Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 456 times. 58 solvers had a go at it. 44 solvers completed the puzzle and the bonus forms. The remaining solved it partly. Only 11 solvers got the full score.
Architect’s Tool<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Bonus Questions:
Upload a picture showing the five literal examples of 20 Across drawn on top of the completed grid.
Ans: See the picture of the completed grid above. Each of these is a “T-Square” with the letter T at each corner.
Annotations
| Ref | Clue | Answer | Annotation |
| 1A | Chasm beginning to appear near ship (5) | ABYSS | A+BY+SS |
| 4A | Potential hotel employee loses job essentially before end of shift (7) | DORMANT | DOORMAN–O+T |
| 9A | Screen performers coalition initially removed those who are willing (9) | TESTATORS | TEST+ACTORS–C |
| 10A | Uncovered housing – good for a flat-bottomed boat (5) | BARGE | BAR(G)E |
| 11A | Push camouflaged blankets to mirror progress (5, 2) | SHAPE UP | PUSH* around APE |
| 13A | Spray empty ashtrays with hint of eucalyptus or fresh violet, essentially (7) | AEROSOL | A(E+OR*)S+viOLet |
| 14A | Terry arranged to have another go (5) | RETRY | TERRY* |
| 15A | Icy location arranged help, or not (5, 4) | NORTH POLE | (HELP OR NOT)* |
| 17A | Resort staff surrounds old vehicle (4, 5) | BOCA RATON | B(O+CAR)ATON |
| 19A | Pines in beach estate (5) | ACHES | beACH EState |
| 20A | SEE INSTRUCTIONS (1-6) | T-SQUARE | |
| 22A | Collected engaging books, initially retrieving “Dominance” (7) | CONTROL | CO(NT+R)OL |
| 24A | At first, climbers rise eagerly, seeking the top (5) | CREST | Climbers Rise Eagerly Seeking The |
| 25A | Epiphany morning in residence, guarded by army worker (3, 6) | AHA MOMENT | A(H(AM)OME)NT |
| 27A | Tariff proposal device for hacking into milling plant (3, 4) | TAX PLAN | PLANT* around AX |
| 28A | 26D is returning to screen (5) | SIEVE | (EVE IS)< |
| 1D | Singers regularly call it “noise” (5) | ALTOS | cAlL iT nOiSe |
| 2D | Ingredients essentially removed from pigments, of course (3) | YES | DYES–D |
| 3D | Grand museum in artful surroundings (7) | STATELY | S(TATE)LY |
| 4D | Making a critical mistake at a New Year’s event in New York City? (8, 3, 4) | DROPPING THE BALL | DD |
| 5D | Canaries that run abandoned Subway, for example (10, 5) | RESTAURANT CHAIN | (CANARIES THAT RUN)* |
| 6D | Part of right rib taken back upon delivery (2, 5) | AT BIRTH | (rigHT RIB TAken)< |
| 7D | Start cooking pastries (5) | TARTS | START* |
| 8D | Learn about leaders of early societies supporting authenticity (8) | REALNESS | LEARN*+Early Societies Supporting |
| 12D | Ancient Mexican from Arizona cleared out the centre of Tapachula (5) | AZTEC | AZ+TE+tapaChula |
| 14D | Bonito’s crew excitedly released new unconventional branch of engineering (8) | ROBOTICS | (BONITO’S CREW–NEW)* |
| 16D | Alternative to raising that woman (5) | OTHER | TO<+HER |
| 18D | According to Spooner, an amphibian supports cost associated with driving (4, 3) | ROAD TACKS | Spoonerism of “toad racks” |
| 19D | Evenly calming lotions, without many protective membranes (7) | AMNIONS | cAlMiNg+LOTIONS–LOT |
| 21D | Mission: be removed from estate (5) | QUEST | BEQUEST–BE |
| 23D | Without small roster, that man is flexible (5) | LITHE | LIST–S+HE |
| 26D | First lady starts to eat very early (3) | EVE | Eat Very Early |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Out of 58 solvers, only 44 completed fully and 11 got the full score. Each of the following scored 161 points (Grid Score – 156, Bonus – 5).
Al Sanders
Debasmita Basu
Max Jackson
Narayanan R
Paul Henderson
Prakash Arumugam
Rathnakumar V
Sohil Bhagat
Sparsh Sinha
Venkatraghavan S
Vinayak Rao Ekbote
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good rating of 8.43. It got 11 perfect 10s (25% of those who rated). The lowest rating was 6.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
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- Potential hotel employee loses job essentially before end of shift (7) – 10 votes
- Spray empty ashtrays with hint of eucalyptus or fresh violet, essentially (7) – 10 votes
- Making a critical mistake at a New Year’s event in New York City? (8, 3, 4) – 9 votes
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Thanks Mathrix for another fun puzzle and the mind boggling end game. Had a lot of fun solving it. Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle – Please provide specific com |
|---|---|
| Al Sanders | Nice theme execution , without sacrificing fill quality |
| Arun Hiregange | What a fabulous puzzle to open the new year. The clues were all challenging enough but not so challenging as to put off an occasional cryptic solver like me. And the “Aha moment” when the concept of the theme became clear was wonderful 🙂 |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Nice, good start to the year |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Intricate peice of work including graphic solutions |
| Melissa McSeismal | Great grid. Excellent clues with a number of aha moments : ) |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Nice and interesting grid! |
| Rathnakumar V | Nice simple grid & tricky Bonus questions to start the year , well done Mathrix |
| Srinivas Venkatesh | Nice mix of clues with different difficulty levels |
| Veera Raghavan | Good grid. Fairly easy clues |
| Venkatesan P. | Bonus question is somewhat tricky. |
| Debasmita Basu | A fantastic beginning to the new year. |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Nice puzzle |
| Rengaswamy N. | Nice grid |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Fun one! |
| Sparsh Sinha | Loved the concept of drawing on the finished grid. Lovely long clues |
| Tejas Siddharth | Very nice surfaces. Bonus is a bit ambiguous, can see 4 normal t squares and 2 horizontal ones |
| Venkatraghavan S | Superb puzzle Ian. And great theme and grid construction. |
| Anantakrishnan N. | Very nice puzzle. Hope I got the T Squares right. |
| Krittibas Dasgupta | Very doable quiz, enjoyed the clues. |
| Madhusudan H | Happy 2025, Happy birthday to Ian. Good puzzle to kick start the year. Thanks for the grid. |
| Max Jackson | Nice construction to get the squares in. |
| Mona Sogal | good puzzle- got confused with the bonus though…. |
| Narayana Swamy D | Nice clues |
| Prakash Arumugam | Well-constructed puzzle. It was fun to identify the squares. The large one was tricky to locate. |
| Samit Kallianpur | Nice and simple! |
| Supriya Mithal | Enjoyable grid with excellent clues as always from Mathrix. |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Nice puzzle but I drew a blank with the theme. Submitted the puzzle anyways as today is last day for submission |
| Binay Patra | Tricky enough. |
| Harish Kamath | Decent grid…didn’t care for the bonus |
| Koteswar Rao | ENJOYABLE GRID |
| Narayanan R | Easy Grid to start the year and interesting Bonus Question |
| Paul Henderson | Unexpected final step, but dreadfully fiddly to implement in Word! |
| Ramki Krishnan | Just guessing for the bonus question! |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Nice and smooth |
Sorry to state that is not what a T-Square means to an engineer