27 D. “Supreme condition?” back to Film studionot a relative measure of importance, the requirement is screen testing.
49 D. I thought “The Place Where Early Tablets Were First Uncovered” was a very interesting guide to Mount Sinai. He’s referring, of course, to the Ten Commandments, not iPads.
54 D. Ah, bong. I remember when my dad brought home an Atari early and we set aside an extra week to play a game. It took a week because, unlike most sports games, the primitive “ball” — I think it was just a big pixel — took about half an hour to display on the screen once it was hit with the “bat,” which was really a single line of pixels. Then – and this is the exciting part – your opponent will have a hard time moving their line of pixels to where the ball pixel is supposed to go. I say “struggle” because most people had never played a home video game at that point. Occasionally, someone was able to bounce a ball pixel off the side of the screen, and that was considered Olympic-level play.
Creator Notes
One of the great things about building without a theme is that it offers the freedom to experiment with grid concepts that don’t work within the confines of a themed puzzle.
As a solution, I don’t like grids where the black squares look like they were randomly placed because they turn out to be the most convenient for the creator, which can impair the aesthetics and flow of the puzzle. So I challenged myself to start working within tighter constraints.
I decided to create a grid of only straight blocks of three black squares each, with the additional condition that these blocks do not touch each other, even at the corners. In addition to its visual appeal, this loose layout also helps ensure that solutions can advance seamlessly from one area of the network to another. This design only has six long entries of nine to 12 characters, so the key when packing was to make sure the 22 medium-length slots brought plenty to the table. As someone who works in the AI field, I’m thrilled to be making 34-Across’s debut.
Hope you all enjoy!
Don’t Fear Fridays: About Easy Mode Newsletter
Puzzle Editor Christina Iverson will send a weekly Friday crossword with accessible clues straight to your inbox if you sign up for the Easy Mode newsletter. This extra bit of goodness is for those who want to try the Friday puzzles but have heard all about how hard these puzzles are.
Take a look at the difference between the Normal Mode and Easy Mode guides below. The links are a small sample of the clues from this Friday’s mystery. When you click on it, you’ll see the version that will play the regular puzzle as well as the easier version.
