man oh man, this type of construction is a bear to keep smooth.

Fun concept and terrific theme; some success and some bumps in the execution.

*NOTE TO SELF: it really isn't so bad, just do it!