Custom Puzzles: "Find the 2 similar 14-letter Words" and "ethylenediaminetetraacetates"
FlyingJoe
in an even larger board, like a 7x7, then I think the high scores from
the current custom tournament will stand pretty much forever,
unbeaten. The highest score so far is 317,977 points for Plover!
As for the latest tournament I just created ("Find the 2 similar 14-
letter Words"), I suspect that it will also generate the highest
scores to be found, but for a 4x4 tournament. After some research, I
think that this is the longest pair of words that can be placed in a
4x4 grid, using the WW dictionary. I'll repeat the clue that the two
words resemble each other, and will go further as saying that they
resemble each other very much when writing them out but not at all in
meaning.
There's plenty of relatively easy 6+ words to be found as well in the
grid to help round out your scores. The two 14-letter words are worth
233 points each and if you find those, then with the other relatively
straightforward words, you should be able to get a 700+ score. I look
forward to finding out just how hard it is or not. I find it pretty
hard to tell when putting these together what the difficulty level
will be.
With the "ethylenediaminetetraacetates" tournament, 18 of 26 found the
word, although only 6 of the players entered both the singular and
plural forms of the word. AND they had the decided advantage that
they knew which word they were looking for to start with.
On the other hand, I put that board together to have many false
directions so I would love feedback on if it was a cakewalk or were
players sweating a bit as the clock ticked away while they looked for
the right path to get the word. I think if I did a puzzle with this
word in a 7x7 grid with a 4-minute clock, that many people might not
be able to find it in time. I don't know though if people enjoyed it
or not, as it isn't really the same thing as regular WW games - May
not be your cup of tea...
Let me know!
plover
While getting a 300k+ boggle score is fun, I'm not sure the
ethylenediaminetetraacetates one works as well as the ones where the
long word(s) are unspecified. After all, if the word is known to be
there, one can just type it in and the software will "find" it.
I put up my own 16 letter word board. I'm not sure I did as good a job
as you or some of the other custom board creators as I didn't think
all that much about what secondary words would be available. The word
is not all that common, but is one that it seems likely word nerds
will know. I messed up when I created the tournament the first time as
I forgot to set the timing to something longer than 3 min. Only one
person had tried it when I deleted and recreated it, so hopefully
things won't be too messed up. The title is a bit of a clue -- though
I realised that my original version was probably misleading and
repunctuated it. I hope I wasn't too fiendish.
FlyingJoe
titles as well...
Richard
On Mar 16, 6:59 am, "plover" <the.estu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm enjoying this long word tournament craze you've set off.
>
24_nynaeve
playing them at the moment due to issues with my
computer....grrr.....I seem to end up with a blank space where my
score should be on most of them!! I was so unlucky that I played the
first one you set up both times and did not record a score on
either...though I must admit did not find the 16 letter word.
nikkipinkrose
so much fun looking for "ethylenediaminetetraacetates". And yes there
was alot of sweating with the time ticking away!
MKSoft
real
challenge with 5+ words in 3x3 boards but there are a plenty. All
boards
can score well over 100 points, some well beyond that.
FlyingJoe
>
> While getting a 300k+ boggle score is fun, I'm not sure the
> ethylenediaminetetraacetates one works as well as the ones where the
> long word(s) are unspecified. After all, if the word is known to be
> there, one can just type it in and the software will "find" it.
You know, even after I had read your post weeks ago, I didn't get what
you meant about people just typing in the word and the software would
find it. I've only ever really used my mouse to click on words so
just didn't get it. You're absollutely right! If someone just types
the word then there's Zero skill involved... Hmmm...
In this case, I can still see the fun for the mousers though, 'cause
in the case of that particular board I put a lot of effort into making
it tough to solve logically. But for the typers though, I got nothing
for them here.
I think I will still try to do another board with the same Ethylene...
word in a 7x7 grid. The problem will be there as a puzzle to solve,
but still knowing that those who want to cheat on it can. I guess
it'll be the only one like that where there can be such an advantage.
