7 ms·

Posting a 5x5 crossword every day

47 points by ldom22 2y ago

larschdk 2y ago
Keyboard navigation needs some improvement. It's not easy to navigate because you are blocked from correct guesses. Also, it wanted me to guess "SASHA", but the hint was for "Sacha" (Baron Cohen).
- xnorswap 2y ago
  Not just navigation, but typing too. Just typing a word results in letters overwriting themselves because the next letter comes in before it's transitioned to the next space, so you have to type artificially slowly.
- DonaldFisk 2y ago
  "American figure skater, last name Cohen" would have worked as the clue.
thunderbong 2y ago
Fantastic! This should be a 'Show HN'
voidUpdate 2y ago
Which part of Belfast are you measuring from? Google maps says its only about 55 miles...
isaacfrond 2y ago
This is too hard to be fun.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  The fact that it tells you if individual letters are right or wrong makes it much easier.
  - latexr 2y ago
    Exactly. I even started making an auto-solver based on that. I stopped because I have more important things to do today and I don’t even enjoy crossword puzzles (no shade on anyone, you do you).
cwilkes 2y ago
Most of these entries are Naticks where the two crosses are proper nouns. That’s really unpleasant as it usually means there’s no way to figure out the cross unless you know the two terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Parker In 2008, he invented on his blog the crossword term "natick" (after Natick, Massachusetts) for an "unguessable" square crossed in both directions by proper nouns considered obscure.
popol12 2y ago
That's nice ! Learned a few things today, it's more effective than hitting "random article" on wikipedia. It would be nice if you could add an icon to the site, so I could find it more easily in my bookmark toolbar.
crottypeter 2y ago
Can I see the clues after I have solved it?
jll29 2y ago
Neat idea (editing UX need a bit of work, perhaps); I would much like to see _all_ hints in parallel on my screen. Solving a crosswords is a bit like solving an equation system, since the grid is equivalent to all row questions AND all column questions combined in a big mega-confunction, so it helps to see all at once.
oliwary 2y ago
This is great! Thank you for sharing. I have been running a 5x5 game that is more wordle like (i.e. no clues, guess entire words) at https://squareword.org https://squareword.org for the past ~2.5 years. Interestingly, when you exclude proper nouns, there is a relatively limited amount of possible 5x5 squares with common words - I am having to add some uncommon words to make it work. I guess with nouns included this is less likely to happen, should be a much larger space of possible words.
- throwaway93u5 2y ago
  I play your game almost daily for a year now. Keep up the good work.
  - oliwary 2y ago
    Thank you, it makes me happy to hear that!
NeoTar 2y ago
Crosswords are one of those interesting things where there is a quite a bit of trans-atlantic difference which is worth taking a brief look at if you aren't familar. To quote Wikipedia: > Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines consist mainly of solid regions of uninterrupted white squares, separated more sparsely by shaded squares. Every letter is "checked" (i.e. is part of both an "across" word and a "down" word) and usually each answer must contain at least three letters. In such puzzles shaded squares are typically limited to about one-sixth of the total. Crossword grids elsewhere, ... have a lattice-like structure, with a higher percentage of shaded squares (around 25%), leaving about half the letters in an answer unchecked.
- OskarS 2y ago
  I grew up with Swedish crosswords, where the clues are written into the "non-letter" cells (the ones that are shaded in an American crossword). There's no separate clue section, it's just all part of the grid. They almost always have some illustration as well, they look really delightful compared to American crosswords, though from a "puzzle" angle they're not always as fun.
  - NeoTar 2y ago
    I think that might be called an 'Arrow word' in at least some English dialects, if I am getting your description correct in my head... E.g. see: https://images.app.goo.gl/mErh6pEEnR9Eexpf8 https://images.app.goo.gl/mErh6pEEnR9Eexpf8
    - OskarS 2y ago
      Yes, that kind of thing, but with an illustration and usually styled nicer. This is a very typical look (the first crossword i found by googling): https://www.argument.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Korsord-2019-1-kryss.jpg https://www.argument.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Korsord-2...
  - eb0la 2y ago
    In Spain they're called Autodefinidos: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodefinido https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodefinido
sakerbos 2y ago
Love this!
shultays 2y ago
You can just type randomly and finish it up. It displaying correct letters and locking them when you enter one makes it a bit easy to cheat
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ldom22 2y ago
I love the NYT mini so I made some scripts and HTML to auto generate more 5x5 puzzles, posting one very day at my site
- tkgally 2y ago
  Great effort! I'm a fan of the NYT Mini, too. The art of that puzzle, I think, is in the clues, which are usually not straight synonyms or dictionary-type definitions. Some examples from recent puzzles: Name tag heading: HELLO Word shouted during a defibrillator scene in a hospital drama: CLEAR Kind of orange with a "belly button": NAVEL "I'm not a ____" (online affirmation next to a checkbox): ROBOT What breweries might creatively repurpose as seats: KEGS I haven’t tried [1], but it might be hard to get an LLM to produce such clues consistently. I’m not sure how well I would do at it myself. Another feature of the NYT Mini is that the creators seem to limit the number of pop-culture facts to at most one per puzzle. I’m bad at names of actors, cartoon characters, pop stars, etc., but I’m usually able to solve the puzzles even when they have clues and answers like Ogre who asks "What are you doing in my swamp?!": SHREK because I can get the answers in the other direction. [1] A few minutes later: I did try. I gave Claude 3.5 Sonnet the above clues and answers as examples and asked it to produce clues for today’s NYT Mini answers. Here are the results: https://gally.net/temp/20240904miniclues/index.html https://gally.net/temp/20240904miniclues/index.html Not as clever as the NYT’s clues, but not terrible, either.
- navjordj 2y ago
  Could you share some details on what algorithm you use to generate the puzzles?
- beardyw 2y ago
  Did you auto generate the clues?
  - ldom22 2y ago
    Kind of. They are auto gen from Wikipedia content but I edited them manually so they were shorter and made more sense
bedits 2y ago
[dead]

