What's a Three-Word Phrase for the Standard in Online Crosswords? New York Times
By Jonathan Berohn
The New York Times has always been the gold standard of newspaper crossword puzzles. You know you’ve arrived as a crossword solver when you can solve the Sunday Times’ puzzle.
Now you don’t have to wait for Sundays, and you don’t have to subscribe to the Sunday Times to get your dose of hair-pulling, head-scratching, and brain-teasing. You can get it all on the Web.
Unfortunately, all this does come with a cost. For $34.95 you can buy an annual membership that lets you tackle the daily and Sunday puzzles, over 2,000 archived puzzles, and additional web-only specials. You can also buy a monthly membership for $5.95 if you want to check things out before committing to a whole year.
Like most things on the web, though, there are also some free options to help you make up your mind (and which can stand in quite well on their own if your puzzle solving doesn’t quite rise to the level of obsession). Every week the Times offers a new free puzzle you can solve online as well as a free puzzle for younger puzzle-solvers.
Not only do these free puzzles let you check out what the Times has to offer, it also lets you check out the puzzle interface. As you might expect from the Times, it is elegant and straightforward. You can ask for hints for specific letters or whole words, and you can time yourself. In short, the online version is no harder to use than the old pencil and paper standby. And it’s much easier to get yourself unstuck than having to wait for the next day’s—or week’s—paper.
You can find all this on the New York Times website here.
This page has links for both the free and premium puzzles as well as a link for a crossword forum where you can debate the finer points of puzzle solving with your fellow enthusiasts.
