Generating Word Search Puzzles

Nice. One improvement would be to throw in letters in frequencies proportional to the likelihood of appearance in actual text. For example:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.math.cornell.edu&#x2F;~mec&#x2F;2003-2004&#x2F;cryptography&#x2F;subs&#x2F;frequencies.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.math.cornell.edu&#x2F;~mec&#x2F;2003-2004&#x2F;cryptography&#x2F;subs...</a><p>Though this is a simple problem, if you are picky there are actually other considerations... how well do the words intersect (do you prefer more of a sparse tree-like structure, or maximal mesh-like intersection). What is the optimal dimension of a puzzle given the input. How the order of words (random vs. longest word first) affect the quality of the puzzle. etc. I have a half-done word search puzzle app (with a twist) so this piques my interest.<p>But I like this one nice and clean.

Interesting, and familiar.<p>I had this idea a while back and made a puzzlegame for Android and iOs that does basically this.<p>The idea is to create puzzles on ANY subject that contain words relating to that subject.<p>- let user type, search wikipedia for articles starting with that text<p>- grab selected article, find out words in it that are links to other articles (they are probably related)<p>- generate a puzzle<p>I also do random placement, but I also add a score to the final puzzle, taking into account spread in vertical&#x2F;horizontal&#x2F;diagonal words. Then I just create as many random puzzles as I can in 4 seconds and take &#x27;the best&#x27;.<p>More detailed writeup here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;miscellany.codestare.com&#x2F;WordsearchPlus&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;miscellany.codestare.com&#x2F;WordsearchPlus&#x2F;</a><p>Finished products: iOS: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;itunes.apple.com&#x2F;nl&#x2F;app&#x2F;word-search-plus-word-puzzle&#x2F;id898234027?l=en" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;itunes.apple.com&#x2F;nl&#x2F;app&#x2F;word-search-plus-word-puzzle...</a> Android: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.codestare.wordsearch" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.codestare....</a>

Neat! This sort of thing also is a really nice project for playing around with logic programming languages.<p>One missing feature is enforcing a unique solution, which is something you&#x27;d generally expect from a word search puzzle.

I added a Word Search to many language learning apps. See middle picture top:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.h4labs.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.h4labs.com</a><p>I basically brute forced it and simply skipped words that I couldn&#x27;t fit. I&#x27;d love to hear ideas from other implementations. At some point I&#x27;m going to make the grid size dynamic when I rewrite a better version for the iPad.

Would be neat if it could make <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wonderword" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wonderword</a> puzzles, in which the remaining letters spell out a word.

Docs: &quot;$ wordsearch nitwit blubber oddment tweak&quot; :)

Try making crossword puzzles programmatically :)