47 points by ldom22 2y ago

Keyboard navigation needs some improvement. It's not easy to navigate because you are blocked from correct guesses. Also, it wanted me to guess "SASHA", but the hint was for "Sacha" (Baron Cohen).

xnorswap 2y ago
Not just navigation, but typing too. Just typing a word results in letters overwriting themselves because the next letter comes in before it's transitioned to the next space, so you have to type artificially slowly.
DonaldFisk 2y ago
"American figure skater, last name Cohen" would have worked as the clue.

thunderbong 2y ago

Fantastic! This should be a 'Show HN'

voidUpdate 2y ago

Which part of Belfast are you measuring from? Google maps says its only about 55 miles...

isaacfrond 2y ago

This is too hard to be fun.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
The fact that it tells you if individual letters are right or wrong makes it much easier.
- latexr 2y ago
  Exactly. I even started making an auto-solver based on that. I stopped because I have more important things to do today and I don’t even enjoy crossword puzzles (no shade on anyone, you do you).

cwilkes 2y ago

Most of these entries are Naticks where the two crosses are proper nouns. That’s really unpleasant as it usually means there’s no way to figure out the cross unless you know the two terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Parker In 2008, he invented on his blog the crossword term "natick" (after Natick, Massachusetts) for an "unguessable" square crossed in both directions by proper nouns considered obscure.

popol12 2y ago

That's nice ! Learned a few things today, it's more effective than hitting "random article" on wikipedia. It would be nice if you could add an icon to the site, so I could find it more easily in my bookmark toolbar.

crottypeter 2y ago

Can I see the clues after I have solved it?

jll29 2y ago

Neat idea (editing UX need a bit of work, perhaps); I would much like to see _all_ hints in parallel on my screen. Solving a crosswords is a bit like solving an equation system, since the grid is equivalent to all row questions AND all column questions combined in a big mega-confunction, so it helps to see all at once.

oliwary 2y ago

This is great! Thank you for sharing. I have been running a 5x5 game that is more wordle like (i.e. no clues, guess entire words) at https://squareword.org https://squareword.org for the past ~2.5 years. Interestingly, when you exclude proper nouns, there is a relatively limited amount of possible 5x5 squares with common words - I am having to add some uncommon words to make it work. I guess with nouns included this is less likely to happen, should be a much larger space of possible words.

throwaway93u5 2y ago
I play your game almost daily for a year now. Keep up the good work.
- oliwary 2y ago
  Thank you, it makes me happy to hear that!

