Thumbnails
1 puzzle by Dan Caprera
with Jeff Chen comments
| T | B | S | P | B | I | B | M | O | T | O | ||||
| E | E | R | I | E | E | N | E | C | A | R | L | A | ||
| S | T | A | R | T | A | T | T | H | E | S | K | U | L | L |
| M | R | T | S | H | E | A | R | N | I | P | ||||
| E | A | S | T | T | W | E | L | V | E | P | A | C | E | S |
| I | R | A | S | E | C | A | S | H | ||||||
| C | O | M | M | A | N | D | O | T | Y | P | E | A | B | |
| I | R | A | E | A | X | E | H | O | B | O | ||||
| A | B | R | O | A | D | I | N | T | R | A | N | E | T | |
| Q | U | A | I | D | T | E | A | L | ||||||
| S | O | U | T | H | S | E | V | E | N | S | T | E | P | S |
| A | N | I | C | L | I | N | T | N | R | A | ||||
| W | E | S | T | F | I | V | E | T | H | E | N | D | I | G |
| N | U | E | V | A | E | W | E | S | E | I | Z | E | ||
| P | S | A | T | S | S | S | T | O | T | E |
Every day, I bring home three books from the library to read to my kids. I search for as many pirate ones as possible — even if the book is groan-worthy, at least I can practice my pirate accent. Arr!
More than ten budding constructors have approached me with ideas similar to this one, and why not? The idea of integrating a treasure map into a grid --and maybe even having the solver find real treasure? — is appealing. Dan's concept works — following a path from the skull, pacing east, south, west, to end at the lone X. X marks the spot!
I loved the inclusion of the skull (see grid below). There's huge potential in visuals like this, aspects emphatically declaring that the print edition of newspapers still has advantages most e-solving can't replicate. (I am curious to see what the NYT xw digital team does with this. I've been impressed by how much they've improved the e-solving process at their website.)
Interesting decision to include long fill in the across direction, COMMANDO adding spice to the pirate theme. They're not directly related — and maybe there are such things as INTRANET pirates? sure, why not! — but I did enjoy it.
Heavy price to pay, though. Four grid-spanning themers are difficult to work with. If you don't space them properly — look how close together START AT THE SKULL and EAST TWELVE PACES are — you're bound to have trouble. Even for a mid-week puzzle, where some crossword glue is passable for regular solvers, there's way too much of it. A more traditional layout, with the second and third themers moved one row toward the middle, would have been better.
I would have loved some way of digging for the treasure — over the years, contructors have suggested a rebus of GEMS, Schrödinger of X / BOOTY, and much more — but fun concept overall. The colorful piratic clues were great.