Inspired by the game Candy Crush I devised a new type of word-searchpuzzles which go under the name Letter Crush $^{TM}$ puzzles.
How to solve a Letter Crush $^{TM}$ puzzle:
A puzzle consists of a stack of letter-squares. Within the stack one has to find special keywords like in an ordinary word-search puzzle. The words may appear as a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line, and it may be spelled forward or backward. So there are eight valid orientations:
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Any discovered word may be 'selected' and removed from the grid.
The letters above it will then slide down to fill the gaps:
becomes:
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It is very important to note, that keywords do not automatically get removed.
Only keywords that you want to remove, are removed.The general aim of Letter Crush $^{TM}$ puzzles is to remove as many keywords as possible.
Now, in the Letter Crush $^{TM}$ puzzle below I have used the surnames of some special friends as keywords. All these friends share a common trait (which you will need to discover in order to identify them all). They are also fairly known and their names easily appear in Google searches of their common trait.
This is the puzzle:
( Convenience link to the data as Google Sheet and OpenOffice file )
( And an even more convenient online webapp thanks to M Oehm )
To solve the puzzle completely, you will need to remove the surnames of all 39 of my special friends.
A complete solution consists of:
- The common trait
- The list of all (39) keywords ordered in sequence as removed
- The final grid with left-over letters
Hints = spoiler section
The below are (mild) spoilers restricting the search-space a bit. You don't need them, but if you feel the task is too formidable, you might want to peek...
Hint 1:
None of my friends has a surname with less than 4 letters.
Hint 2:
If any of the names of my friends would use non-English letters, I would have used the simplified version in the puzzle. (
ü
$\Rightarrow$u
)
Hint 3:
Most of my friends have longer surenames. There are only two of them with 4-letters and only 11 with 5-letters. All others are longer. Up to 11 letters.