![]() It’s so clearly designed as a mere loss leader for the actual crossword that finishing it has the exact opposite effect that a good puzzle should have-it’s less a tiny surge of accomplishment than the sense that you’ve wasted an entire minute of your time. The New York Times Easiest Crossword Puzzles: 150 Very Easy. The Mini, though, is a four-letter word for “Are you kidding me?” It doesn’t tickle your mind so much as punch you in the brain with its blatancy. Anytime you encounter a difficult clue you will find it here. In a good crossword-even an easy one-the answers manage to feel inevitable but still just sideways enough to flatter your own ingenuity. One of the most satisfying things about doing the Times puzzle every day is the rhythm of progressing from breeziness to arduousness over the course of the week. The latter is a neat misdirection, first seeming to hint at royalty or perhaps something biblical, while “LeBron’s sport, informally” challenges you only to come up with a shorter way to type “basketball.” But compare the leaden directness of the Mini clue “LeBron’s sport, informally” to some of James’ other appearances in the main puzzle-for instance, “Org. They’re perfectly suited to the digital age, and the fact that the Times can charge $40 a year for them-even subscribers to the digital paper don’t get them for free-indicates they are still thriving. Of course, crossword puzzles, including the Times’ still-dominant version, aren’t moribund. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it’s a disgrace to the NYT crossword brand. If the Mini gets you interested in filling out a grid of intersecting words based on clues, great, but it bears very little relation to the Times puzzle itself. ( People’s crossword puzzle: “NCIS: _ Angeles.” The Mini: “Treat for an early bird.”) Unlike the regular puzzle, it’s free to play-picture the heroin sample dealers offer to get people hooked, only instead of heroin, it’s a thimbleful of skim milk. The Mini, by contrast, is the People magazine crossword puzzle of the New York Times. The New York Times crossword puzzle, which has appeared daily since 1950, has earned its reputation as THE crossword puzzle: challenging yet accessible, with a good mix of trivia and wordplay. Recent clues and answers, for example, included: Unlike the regular puzzle, it requires not even a single minute for a competent solver to complete, let alone a single brain cell. ![]() Like the regular puzzle, there’s a new one every day. And then there’s the “Mini.” The Mini is a five-by-five grid, promoted on the app’s home screen and online. ![]()
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