Never Let Them Know Your Next Move

by Pravan Chakravarthy

• Play it ↗
• Difficulty: medium-hard

I was immediately drawn to the shape of this grid because it looks more like an abstract art piece than a crossword puzzle. Turns out that the constructor randomly generated the black squares using an absolutely insane manual process: generate numbers, apply a set of rules, fill in the squares, repeat. The post-solve blurb dives into the constructor's methodology and it's well worth a read.

Squares aside, I think this puzzle is excellent. The difficulty curve is well-paced and satisfying, providing just enough pause when the gimmes are exhausted before the grid is unlocked with an epiphany. After exhausting the easy clues, my partner and I spent a solid minute or two puzzling over the grid. My partner nailed SCALPEL and the rest of the puzzle fell into place.

I'm really happy COMEATME and BOPS are featured in this grid. There's something evocative about they way they're clued that allowed me to slot them instantly, even if I had doubts as to whether they were the proper answers.

Speaking of clues, there are tons of great ones in this grid. "Stocking up of snowballs for a snowball fight, figuratively" (ARMSRACE) is a personal favorite. I also enjoyed "Hold over water?" for CARGODECK and "It can get the juices flowing" for BOTTLEOPENER. Apart from the witticisms, there's quite a bit of strategic cluing in this puzzle to maintain the difficulty curve. ETA stands out as one example, clued as the difficult: "Greek letter used to represent the packing fraction in thermodynamics".

I didn't catch the reference for ASPS ("Snakes one of whose brethren notably killed a queen"). For those likewise uneducated, the clue refers to the death of Cleopatra. Apparently there's some modern debate as to whether she died of a self-inflicted asp bite or other means of poisoning. Either way, not a fun way to go.

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