For 25 years, I have harbored a long, deep-seated grudge against the New York Times crossword puzzle. It started when a family friend gifted me a daily crossword puzzle calendar from NYT because I was a ‘smart kid’. I don’t know what got this woman into thinking a 7-year-old would love NYT’s crossword puzzle – a puzzle famous for its difficulty – but no matter how many I tried, my puny kid’s brain couldn’t solve a single clue.
So, When I saw that the New York Times had made an AR game Shattered Crossword on Instagram, I shuddered.
Still I will do anything for the blog, and everyone is always wailing about facing your childhood trauma right away to heal. Maybe since Engadget noted that the game was “too simple” for crossword puzzle enthusiasts, it might be at a level where I finally could, And last but not least to succeed. I went through to the New York Times Instagram account, swiped through the stories, and found the link to this particular filter effect.
So far so good. When you open the game, you will be asked to find a flat surface. Easy enough. My apartment has many flat surfaces. Except it was never so clear what kind of a flat surface that the New York Times wanted me to use. Like a table? My TV screen? A wall? I then swiped through the instructions, which explain that the clue in the crossword had “shattered.” To find out, you have to shift your perspective and rotate the broken word so that it becomes whole again.
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This is where everything fell apart.
On my first try, my clue was a five letter word for “expert quip.” The broken word was a random mess of yellow. No amount of squeezing and rotating the screen did anything. In case I misunderstood, I started putting my yoga skills to work, bending my body back and twisting like Neo putting bullets in the Matrix. I was hoping this would change my view of the crossword puzzle itself. It didn’t move. Instead, my dog gave me her best stinky look, and my husband asked, ‘What the hell are you doing? Is everything all right?”
No. I was clear not OK.
I reasoned that my first attempt failed because I chose an insufficiently flat surface. This time I chose my TV screen instead of my desk. Huzzah! The puzzle was a bit more visible, and this time I clearly saw the word CLAP explode into a bunch of jagged yellow shards. I was a little pissed off. Why was the NYT to give me the answer? Whatever. At least I knew which word to form.
Except, no matter how I dialed the word, CLAP wouldn’t show up. I raised my arms above my head. I squeezed. I swept. I turned. I could see the faint shape of the word CLAP, especially the L and the A. But unfortunately I was foiled. I tried switching to a different clue except the broken word didn’t shift.
On my third attempt the crossword puzzle was so small and, for unknown reasons I couldn’t zoom in to make it bigger. Fail. Closest to my fourth attempt, but even standing in my chair with my phone high above my head, I couldn’t get this goddamn word to appear.
I know when I’ve been defeated, and this finicky, not-particularly-well-designed crossword had outdone me. Worse, I have been unable to free myself from my irrational resentment against crossword puzzles. No. Instead, I stand here, with some mild back pain, and my hatred for the New York Times crossword puzzle has never grown.