From The Griddle, a new puzzle called Grid Fill. In Grid Fill, you are given a set of words and a grid. The words fit into the grid taking up either an entire row, or one of the marked off internal areas. The puzzle part comes in because the rows and the marked off areas overlap. It’s really more of a logic puzzle like Sudoku instead of a word puzzle. Enjoy!
Playful Planet Games is creating an iPhone version of their word puzzle game Konstroo. Currently they are looking for puzzle enthusiasts who would like to beta test the iPhone version. They only have limitted spots so, if you’re interested, make sure to sign up soon.
There was a post on Passion for Puzzles recently about CrosScan puzzles. CrosScan puzzles are billed as a combination of crossword puzzles and word search puzzle. What this means is that the puzzle is essentially a word search puzzle but instead of a list of words, you are giving a list of clues to decipher. You then need to find the word in the word search grid.
I have a couple thoughts on this puzzle type. First, it may be harder than a crossoword because the answers to clues don’t really help you at all for the others. The clues generally form a theme, but that’s about all you get. You don’t get letter clues. My second thought is that it seems like it’s possible to find the wrong answer. I may get the wrong answer for the clue, but as long as I can find the right letters in the grid, I’ll never know it was a wrong answer. I think there needs to be some kind of final answer, like a word made up of unused letters. That could help solve the problem.
Imangi is a new word puzzle game for the iPhone. At its most basic level, the game involves finding words in a grid, however in Imangi you have the option of altering the grid by rotating the letters in individual rows and columns. The idea is to maximize your score.
Imangi Studios is interested in getting feedback on the game from puzzle lovers. So drop in and let them know what you think.
I’ve been checking out the site Smart Kit a little more often recently. It seems to be a good source of puzzles. A recent puzzle that they posted is called “Letter Path.” The letter path of the title is a sequence of letters connected by lines. The object is to traverse the path in such a way as to spell out a famous quotation. No letter is repeated on the path, and you will have to visit a letter more than once to get the full quotation. Enjoy.
I stumbled upon a new blog called Gridfree Puzzles. And, as the name suggests, it features a puzzle with no grid. Currently, there’s only one puzzle called Categorix. Categorix offers a series of crossword puzzle type clues (some of them more like cryptic crossword clues.) The first letter of each answer spells out an answerline. The answerline is the theme of the puzzle and all of the clues relate to it. It’s a nice puzzle and it will be interesting to see where this blog goes. Currently, the next puzzle is promised a month from now.
Wordy is a flash puzzle game for those that like word puzzles. On the first level of Wordy, you start out with a 2X8 grid of letters in which you need to find words, Boggle style. When you find a word, select all the letters and they are cleared. You’re given 90 seconds and, as time ticks away, new letters fall from the top of the screen in random locations. The object is to keep the board from filling to the top before your 90 seconds are up. This requires some good strategy as often clearing small easy words will leave you in a bad spot.
Found through The Deblog.
I’ve been meaning to check out Babble for a while now, but today is the first day that I’ve actually tried to play. The game is billed as a combination of Boggle and Scrabble, but it’s really just Boggle with different point values for each letter. It’s actually quite an improvement over Boggle. Anyone who has played will know that using certain letters is harder and getting more points for harder letters just makes sense.
The interface is really slick and easy to navigate. Anyone can create a login and play for free, and there are a few additional features available for a one time fee including an improved stats page. But the free version of the game is in no way crippled, which is nice.
Perhaps the major difference from Boggle is that you have all day to find as many words as you can. And there’s a leaderboard that lists all players in order of score at the end of the day, as well as players’ average score over time.
For people who love word puzzles, Babble is definitely work a look.
The blog flickerbulb links to a page on the Jonathan Fong Style site that has some home decor tips that a puzzler might be interested in. The site recommends putting a word puzzle above your fire place. You’d think that only hard core puzzlers would want to decorate this way, but the site gives arguments as to why anyone might want to do it. From the site:
Visitors to your home will love finding the hidden words that can be found up, down, zigzagging and backwards above your fireplace.
On top of that, it’s not a terribly expensive project either.
Here’s a word equation puzzle from mathpuzzle.com:
A+L+P+H+A=1, B+R+A+V+O=2, C+H+A+R+L+I+E=3, D+E+L+T+A=4, E+C+H+O=5, F+O+X+T+R+O+T=6, G+O+L+F=7, H+O+T+E+L=8, I+N+D+I+A=9, J+U+L+I+E+T=10, K+I+L+O=11, L+I+M+A=12, M+I+K+E=13, N+O+V+E+M+B+E+R=14, O+S+C+A+R=15, P+A+P+A=16, Q+U+E+B+E+C=17, R+O+M+E+O=18, S+I+E+R+R+A=19, T+A+N+G+O=20, U+N+I+F+O+R+M=21, V+I+C+T+O+R=22, W+H+I+S+K+E+Y=23, X+R+A+Y=24, Y+A+N+K+E+E=25, Z+U+L+U=26
The goal of the puzzle is to solve for each individual letter. There’s also an interesting discussion on the site about how to find a complete set of words that result in a single, unique solution. This is the kind of puzzle where I appreciate the form even if I don’t think I would particularly enjoy solving it.
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