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Comment by FlamingMoe | Hacker News Reader

"a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games" 100% agree. I hate the timer on the NY Times mini puzzle. I like these types of simple games for unwinding, and a timer makes it more stressful.

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Contrarily, I love the mini timer, because it’s something to beat. The mini is too easy of a puzzle. The NYT crossword is more for the thinking type - it also has a timer, but its less in your face and I don’t feel the pressure.

You can still have that with a count up timer (like the GP suggested) but then you don’t put people off like myself who don’t want to be timed out of games

I agree - me and several friends had a rolling text convo where we’d share our mini times each day in a fun daily competition.

Has since faded but anytime I think about it I like to load up the puzzle app and do it.

They do give the option in the settings for this reason but I think that's the best part about the mini specifically, it enables the daily leaderboards to work even for folks who's friend group doesn't sit down and do full Saturday level crosswords regularly. I think the midis/larges are a better balance if you're just looking for relaxing but short solo play and there I wouldn't really mind if the timer was off by default (or not, there is less competition at that point).

The timer makes it competitive. Every day I "compete" with a friend of mine across the country to see who can finish the mini crossword faster. Without that it wouldn't be fun (for me at least). I unwind with the bigger crossword and just ignore the timer at the top.

That’s why I liked the suggestion of a count up timer versus a count down timer. It’s a small difference, but removes immediacy while still allowing competition.

This reminds me a bit of Boggle which really needs a timer. If anything, the timer on this is too long: I did it in 0:32 and was better than 53% of other users, which suggests to me the timer should be about a minute

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