"iterate and repair" is a pretty standard form of local optimum search, like in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_cli

"iterate and repair" is a pretty standard form of local optimum search, like in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing or simulated annealing. Why are you surprised that works for exploring the decision tree of a puzzle game?