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I dislike that almost every clue starts with a variant of (something)* – like, yeah, I can make a regex crossword more difficult by starting every clue with a laundry list of things that might not even be in the solution, but that's lazy crossword crafting.

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I agree. I've managed 14 letters but it's not enough fun - every letter takes too much effort and there's no sense of dominos falling yet. I assume there is some tipping point but it feels too far off.

Maybe this is why I can't get one of those ludicrously paid FAANG jobs :)

I felt the same way. Furthermore, it's a little dissatisfying to not have a unique solution, in terms of characters. If you think of character sets, it's still unique, but it's a bit unsatisfying.

I made more progress once I accepted (possibly) non-uniqueness and worked on finding some valid assignment, as opposed to a sole valid assignment.

The last dozen clues were increasingly interesting to solve, the intersecting constraints.

If you’ve completed any human language crosswords before, this is a trick they use too in the form of ambiguous, common answers (e.g. “super quick, abbr” can be ASAP or STAT - for more annoyance, notice letter 3 is the same in both), usually requiring you to get crosses to figure out exactly what fits.

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