Strands - new new york times game, just launched

Lavender Room
1

Strands #1
“Mark my words”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🔵🔵

seemed appropriate for a first launch…

https://www.nytimes.com/games/strands
.

2

Letter Boxed is a little more cerebral. I did LB in 3 words yesterday and today.

3

Yeah, I like LetterBoxed better.

Strands #1
“Mark my words”
💡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🟡🔵🔵

4

Strands #1
“Mark my words”
🔵🔵🔵🟡
🔵🔵🔵

Interesting. Not sure this would be in my normal rotation, but it’s an ok time waster.

5

I hate word puzzles. I suck a scrabble.

Strands #1
“Mark my words”
💡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵💡🔵
💡🟡

6

Strands #1
“Mark my words”
💡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🟡🔵
.

7

I hate word puzzles. I suck a scrabble.

Strands #1
“Mark my words”
💡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵💡🔵
💡🟡

Tip for Scrabble… you know how they have that blank tile that you can use as a substitute for any letter? i.e. if only you had that letter, you’d have a great word to play.

So, take any letter tile you may have, and place that on the board face down so the blank side is up. Claim it’s the blank tile and you’re using it to complete a word. Of course when you try this for the 7th time in a game, folks’ may catch on that something’s fishy. :slight_smile:

Of course, above is all in pink. Cheating not condoned.

8

So, Strands seemed like an easy game. At least today, for me. I’ll give myself a few days to see if it’s got enough to sustain interest.

I think it’s probably more impressive to come up with a way to arrange a bunch of letters into a grid, where all letters must be used, to form a set of related words, plus a theme word.

Seems like creating the puzzle could be the greater challenge.

9

Strands #2
“She’ll have a ball”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🔵🟡🔵
.

10

Strands #2
“She’ll have a ball”
🔵🔵🟡🔵
🔵🔵🔵

Wondering if these get harder over the week, like the crosswords. Seems easy enough so far.

11

Seems like creating the puzzle could be the greater challenge.

I think this is a relatively easy puzzle to make. Just need to find some words with a total number of letters n, and n needs to fit into an x-by-y grid that’s square-ish (7x8 is fine, but 2x28 is not). Shoving the letters to the grid is trivial after that since horizontal, vertical, and diagonal moves are all valid.

12

Strands #2
“She’ll have a ball”
🔵🔵🔵🟡
🔵🔵🔵
.

13

Strands #3
“I gotta dip!”
💡🔵💡🔵
💡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🟡
.

14

Strands #3
“I gotta dip!”
🔵🔵🟡🔵
🔵🔵🔵
.

15

Strands #3
“I gotta dip!”
💡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🟡🔵
.

16

Strands #3
“I gotta dip!”
🔵🟡🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵

.

17

Seems like creating the puzzle could be the greater challenge.

I think this is a relatively easy puzzle to make. Just need to find some words with a total number of letters n, and n needs to fit into an x-by-y grid that’s square-ish (7x8 is fine, but 2x28 is not). Shoving the letters to the grid is trivial after that since horizontal, vertical, and diagonal moves are all valid.

Yes, on second thought, you’re right. n letters into x*y grid then …

But there is some element to “hiding” the letters to make it a challenge. Just placing the words sequentially left-right would be trivially easy. And randomly dropping letters into the grid wouldn’t work. Given that letters have to be contiguous, you just need to make sure you leave enough space in the grid to be able to fit the next word(s). i.e. packing the words so they fit. A bit like tetris with words.

Which means after you’ve found the first few words, the game gets easier – as you just have to scan the untouched “areas” for a word, and you kinda also have a theme emerging by that point. The hardest part would be the start and finding a valid word.

18

Strands #4
“Don’t do it!”
🔵🔵💡🔵
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡
.

19

Strands #4
“Don’t do it!”
💡🔵💡🔵
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🔵💡🟡

I found the yellow word as two separate words. That is not all one word. I’m kind of over this game.

20

Same result. I promise I didn’t look at your answers

https://i.gifer.com/KjPU.gif

Strands #4
“Don’t do it!”
💡🔵💡🔵
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🔵💡🟡