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Wordstream Puzzles

WordstreamI’ve developed a new kind of puzzle that I’m calling wordstream. I got the inspiration for this puzzle while looking at the solution for a nurikabe or “islands in the stream” puzzle. It looked to me like a reverse crossword puzzle. So, I decided to combine a nurikabe puzzle and a crossword puzzle. The grid in the puzzle below resembles a nurikabe grid and all of the nurikabe rules apply:

  • It’s a binary determination puzzle where each cell will either be a shaded “island” cell or an empty “stream” cell.
  • The “stream” cells will all be orthogonally contiguous (they will make up a single polyomino) and they will form no 2X2 squares or pools.
  • The numbers each sit on an “island” composed of that number of cells which are also orthogonally contiguous.
  • Each “island” has exactly one number on it.

Given these rules only, the grid below would not provide a unique solution. But for wordstream, there is one more rule.

  • Each word in the word list will fit into the “stream” creating the “wordstream.” Words will cross each other, but they may not be adjacent.

Here are all of the Wordstream puzzles I’ve posted to the site.