NeoTar 2y ago

Crosswords are one of those interesting things where there is a quite a bit of trans-atlantic difference which is worth taking a brief look at if you aren't familar. To quote Wikipedia: > Crossword grids such as those appearing in most North American newspapers and magazines consist mainly of solid regions of uninterrupted white squares, separated more sparsely by shaded squares. Every letter is "checked" (i.e. is part of both an "across" word and a "down" word) and usually each answer must contain at least three letters. In such puzzles shaded squares are typically limited to about one-sixth of the total. Crossword grids elsewhere, ... have a lattice-like structure, with a higher percentage of shaded squares (around 25%), leaving about half the letters in an answer unchecked.

OskarS 2y ago
I grew up with Swedish crosswords, where the clues are written into the "non-letter" cells (the ones that are shaded in an American crossword). There's no separate clue section, it's just all part of the grid. They almost always have some illustration as well, they look really delightful compared to American crosswords, though from a "puzzle" angle they're not always as fun.
- NeoTar 2y ago
  I think that might be called an 'Arrow word' in at least some English dialects, if I am getting your description correct in my head... E.g. see: https://images.app.goo.gl/mErh6pEEnR9Eexpf8 https://images.app.goo.gl/mErh6pEEnR9Eexpf8
  - OskarS 2y ago
    Yes, that kind of thing, but with an illustration and usually styled nicer. This is a very typical look (the first crossword i found by googling): https://www.argument.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Korsord-2019-1-kryss.jpg https://www.argument.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Korsord-2...
- eb0la 2y ago
  In Spain they're called Autodefinidos: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodefinido https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodefinido

sakerbos 2y ago

Love this!

shultays 2y ago

You can just type randomly and finish it up. It displaying correct letters and locking them when you enter one makes it a bit easy to cheat

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ldom22 2y ago

I love the NYT mini so I made some scripts and HTML to auto generate more 5x5 puzzles, posting one very day at my site

tkgally 2y ago
Great effort! I'm a fan of the NYT Mini, too. The art of that puzzle, I think, is in the clues, which are usually not straight synonyms or dictionary-type definitions. Some examples from recent puzzles: Name tag heading: HELLO Word shouted during a defibrillator scene in a hospital drama: CLEAR Kind of orange with a "belly button": NAVEL "I'm not a ____" (online affirmation next to a checkbox): ROBOT What breweries might creatively repurpose as seats: KEGS I haven’t tried [1], but it might be hard to get an LLM to produce such clues consistently. I’m not sure how well I would do at it myself. Another feature of the NYT Mini is that the creators seem to limit the number of pop-culture facts to at most one per puzzle. I’m bad at names of actors, cartoon characters, pop stars, etc., but I’m usually able to solve the puzzles even when they have clues and answers like Ogre who asks "What are you doing in my swamp?!": SHREK because I can get the answers in the other direction. [1] A few minutes later: I did try. I gave Claude 3.5 Sonnet the above clues and answers as examples and asked it to produce clues for today’s NYT Mini answers. Here are the results: https://gally.net/temp/20240904miniclues/index.html https://gally.net/temp/20240904miniclues/index.html Not as clever as the NYT’s clues, but not terrible, either.
navjordj 2y ago
Could you share some details on what algorithm you use to generate the puzzles?
beardyw 2y ago
Did you auto generate the clues?
- ldom22 2y ago
  Kind of. They are auto gen from Wikipedia content but I edited them manually so they were shorter and made more sense

bedits 2y ago

[dead]