Each week, FiveThirtyEight posts a puzzle call the Riddler. On Oct. 21st, this was the Riddler:
What arrangement of any letters on a Boggle board has the most points attainable? Boggle is played with a 4-by-4 grid of letters. Points are scored by finding strings of letters — connected in any direction, horizontally, vertically or diagonally — that form valid words at least three letters long. Words 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 or more letters long score 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and 11 points, respectively.
I had a lot of fun solving this puzzle, and I learned a lot as well, so I decided to share. The approach I took was to use a genetic algorithm, which mimics the mechanics of natural selection. In the past, I hadn’t found a good application, but wanted to give it a shot. You shouldn’t need in-depth knowledge of programming, genetics, or Boggle to learn something!
Hello everyone! Today I’m happy to present my second crossword creation. After fielding ideas from the crowd and countless iterations, it’s finally complete.
The puzzle is named “Marquee Mix-Up”, and is sized as a weekday NYT puzzle (15x15). After the link to the puzzle, there is a small write-up about the construction, what I like, and what can be improved next time around. This one may prove more difficult than my first (sorry in advance!) so I have included some hints as well to help everyone along.