Wednesday, August 16, 2017

[vllukivz] Arbitrary slope word search

Create a word search puzzle in which words can be at any rational slope, not just ({-1,0,+1}, {-1,0,+1}) as typically done.  Words may also wrap around.

Two possibilities: slopes like (2,0), i.e., skipping every other letter on a horizontal line, are not permitted.  This makes it like drawing lines through lattice points.

Or, such slopes are permitted: if the total number of letters in the grid is a smooth number, then the puzzle may be reformatted to many different shapes, and a word solution in one shape remains a word solution in another.  One can even format into higher dimensional grids.  This could help make the puzzle easier.

Pack a large number of words into a grid given these relaxed rules.

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