You know, solving the 16 letter word puzzles might be easier using the
typing approach. Like the set I just posted where all of the words
start with "V". It won't be cheating at all but it might make it a
bit easier to visualize a word as you explore the different
combinations. Or make it worse with my other 16-letter word puzzle
where there are only 4 different letters. Typing there would make it
harder I think.
Go figure... :-)
24_nynaeve
I found the reALIZATION one quite difficult actually, didnt notice
the longer words until very near the end so had a scramble to get them
in! And then I missed a couple.
The Bucky balls one was good too, although that was a very big hint, I
knew exactly which word I was looking for.
May have a go at setting my own custom game up again, I did one when
the facility was first introduced but not since.
FlyingJoe
Thanks! Looks though like the reALIZATION was much too hard. I
thought that with the hint, people could work with the letters that
are left and figure it out, but clearly it is really hard when you
don't know what you are looking for...
As for the buckyballs, I was proud that I managed to fit in two other
words (than the one that's been found) that were relatively long that
also describe a buckyball, from a geometric terms point of view, which
was why I called it "obscure and technical". It took me quite some
time to find a way to get all three words into the puzzle in exactly
36 letters - a puzzle for me! :)
However, no one has guessed those two other words - which is
understandable as one wouldn't normally think of them without the
'research' part, but they would be learnable with a quick search at
Wikipedia or equivalent.
FlyingJoe
On Apr 24, 8:50 pm, FlyingJoe <flyingj...@mac.com> wrote:
> As for the buckyballs, I was proud that I managed to fit in two other
> words (than the one that's been found) that were relatively long that
> also describe a buckyball, from a geometric terms point of view, which
> was why I called it "obscure and technical". It took me quite some
> time to find a way to get all three words into the puzzle in exactly
> 36 letters - a puzzle for me! :)
>
> However, no one has guessed those two other words - which is
> understandable as one wouldn't normally think of them without the
> 'research' part, but they would be learnable with a quick search at
> Wikipedia or equivalent.
The obscure other two words that I got to fit in that grid were:
"truncated" and "Icosahedron" which is the physical description for
Buckminsterfullerene's shape, that it is shaped like a truncated
icosahedron. I would have liked to get Soccer ball in there too, as
the simplest description of the shape, but some miracles aren't meant
to happen, it seems!
FlyingJoe
last week (i.e.: "reALIZATIONS" and "Buckyballs"), I put up a couple
of sets of 3x3'ers.
We'll see if the one with a theme is easier or at least more
interesting than without...
FlyingJoe
particularly amazed by the 3x3s.
Anyone else want to try fitting in some 9 or 14-16 letter words into
grids?
MKSoft
> Thanks to Michael for those extra Highscoring boards last week. I was
> particularly amazed by the 3x3s.
I am glad you liked those - it is interesting what can be fit into
small spaces :-)
Maybe I will work on some 10+ letter words in 4x4 next...
MKSoft
Well, I have just made a tournament with 10 boards (4x4) where each
board has a number of 10+ letter words in it.
In fact, I will give you the breakdown:
Board 1: 26 words of 10+ letters
Board 2: 24 words of 10+ letters
Board 3: 19 words of 10+ letters
Board 4: 19 words of 10+ letters
Board 5: 18 words of 10+ letters
Board 6: 16 words of 10+ letters
Board 7: 16 words of 10+ letters
Board 8: 16 words of 10+ letters
Board 9: 14 words of 10+ letters
Board 10: 13 words of 10+ letters
(Yes, I put the biggest one at the front of the list)
Note that I tried to make each of these boards unique but there may be
some words repeated but not many. Also, the WordWiggle web interface
does not support requiring 10+ as the word size (maybe I should) so I
only set it to the max (6+) which should be interesting as to how many
smaller words are available in addition to those 10+ words.
(Sorry, no hints as to the subject matter - it would make some of them
far too easy)