Multidimensional Crosswords? 53
Aaron asks: "I write the crossword for the student newspaper at my university (McGill, in Montreal). For the last issue of the year I like to go all-out and do something special. Usually I just make a super-big one, but I had a brainstorm - a crossword is essentially a 2-dimensional matrix where set intersections are judged as valid if they test positive as real words out of a dictionary. Of course, the decision to limit the matrix to 2 dimensions is just pragmatic so if you wanted you could make crosswords of 3 or more dimensions (though a 4-dimension crossword might have to be done in pencil first). Any ideas on how to actually do this?" This would be interesting on a computer, but would be fairly hard to do in print. If you were of a mind to make a 3D crossword puzzle on paper, how would you do it?
Popups (Score:5, Funny)
Popup pictures or fold-ins, and until XP SP2 comes out, IE users will have no choice but to solve them.
3D tic-tac-toe (Score:1)
IMHO that'd be large enough to be interesting, esp. since the reader has to think in 3D to solve it.
Re:3D tic-tac-toe (Score:2)
The only hard part would be visualization of a 3D or 4D matrix on a 2D sheet of paper. IMO, crossword enthusists would rather focus on *crossword* skills rather than 3D visualization skills, so higher-D puzzles would fail to catch on.
If you are just interested in creating a challenging crossword puzz
Re:3D tic-tac-toe (Score:3, Funny)
Indefinite aricle
Personal pronoun
Dangerous programming language
Not F
Presidential nickname
Re:3D tic-tac-toe (Score:2)
As for putting it on paper, I feel would be a mistake. People would have a very difficult time visualizing the game in 3D if you could find a way to properly display it on 2D. I could only see this being accomplished successfully in an environment suitable for 3D
Re:3D tic-tac-toe (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about solving two clues that intersect on a 2D crossword. You have to find two words that fit the clues that share a common letter at the point where they intersect - right?
One of the things that makes crosswords harder is when there are multiple possible solutions for each clue - and the only way to find which is the right one is by co-solving the two clues. However, it might be that even then there are multiple pairs of words that fit the clues and satisfy the common-l
Inserted Pad - using "bible" paper (Score:2, Interesting)
To make 3D work... (Score:1, Redundant)
Wouldn't it be hard to construct though? I imagine having software to help with the construction would be nice.
Forget 3d (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a neat concept, but kind of silly when you think about it. Print is, by nature, a two-dimensional medium. I've seen two solutions already mentioned here, making the crossword much smaller or spreading it across multiple pages.
The way I envision it, a three-dimensional crossword would have to be shrunk down a lot to be able to fit in the usual space a 2d crossword occupies, which just makes it inefficient. Besides, a 3d crossword isn't going to be much different from a 2d crossword after being flattened for print.
If you were to try and span it out over several pages, you would probably piss your editors off, who likely don't want what is usually a small diversion occupying precious ad space.
Don't flatten it. (Score:1)
Re:Don't (Score:2)
Re:Don't (Score:2, Informative)
I doubt that the school charges a fee for the paper so they must get funds from yes, evil advertising.
OT: Other Option (Score:1)
Re:Don't (Score:2)
Like the other replier said, newspapers costs a lot of money to print. If it weren't for advertising, we'd either have to charge for it or take it from the University's budget, which would then be taken out of the students' ass.
The reason I'm a journalist is because I want to write. Unless you're a Bob Woodward or a Stephen King, you'll barely make enough to pay the bills in this busin
Interseting but to complex for most people (Score:3, Insightful)
Just remember your words have to be 3D as well. Each letter would be part of three different words. Even a small cross word will be extremely complex. Even 10x10x10 will be 1000 squares. Now Each word has to intersect with 2 other words at each point. a word like mom would have 6 interconnecting words needed to go with it. And each of those six will have an equally exponential number of words that they interact with.
Have you really thought the depth of this out? it seems a large task to setup.
By the way if you manage to pull it off, send me the link I would love to try it.
Re:Interseting but to complex for most people (Score:1)
Re:Interseting but to complex for most people (Score:2)
MOD PARENT UP!! (Score:1)
I had a similar idea (Score:4, Interesting)
It's hard to explain, a diagram would make it pretty obvious. There were 3 verticals printed across the page. I couldn't create a 4D crossword you could actually write clues in, so they had to list the answers in a boring list below.
I'm a pretty neat writer so it came out fine, but the photocopies were not perfect. The generation of the clues was an arduous task as I had to do it three times for the different time periods.
Advice for creating the 3d grid initially- lego blocks are your friend. The whole thing took several nights effort, but got quite a laugh, most people thought I was taking the piss. Not sure if anyone actually completed it, but as an intellectual exercise, I enjoyed it.
2 dimensional matrix? (Score:2, Informative)
it depends (Score:4, Insightful)
do you require only simple linear three-d words (e.g. just words on x & y, OR y & z, OR x & z) or are words that function in all three dimensions permitted (i.e. diagonal through the cube)?
if you DISALLOW diagonals, then you could do it (simply) with five (or whatever) crossword grids on a single page, and color code the various dimensions (like 6 down green, 8 across red, etc...)
the obvious difficulty would be that the instructions on how to work it would take up far too much space on the page!
perhaps the short answer is the sad one: since paper is a 2d medium, a 3d crossword puzzle ON PAPER is far more difficult than one would hope, once you take into account the end user
however, there's no reasons you couldn't do it in a medium that alows 3-d modeling, and rotation, and all that good stuff we've come to expect from our little glowing boxes... a web implementation would certainly be fun, and would require FAR less instruction, becuase the 3D nature of the thing would be clearly modeled in the display
it would certainly be fun to see how those solid black boxes work out in the 3d version
make the third dimension small (Score:3, Insightful)
This might make it too easy, but at least it won't require unusual spatial reasoning skills just to figure out the clues...
