Kim Alswager Makes New York Times Debut With 40-Year Video Game-Themed Crossword

Q: How did a choir director's flight hobby evolve into a visually groundbreaking Super Mario New York Times Sunday crossword?

It grew very quickly from a casual experiment into an ambitious, collaborative debut. Kim Alswager, a choir director at St. Croix Preparatory Academy in Stillwater, began building crossword grids on a flight in 2024. According to the New York Times preview, she soon poured much of her spare time into construction, developing enough skill to produce a Sunday puzzle for the paper. What made that debut stand out was not just speed, but design. Alswager’s July 26 New York Times Sunday crossword, co-constructed with Will Eisenberg and edited by Amanda Rafkin, turned the grid itself into a Super Mario scene. Most black squares became brick walls, three gold question-mark boxes were built into the layout, and two large green pipes entered from the top and bottom of the puzzle. The puzzle’s architecture worked with the clues. Theme answers ran both Across and Down, two Down clues used the pipe gimmick, and 41-Down functioned as a revealer, with its final letters circling Mario’s name. A key early answer, YOSHI, helped steer solvers toward the Nintendo setting. At the same time, the puzzle was more than fan service. Its core theme, “IT’S A SMALL WORLD,” linked entries such as DWARF PLANET, GUT MICROBIOME and POCKET UNIVERSE, allowing even non-gamers to solve it through wordplay and structure. That combination of rapid craft development, mentorship, and bold visual execution is what turned a flight hobby into a groundbreaking Times Sunday debut.

Q: What unexpected clue connects a gut microbiome to the Super Mario universe in this visually stunning crossword puzzle?

The unexpected connection is the clue-answer pair **“Bacterial ecosystem that plays a role in affecting mood” = GUT MICROBIOME**. In Alswager’s Super Mario-themed Sunday crossword, that science-flavored entry appears alongside **DWARF PLANET** and **POCKET UNIVERSE** under the broader theme **“IT’S A SMALL WORLD.”** That is what links a gut microbiome to the Mario universe: not a direct game reference, but the puzzle’s larger idea of tiny, self-contained worlds presented through Mario-style visuals such as brick blocks, question-mark squares, and green pipes. So the surprise is that amid all the Nintendo imagery, one of the key themed answers is **GUT MICROBIOME**—a microbiology term used to support the “small world” concept.

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 25

Kim Alswager’s first New York Times crossword runs as the July 26 Sunday puzzle, titled “Down the Tubes,” with elaborate grid art built around a 40-year-old video game franchise.
Two green pipes, brick-wall blocks and three gold question-mark squares drive the visual theme, while italicized entries at 12 clue positions and two paired Down clues explain the design.
41-Down serves as the revealer, with its final five circled letters naming the puzzle’s hero; 38-Across helped identify the franchise through YOSHI, a character seen in 16 prior Times puzzles.
Will Shortz’s introduction says Alswager, a St. Paul choir director, began constructing crosswords after sketching a grid by hand on a 2024 flight and now devotes almost all her free time to it.

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The New York Times26d ago

Kim Alswager Debuts NYT Crossword with 40-Year-Old Video Game Theme, Unique Grid Art

How did a choir director's flight hobby evolve into a visually groundbreaking Super Mario New York Times Sunday crossword?

What unexpected clue connects a gut microbiome to the Super Mario universe in this visually stunning crossword puzzle?

Can heavy visual themes like green pipes and brick blocks successfully bridge the gap between classic crossword solvers and modern gamers?

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Left100%

The New York Times26d ago

Kim Alswager Debuts NYT Crossword with 40-Year-Old Video Game Theme, Unique Grid Art

Kim Alswager Makes New York Times Debut With 40-Year Video Game-Themed Crossword

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