Greg Slovacek author page
1 puzzle by Greg Slovacek
with Constructor comments
Greg Slovacek is a software engineer from San Francisco.
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My biggest surprise in constructing this puzzle was that, as a software engineer, I did not write a custom program to help myself. Maybe I should have!
In the beginning, I found plenty of potential entries containing suits and ranks, and the deck felt stacked in my favor. But as I made choices deeper into construction and raised the stakes, I created more mind-bending constraints. Changing even one card could mean all bets were off, and my tools didn't help much with multi-valued cells. While I found HEART, ACE, TEN, and KING easy to work with, the other values were much trickier! Was there no limit to how much work this would take? Still, the challenge was exhilarating, and I was all-in. I made lots of my own low-tech aids, including tables of good and bad entry patterns I could consult to avoid playing with an unwinnable hand. Even so, I flushed a ton of grids in the process.
My favorite themers I wish could have worked were F(ACE)BOOKSTAL(KING), GET(SEVEN), and ALIEN(QUEEN) but .. it wasn't in the cards.
Thanks to Kevin Der, whose construction advice and persistent prodding helped me make this puzzle about as good as I possibly could, and to my wife Jamie, who endured the late nights and inconvenient distractions while I obsessed over cracking this nut!