Post a link to slashdot when you're done -- I want to see it!
Re:make the third dimension small (Score:2)
Another problem is the terminology. Down and across is fine for 2-D, but how do you group the clues that span acro
Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps a cube with only the faces showing, so that only the beginnings and ends of words (at the edges and corners) interconnect? That's only six crossword puzzles, and much fewer constraints. The layout could be an unfolded cube, say six puzzles laid out in a latin cross, with perhaps the disconnected edges connected by dashes or another color if your press has it.
Another idea would be to make a much sparser matrix, say twenty words, and drawing only the cubes that contained the letters, like an abstract spatial sculpture or scaffolding. I would put it in a slightly skewed orthogonal perspective, select one face (say, the top), and draw its edges in a heavier or darker line than the other edges. In creating it, I would concentrate on making words intersect like a tree, rather than making sheets of densely packed words.
Color and centerfold (Score:2, Interesting)
i would say that a crossword of normal x,y dimensions would work (though this depends on space and what your norm is... just play with it) the z would be maybe 5 deep (again, playing with this can help.
now. you have the centerfold. start in the bottom left corner place you x,y matrix for z1 (if it were a cube this would be the front side) now, move up and to your right, place your x,y matrix for z2. continure until finished.
you s
3rd dimension inside each cell (Score:1)
SLA L** A**
SHD *** ***
OT* *** ***
L**
***
***
If possible, a color code would give the z index for each sub-cell, in order to help visually.
4d? (Score:2)
Re:4d? (Score:2)
Re:4d? (Score:2)
Michael. [michael-forman.com]
Re:4d? (Score:2)
Reorder the dimensions (Score:2)
That should stretch a 2d puzzle into 3d and not make it complicated
I would probably use Isometric Grid Paper (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I would probably use Isometric Grid Paper (Score:1)
Fake 3-D? (Score:3, Informative)
Simple, just slice the cube (Score:1)
So, just print each slice, as well as a diagram showing how the slices are fit together.
For clarity you should fill in a few example answers so that people can see how responses across each of the dimensions work.
Obey Your Father (Score:4, Interesting)
The redundancy of a language is related to the existence of crossword puzzles. If the redundancy is zero any sequence of letters is a reasonable text in the language and any two-dimensional array of letters forms a crossword puzzle. If the redundancy is too high the language imposes too many constraints for large crossword puzzles to be possible. A more detailed analysis shows that if we assume the constraints imposed by the language are of a rather chaotic and random nature, large crossword puzzles are just possible when the redundancy is 50%. If the redundancy is 33%, three-dimensional crossword puzzles should be possible, etc.
Since he also claims that the redundancy of English is 50% (in other places, he claims it is even higher), it appears that the father of information theory has decided that you will not be able to pull off a 3-D crossword puzzle. To me, that sounds like a great reason to try and do it. Not many people sucessfully prove Claude Shannon wrong, even indirectly.
Of course, if you do create a 3-D crossword puzzle, you should call it a 11-D puzzle, and claim that all the other dimensions are curled up very small. If some of the smartest people in the world [superstringtheory.com] can get away with that, you should be able to also.
Re:Obey Your Father (Score:2)
Other crossword puzzle types are more sparsely populated, with words crossing in a fashion more like in S
Re:Obey Your Father (Score:2)
Please Mod parent up, Insightful. I used all my mod points yesterday.
Use Coplanar Vectors (Score:5, Interesting)
In crosswords, the "dimensions" don't necessarily have to be orthogonal. It is permissible to create several coplanar vectors (called "directions" instead of "dimensions") that intersect at various angles. For instance you could use squares (two directions), hexagons (three directions), octagons (four directions), and so on. The closest to what you were asking for would be hexagonal shapes with words moving "down", "up-across", and "down-across".
If your three word vectors must be orthogonal, I have seen sparse 3D crosswords drawn in 2D in perspective. They were sparse to allow the reader to solve words that would otherwise be occluded by a dense crossword. A dense orthogonal 3D crossword could be represented in many slices of a traditional 2D crossword.
Michael. [michael-forman.com]
SImple -- just print a link (Score:3, Informative)
That was my thought too, and there are lots of examples of 3d crosswords online (try Google; for example this [bloxword.ca]). If you have the wherewithal to code it yourself, or if you find a plugin you can use -- I'd say make your puzzle available online, then in the newspaper just put an intriguing screenshot and a link (tinyurl?) that readers can visit to try solving it.
Think outside the box, eh?
Flashy Crosswords (Score:2)
First there are all the variants on cryptic crosswords. See The Atlantic Monthly [theatlantic.com] for some very nice ones (and some very tough ones). If you look around a bit Stephen Sondheim (yup, the guy who writes Broadway Musicals) also
something like this (Score:3, Informative)
McGill Crosswords (Score:3, Interesting)
If you do the Trib's, I got nothing. I haven't seriously opened a Trib in a semester.
Do the obvious with slight change... (Score:1)
Paper or No Paper? (Score:2, Insightful)
A 4X4 grid is probably the most common square that is easily and totally filled with answers. In this example, clu
actual display issues in n-d puzzles (Score:2)
Relaxing the Keying Constraint (Score:2)
However, if one relaxes the keying constraint, 3D puzzles *are* possible. The way I got around it was by *requiring* the words in my 3D puzzles to have only