New York Times, Tuesday, February 11, 2020

NEIL: I've spitballed some puzzle themes with Jeff before, but this is the only one that has managed to get off the ground. (Har har). Thanks again, Jeff!

At first, I thought this might need to be a 16x15 puzzle. My original themers included "FIREWORKS DISPLAY," "AIR BALLOON FIESTA," and the revealer, "WITH FLYING COLORS." Thankfully Jeff talked me down. We considered other themers (e.g., SOAP BUBBLES, AURORA BOREALIS, and LANTERN FESTIVALS) before ultimately agreeing on the themers here. They all have a different type of imagery about them. And being gay, I was super happy we managed to squeeze in RAINBOW FLAG and GLITTER BOMB — and both as debut entries, no less!

We went through many grids before landing on this one, including "mirror symmetry" grids. We started with some using 37 black squares, but I kept pushing for a more open grid. I think the result ended up pretty ideal, given our constraints. And even though there are technically two "cheater" squares, they're both essentially necessitated by the central pair of revealers.

"IT'S A BIG IF" still sounds a bit funny to my ear (I think "THAT'S A BIG IF" is more spot-on), but Jeff seeded that into our fill, and I didn't have strong objections. We also had a last-minute moment of panic where we noticed the word "FREE" showed up in our grid twice, but thankfully one of our earlier drafts had a corner we could substitute back in!

JEFF: I liked so much about Neil's basic concept. AIR BALLOON FIESTA, though ... it didn't hit my ear right, so off to Google to went. To my surprise, that phrase (in quotes) got a ton of hits.

Maybe my own ignorance was at fault? Or my weird phobia of hot air balloons pecked slowly open by peacocks? In any case, we almost talked ourselves into letting it slide — it is evocative, no doubt — but a few trusted friends gave me quite the side-eye when I proposed it. Off to search for new themers!

I'm often full of piss and vinegar when I see low word-count themed puzzles. Frickin' constructors, bigger than their britches, showing off all lah-di-dah! And look at today's bleedin' grid, 74 words, requiring LTD and CRIT? Why not follow your own advice, blankety-blank big-head Jeff, and go to a 76-word design?

I would have preferred that.

And another thing, you blimpity-bloopity … wait. What?

To Neil's point, I couldn't figure out a way to arrange the skeleton at 76 or 78 words such that it didn't feel like two half-puzzles. The black square separating FLYING and COLORS created more problems than I anticipated, causing a diagonal from SW to NE. I tried so many ways of creating a passageway through it, but no dice.

Putting black squares at the AR of ARREAR or at the S of UNIONS would have made for an easier, more newb-friendly Tuesday solve, no doubt. Both options would chunk apart the grid, though. Is that better or worse than a newer solver having to figure out IBERIA and RIYADH? After 10+ years of constructing, I still am not sure.

I'd love to have some feedback mechanism, where the NYT's app would allow for direct evaluation and commenting. Was the puzzle solvable? Fun? If not, why not? That type of feedback loop would be so valuable. Will Shortz has done a great job of expanding the NYT's crossword business, but it could be a true empire with some steps such as this.

P.S. If you're not sure what a GLITTER BOMB is, why aren't you watching Mark Rober's YouTube channel? Dude does some amazing stuff.

Yes, you can make your own Glitter Bomb!