The New York Times publishes games for all kinds of people. There are matching games, word games, numbers games and more, serving both the zealous and the zen. I think it’s fair to assume that most, if not all of us, begin the day with at least one of these diversions. We squint into our Wordle screens over coffee, or we tap Tiles on the train to work. And while there’s no single way to approach the games over the course of the day, nor any stipulation about how many to play, there’s a collective spirit among all players: a commitment to smart fun. In this sense, Games is its own de facto cinematic universe — the G.C.U., if you will. But at the risk of bungling a metaphor (or “muffing” it, per a new-to-me term from a recent crossword puzzle), let me first acknowledge that several games have conflicting canons. Three-letter words aren’t allowed in Strands or Spelling Bee, for instance, but are fair game in Letter Boxed and virtually mandatory in the Crossword. Wordle’s dictionary of possible solutions omits -S plurals, but those make frequent appearances in the Mini. Connections gives you four chances, while Wordle gives you six. And Tiles, with its Zen Mode, is just vibes. If the games themselves don’t operate according to a common dictionary or margin of error, can we really say that they coexist in a shared universe? If we can’t, we wouldn’t be the first franchise to exercise the right to defy its own physics. Consider, for example, the well-established Marvel Cinematic Universe. No matter how definitive an ending may seem, finales are never really the end. There’s always a retcon around the corner that challenges a series’ narrative continuity. This behavior extends beyond fantasy: A friend of mine once pointed out that both Ludacris (as Tej Parker) and Ludacris (the rapper) appear in the world of “Fast and Furious.” And supernatural creatures like zombies contradict their cinematic predecessors all the time. Crosses repel vampires in the Buffyverse, but do nothing to stop them in the world of “Lost Boys.” Nevertheless, variation can be a sore subject for solvers: Ask nautical hobbyists how they feel about the fact that the Spelling Bee dictionary defies the Crossword corpus by accepting neither “luff” nor “orlop.” And to a crossword puzzle traditionalist, the use of rebuses — visual ciphers that, in order to be decoded, require entering more than one letter into a single square — may feel like a violation of deep lore. So what are the unifying principles of the G.C.U.? Do we have any? Or are we more of a multiverse with the occasional crossover event (e.g., that one time there was an S in Spelling Bee)? Send me your thoughts on the subject at crosswordeditors@nytimes.com. Cryptogram |
