The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
RSS feeds: v0.91; v1.0 (RDF); v2.0; Atom.
10:16am on Thursday, 17th February, 2022:
Anecdote
Having wasted time making an unfun word game at the weekend, I thought instead I'd make a static puzzle. Static puzzles can be sold to puzzle magazines, not that I'd know how to go about doing that. Anyway, this did turn out to be more interesting than the word game.
I guess I should present it, then.
So, here are three five-letter words. Their letters appear in the correct column, but not necessarily in the correct line. None of the letters in the middle word are in the other two words.
C U E H S
O R E S T
D L G A R
The solution to this particular puzzle is:
C L E A R
O U G H T
D R E S S
It's simple to explain, but not as easy as it looks.
Here are five more examples, without the solutions:
P I C U E
R O O U S
F H Y M S
M U I I S
N A D G T
B O S S E
T D A A T
S O R P Y
A U D G E
A R L I L
C T T E P
U N E A S
H O I E L
D R G F Y
L E N A T
I wrote a program that can generate thousands of them, although it's not exactly difficult. The hardest part was deciding which words to include in my list of possible answers and which not.
I guess I could make an interactive version, in which the player drags the letters up and down on a 5x3 grid until they make all the words, but that seems more effort than it's worth.
It was more fun to write than the weekend game, anyway!
Latest entries.
Archived entries.
About this blog.
Copyright © 2022 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).