One of the joys of my life is to solve a good word puzzle. By that I primarily mean crossword puzzles, and by that I generally mean the puzzles published each day in the New York Times, although I also occasionally buy a book or two of crossword puzzles, as well as Games Magazine, and attempt the puzzles in those as free time permits. And I've certainly gone through my share of Dell Magazine puzzle publications with all their varieties of challenges.
I'm a solver -- unless, of course, the puzzle is unfathomable to me, way over my head, beyond my expertise -- not a constructor.
Still, the other day, I told my friend, John, rather vaguely that I was interested in constructing a word search puzzle. Word search puzzles are something I actually can construct, as their restrictions are less severe than crosswords. They are also usually easier to solve, as the words are given and all the solver needs to do is find the words within a given grid of letters. Hence the pejorative -- "lame" -- I was giving them even as I was considering constructing one.
So how to construct a "non-lame" word-search puzzle? John thought that possibly the only way would be to seed the puzzle with as many false paths -- parts of answers that would ultimately lead nowhere -- as possible. I remembered word-search puzzles in Dell publications of years past that could be difficult to solve because they employed duplicating series of letters: a preponderance of p's and pp's, perhaps, or lots of -ittle, -attle, -ottle, etc. A little way in to these, my eyes would start to spin, and it wouldn't be long before I'd be feeling more frustrated than entertained. On the other hand, word-search puzzles that didn't mislead in some way, I found too easy to solve. Easy success is enjoyable, certainly ... but ... well ... a bit lame, no?
Which is to say what I was thinking about was what a word puzzle ought to be: entertaining, a challenge, not just solvable but *fun* to solve. And what I consider a crossword puzzle at its best: a conversation, an interaction, between constructor and solver -- a contest perhaps, but one of skills, not of wills.
In fact, I'd just seen what I considered a non-lame Word Search puzzle. It wasn't particularly difficult to solve. But it was certainly fun, and what made it so, I commented to my friend, wasn't misdirection but a timely, lively word list that *invited* solving.
Have a look. Let me know what you think.
CROSSWORD #1606: Themeless Monday
7 months ago
Reality show fans, especially those who watch Survivor, will remember that all kinds of puzzles, and often word puzzles like a word search, are used in the challenges that reward/award the contestants. When a word search is employed, it usually has words specific to the Survivor experience and specific to the culture/country it is in. Thus, many of the words are not easily recognized by the players, which increases the difficulty. Add that to the time pressure (i.e. whoever finishes first wins something important), and these word searches are anything but 'lame.' Perhaps incorporating unfamiliar vocabulary increases the interest of a word search?
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