Roundabouts
The New York Times • • entertainment
Key Points:
- The Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Schlossberg and his son Oliver, is inspired by the numerous roundabouts in their hometown of Bend, Oregon, and features a unique theme centered on these traffic circles.
- The puzzle includes five mini checkerboard-like arrangements, each representing a roundabout with four blank squares and five "paved" squares forming a curved black "road" around a central black square symbolizing a road sign.
- Solvers must think like drivers navigating roundabouts, following a non-traditional logic where entries intersect at the central square, requiring them to "drive" through the puzzle rather than solve it purely by crossword conventions.
- This puzzle marks Michael Schlossberg's 17th grid and 10th Sunday construction for The New York Times, and it is Oliver Schlossberg's debut as a crossword constructor.
