Andy Hinz author page
1 puzzle by Andy Hinz
with Constructor comments
See the 4 answer words debuted by Andy Hinz.
| M | E | E | K | T | O | D | O | L | U | N | A | R | ||
| A | P | S | E | U | V | E | A | A | T | O | N | E | ||
| R | I | C | E | R | A | F | T | M | T | W | T | F | ||
| I | C | A | N | O | N | L | Y | H | O | P | E | |||
| A | S | P | I | C | S | C | O | R | N | E | L | |||
| E | N | S | U | E | C | H | O | L | E | R | A | |||
| B | E | R | G | P | R | I | S | O | N | Y | A | R | D | |
| E | X | O | I | D | I | R | O | E | ||||||
| S | P | U | T | N | I | K | O | N | E | B | E | R | N | |
| T | E | T | H | E | R | S | Y | A | Y | A | S | |||
| S | L | E | E | V | E | T | E | S | T | E | R | |||
| H | I | D | D | E | N | C | A | M | E | R | A | |||
| M | O | R | E | L | A | S | E | A | A | X | I | S | ||
| D | R | I | L | L | M | A | R | K | T | I | N | T | ||
| T | R | O | P | E | N | U | D | E | I | T | S | A |
This puzzle was a huge learning experience for me. I worked on dozens of iterations of the theme answers, originally wanting to include two more cameras as long, crossing downs, but I couldn't ever get it to work right. At one point I desperately had HITABEATNIKONCE ("Utterance by a 1960s bully recounting when he punched Jack Kerouac?") spanning the middle. I gave up for months, and then one day wondered "What if... Sputnik was actually called Sputnik One? Wouldn't that be convenient?" and from there decided to scale back the ambition a bit and just get the thing finished.
I learned a lot about the publishing and revision process and got some great assistance from Joel and Will, who helped clean up a couple of corners that weren't that great in my original submission. I also learned that my word list has a lot of tedious re-ranking in store for it.
This is my first published puzzle, and I am very grateful for all of the help I've received during the entire process. I would especially like to thank Peter Gordon and Patrick Blindauer for their immeasurably helpful tutoring sessions.