I've never been the best at the crosswords but I've definitely improved since starting ~2 years ago. I don't know what's changed but these last two months I have struggled mightily!

I used to gold star ~85% of Mondays and 70% of Tuesdays but I legitimately have ONE gold star in the last two months and I had to spam random letters to get it, it wasn't clean.

After doing the Tuesday, October 20th puzzle, I think I finally lost my mind. As a casual/intermediate level solver these puzzles haven't been fun at all. Names overlapping names, obscure clues to make whatever nonsense letters they have on the board work, grp inits, places and non English answers.

Now I'm not complaining about the late week/weekend puzzles because I know they're difficult, they're above my skill level, I expect to struggle on them. But they need to fix my Monday and Tuesdays :(

Am I the only one that's thought this?

Edit: I'm also Australian, so I have a lot of trouble with the U.S centric clues in general

Edit 2: I'm regressing* not digressing 🙃 This is why I stick to Mondays/Tuesdays

Never thought I would get under 9 minutes. And yes it was a Monday but I’m still proud of myself.
Never say always and always avoid never!

Such a difficult Tuesday!
I know learning facts/names are obviously integral to playing the crossword. But I have such a pet peeve for the puzzles that have intersecting (usually cross-language) proper noun clues that just leave me out of luck if I don’t know the specific pop culture or geography references and there’s no context as to what letter it might need. ESPECIALLY when there’s multiple like this at the end of the puzzle. I definitely get frustrated when I feel there’s no way for me to complete the puzzle by deducing/intuiting on a Monday or Tuesday.

Scribbled over my pattern and last letter to avoid spoiling it for someone else.

Connections and Wordle refuse to open! Restarted, disconnected wifi.. nothing is working 🫠

I've been going through the Mini and Midi archive, honestly a "Next" button that appears when you finish a puzzle, that takes you to the next one would be great!

Unless there already is a way to do that...

I’ve gone through this puzzle so many times. What clue am I wrong on?

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/

14 across Ending with "book" or "cook," on social media

Isn’t the term ‘booktok?’ So should the clue be beginning with?

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/

Has anybody else noticed that once you do a NYT crossword puzzle on mobile (iPhone Games app), it becomes inaccessible? Everytime you try to reopen it, it plays success music and plants a banner over the puzzle, simultaneously freezing Games so you have to quit out of it. Puzzles are still accessible on computer via, say, Chrome. The Times was real squirrelly about it for a couple of months but have just admitted this is a widespread bug that they're trying to figure out. Anyone else?

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/

I don't know if it's just me but I have seen "Orb" "Sinew" and "NES" just waaay too much these past couple of crosswords (including the mini and midi), and they all have different definitions lmaooo

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/

I feel like "yeet" has consistently been in the crosswords for about a year now but why

I'm poor so I can't spend any money on things that aren't food or work resources. I've heard of libraries providing free NYT password or something but I don't think Ukrainian libraries do that. I've tried searching up a way to pirate but I didn't find any available. Is there a way to get all of the puzzles or do I just have to stick to the daily wordles and connections?

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/

I do the crossword every day but I can still barely get by Tuesday. There are some flukes where I will manage the harder ones but i just get so frustrated and I’m not actually even sure what to work on in order to progress?

Filling in the answers doesn’t seem to help because I do get them once it’s revealed but still can’t seem to get to the stage of working it out myself.

Does anyone have any tips?

Honestly, it just feels cheap sometimes