Back in 2016, I backed Patrick Blindauer's Kickstarter and got the chance to commission a puzzle. I thought briefly about getting a birthday/Christmas gift for my dad, but instead dithered on the decision just long enough so that there wasn't enough time. Oh no, alas, I'll have to get a puzzle commissioned for myself instead, he said, ruefully. And that's how we got a custom crossword puzzle in our wedding program instead.
More guests were annoyed that the ceremony
interrupted their solving than I would like to admit
Josh actually isn't a crossword person, but we both love puzzles, so he was on board to incorporate something into the wedding. And apparently it's considered "rude" to trap your guests inside an impromptu escape room at the venue before allowing them to eat, so a crossword seemed like a fair compromise. (But apparently it's totally fine to put a null cipher message into your vows and then not let me solve it until later, holding me steganographically hostage?) The vibe for the wedding was "quirky but classy," so I wanted a legit, nerdy theme for the puzzle—and luckily, we had a bunch of different nerd axes for Patrick to potentially work with.
The cake was not a lie
I'd wanted to try out construction for a while, but hadn't worked myself up to seriously giving it a go. So I was excited that to dip my toe in the water a bit, and Patrick was great about encouraging input. After providing some brief bios, we found a theme fairly quickly that felt uniquely personal to Josh and me without getting too niche. A few rounds of brainstorming on the themer set, and then Patrick was off to the races on the grid.
PDF: "Holy Broadway, Batman!"
.PUZ: "Holy Broadway, Batman!"
Looking back now that I've made a few puzzles myself, I can see a few places where I didn't quite have constructor-brain yet. I definitely fixated on certain themers during the brainstorm, and I was probably pushing for a couple that didn't work quite as well as I wanted, either in terms of consistency or just how much the wordplay popped. Very glad Patrick was there steering things towards a fun and lively final themer set, and accommodating my random requests (while letting me know where stuff didn't actually work the way I thought). It was really helpful as a hopeful constructor to see a bit of his process, and vetoing an entry that had tripped me up at ACPT that year probably foreshadowed the rush I get now from deleting stuff out of my wordlist. While re-typing the final grid into Crossfire for this post, I could also see a lot of the thoughtful extra touches Patrick put in, like cluing some fairly standard entries in ways that tie into the bios I'd sent him.
The puzzle was a hit, with some friends speed-solving before the ceremony and others teaming up to finish it at brunch the next day, and I'm thrilled with how it all turned out. Enjoy, and send me other fun themers that come to mind in the comments or on Twitter @hero_complex!
Finally time for a brand-new puzzle in the next post, what could possibly go wrong?
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