Death of the cryptic?
Is the cryptic crossword going the way of the dinosaur?
According to Sandy Balfour, crossword editor of Britain’s The Guardian, although the quality of cryptics is the best it’s ever been, “The cryptic crossword is not as popular as it used to be.”
Cryptics, which used to be commonplace in Indian newspapers, have almost all been switched over to standard crosswords. In British newspapers, where they originated, they are being more and more excluded in favor of Sudoku. Manu Joseph of The Times of India hypothesizes why: Sudoku is simply “more convenient and rewarding. It gets more generous sponsors easily and, for obvious reasons, the number of sudoku fans far outnumbers the cryptic.” One of those “obvious” reasons being that the world “is so dumbed down that sudoku is celebrated as an intellectual exercise” – a Sudoku, after all, can be solved by brute force if you hit a wall. Standard crosswords can be solved with a little help from Google or a dictionary. Cryptics, on the other hand, cannot be solved without the ingenuity, creativity, and sense of humor needed to see the twist in the clue.
Another possible reason is this: cryptics take considerable human labor to create, and cryptic compilers receive between 100 and 200 British pounds for their efforts. Sudokus, on the other hand, can be made by software almost instantly, and for much less money. At a time when newspaper readership is generally on the decline, costs need to be cut where they can.
So has the death knell been tolled for the eighty-year-old classic? Not so long as there are people who love this unique word challenge. GAMES magazine has been publishing cryptics for decades, and continues to include two per issue. The rec.puzzles.crosswords newsgroup is alive and thriving, with fans from across the globe asking each other for help on problematic clues and challenging each other to clue-writing contests.
Got any other resources for cryptic fans? Post a comment and let everybody know!