A few years ago a friend made a comment that there didn’t appear to be an intermediate stage between standard 15×15 daily cryptics and 12×12 barred puzzles of Mephisto/Azed style, which prompted me to try to fill the gap. Despite approaches to a few crossword editors Imperator remains a lost and lonely child, but here’s one to play with anyway:
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I think this sounds like a good idea Anax and fits well with your natural clue-writing standard which tends to be on the tough end of the spectrum. Personally I’d love a bit more of a stretch but have hit an absolute brick wall with the barred grids – and when I read the answers, there isn’t really much to make me smile as the realisation of the solution dawns.
Yes, I think that’s true. At the tougher end of barred (but non-thematic) puzzles the emphasis tends to be on unravelling the obscurities rather than “enjoying” the clues. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – Mephisto/Azed is simply a different type of solving experience. The idea of Imperator was to have a 12×12 barred grid with entertaining clues which, on the whole, would be slightly more challenging than standard cryptics but without the usual 12×12 obscurities.
I hope you keep trying with the Imperator level – I think someone someday will see the point. Sometimes the Sunday Times Mephisto is easy enough to solve mostly or entirely without Chambers, but not very often and some of the punters grumble because they were expecting a couple of hours rather than one or less.