Craig Stowe author page
1 puzzle by Craig Stowe
with Jeff Chen comments
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BLECH! ICK! UGH! EWW = DISGUSTING! Takes a brave soul to plant those not-so-subtle messages in the minds of one's solvers.
Will gave me feedback recently that he's seen a lot of "hidden words" themes recently, so he's becoming pickier about what he accepts in this genre now.
So how does one get a yes on a "hidden words" puzzle? To stand out, you need great finds — long words, words with rare letters, etc. — within fantastic phrases. BLECH within DOUBLE CHEN (that's me and my identical twin brother) qualifies.
SAY A FEW WORDS also works well. EEW is only three letters, but the consecutive Ws makes the find more notable. Great phrase, too.
JUGHEAD didn't wow me as much. It's the only one that doesn't span two words, and UGH can be found in so many other words. Although, you sometimes have to say, good enough. Or tough luck!
(Doug Henning is giving Craig the stink-eye.)
A great bonus in BLIND DATES. I'm sure that evokes many images and funny stories for lots of solvers. We'll just skim over those where the other person turned out to be married. Or a deadly farter. Ahem.
I would have loved a stronger revealer than DISGUSTING. It works, but it didn't give much of a "hey, that's awesome!" moment. I spent an hour brainstorming and came up with ROTTEN TO THE CORE … which just happens to be the magic 15 letters in length. Missed opportunity!
Another round of grid editing would have done wonders, especially since this is a Monday puzzle. I would have sent it back for the crossing of ORFEO / ULEE alone. Toss in ORTO ESTA SETA ESS, and we're no longer in elegant, newb-friendly territory.
I'd have been perfectly happy without JUGHEAD, which would have made the construction a ton easier.
But overall, an entertaining concept with sounds that are amusing to say. Nice debut.