Some thoughts on Lollapuzzoola puzzles W and 1-4

[rhu]

First, many thanks to Ryan and Brian of "Be More Smarter" for making the puzzles from the Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament available. I did the warmup and first four puzzles tonight (before the concert, during intermission, and finished up #4 during dinner) and I have to say that so far I'm having almost as much fun as if I'd been there, without the pressure of competing. Woo-hoo!

Here on in are spoilers.

Warmup puzzle - nice, although I quibble with 56D. A man should be né; n'est pas? And 41A has "as" in both the clue and answer.

Puzzle 1 by online friend Deb Amlen whom I still want to meet someday :-) - I would love to see a video of how this played out. How far into the time did the special clues get read? And did anyone who didn't play Simon Ryan says get eliminated?

Puzzle 2 - Nice. Since I wasn't trying to beat the clock, and since every answer was double-clued, I tried solving using only the down clues, and got most of the way there. I wished for more whitespace between the clues, though, to keep track of my answers before transferring them to the grid.

Puzzle 3 - Clever concept, but ruined by not trusting the audience to get it: I would have enjoyed it a lot more if 63D hadn't been a spoiler. As it was, I got that fairly early on, and so the seemingly unchecked squares weren't an issue and I was able to cross-solve the two halves of the puzzle without looking at the cartoons, past the initial glance that I had given them at the very beginning. I even wish the circles hadn't been there, although in my case I simply filled them in once I had 63D. This would have been a really cool reveal, and I feel cheated of an aha! moment.

Puzzle 4 by twisted genius Tyler Hinman - Wow. My brain broke on this one. It was clear what needed to be done, but looking back and forth between grid and clues didn't work, and visualizing words that matched the "letters I have so far" didn't work. I eventually made it all the way through, but had I been competing, this would have been the point at which I'd stop worrying about anything to follow. Here's another puzzle where I wish there had been more whitespace on the page for tracking partial solutions. Loved 1A, finally loved 31A once I got it, was grateful for 11A because that's where I broke in.

Well, that's it for tonight. I look forward to playing the remaining puzzles, probably on Sunday.

Comments

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

Puzzle 2 they had 3 friends do the cluing before the puzzle began. It went by pretty quickly that way.

Puzzle 3 I'm very glad they didn't trust the audience! It would have taken me a loooong time to figure it out under tournament pressure, especially given the unchecked squares.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Re: Puzzle 3 - I've replied to Ennie's comment that perhaps this puzzle was a mismatch for a tournament because of that.

This audience member was not ruined at all

[ennienyc.livejournal.com]

I definitely needed the nudge on #3. I was beginning to panic about the unchecked squares that were still blank and wondering if I'd finish the puzzle. Even after seeing the reveal and filling the rest in, I had a careless mistake that luckily I found when I double-checked that it worked. Despite that, I managed to finish 5th on this puzzle.

Re: This audience member was not ruined at all

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I can see how under tournament conditions the exact opposite priorities obtain; I wonder if this means that this puzzle was a mismatch for a tournament.

Re: This audience member was not ruined at all

[mr-do42.livejournal.com]

For a standard tournament, sure. For this event, the old cliché "outside the box" seems to fit, so this puzzle actually worked out nicely. Unusual, but no more or less than some of the others.
Like most puzzles in this set, many solvers caught on, some figured out the theme but didn't quite complete the grid, and some did not grasp it, as you would expect with any decent-sized sample. From a judging viewpoint, not out of the ordinary.

I also think with the time constraints, the extra theme nudges only helped, and certainly did not give away too much. Many solvers who had difficulty with this one would likely have a better experience without the time limit, but that is the nature of speed-solving.
- Mr.Do!

Re: This audience member was not ruined at all

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I love the fact that most of these puzzles are ultraThursdays. What I'm commenting on though is that unlike, say, Tyler's mindbender or Deb's riff on Simon Says, Joe's puzzle presents the classic tension between speed-solving and savoring.

When you say "the extra theme nudges ... certainly did not give away too much", I think you're talking as one of the great speed-solvers. Had I been at the competition, I would have been grateful for the tip-off and the minutes it would have saved me.

But since I was solving this one casually, I disagree --- the nudges certainly did give away too much for me. Instead of leaving the theme entries for last, and looking at the cartoons to figure out what the unches must be, and eventually having the realization "Oh! They're palindromes!" --- instead of that, I immediately ticked off every five squares from the middle and mechanically copied letters back and forth, which (for me) eliminated a lot of the fun/joy from the solving/discovery experience, and turned an ultraThursday into an unusually-shaped regular puzzle.

So that's why I'm wondering if it's a mismatch.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

I look forward to playing the remaining puzzles

Huh. Before reading this, I hadn't actually seen that phrasing used. "Let's Play Crosswords" always sounded really off to me.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I don't usually say that, but these particular puzzles feel more like games than like puzzles; the pleasure I'm getting feels much more like "playing" enjoyment rather than "solving" enjoyment. So I intentionally reached for the "wrong" verb.

Stick *that* in your neuroscience pipe :-)