Puzzles in general are thriving, and new types emerge almost more quickly than we can classify them. Sudoku have exploded in popularity since their introduction to Britain and America in 2004, and it’s inspired enough varieties to headline an essay series of its own. Puzzle games from Tetris to Myst to Portal are some of [...]
So how do all these genres add up? What’s the picture of crosswords today? To answer that question, I’ve taken a small survey of 100 puzzles from this blog (August of last year). Just a few weeks ago, I was informed of a much larger survey by Kevin McCann, covering 2700 puzzles, which promptly disabused [...]
You’ve probably seen this kind of crossword in school. It’s also the kind we mocked All About Steve for publishing as if it were a newspaper crossword. It doesn’t even come close to the no-uncrossed-square rule, because solvers are expected to know all the answers, and only need the slightest nudge of spatial reasoning to [...]
There are more than two directions in the world, you know. The Vector Three has already reminded us of that. But while Vector Threes link letters find unusual connections among letters that are still organized in a traditional configuration, metamorphic crosswords change the configuration of every word in the puzzle. Such puzzles generally must contain [...]
Man, I hate these @#$% things. Cryptic crosswords are not considered “mutants” in their natural habitat. In fact, often enough, they’re simply called “crosswords.” Strange as this may seem to American sensibilities, there are some British solvers who treat them as the default setting. When I was in Oxford, I even met some who didn’t [...]
“What the hell? The answer has to be ZZ TOP! But it’s four letters and not five… I know ZZ TOP is spelled with two Z’s… all the crossings fit for T and O and P… what the hell what the hell what the hell the down answer doesn’t fit either! It looks like it [...]
Sherlock Holmes is the puzzler’s hero. With his hag-ridden, obsessive energy and relentless intelligence, he solves and solves and solves, saving lives, justice and country in the process. He embodies the principle that everything can be solved, and solved correctly. Moriarty is his opposite number, or as close as anyone can get. He actually killed [...]
“Wait a second… DUMB DAD SORRY FOR HIS BET. Wow. It’s almost as if Dad planted that message. No, it must just be a weird coincidence. But what if it’s not? No, it must be. Or mustn’t it not?” Lisa Simpson’s reluctant discovery is one shared by many solvers every so often– after hundreds and [...]
Pop quiz! Enter the missing letter in each word. Stick with the first workable answer that comes into your head. We’ll review the answers later: Scheme: PL_Y Almost certainly biased: _EALOUS Big no-no in many religions: POR_ Collapse: FA_L Website traffic builder: CONTE_T Doing the love dance: _ATING Inspiring leader to many in the 21st [...]
Storytelling media run “hot” and “cool” in Marshall McLuhan’s estimation. As a crossword constructor who also writes fiction, I can testify that there’s a lot of crossover potential between the two, and narrative crosswords are still a largely unexplored frontier of the form. Such crossover pretty much has to come from within the crosswording world, [...]
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