In this two-part contest, you'll get to solve a puzzle, learn how it was made, and try your hand at making your own puzzle!
Part I. Solve a Puzzle!
THE JOY OF PUZZLING: CODEWORDS
In the crossword puzzle below, every letter is represented by an integer from 1 through 26. You must decipher the code to reveal the words.
Arrange the letters in the shaded spaces to spell the final answer, an eight-letter word.
After solving, go to tinyurl.com/tjop-[answer], replacing [answer] with the answer, to learn how this puzzle was constructed and get tips on constructing your own!
Send your answer to the above puzzle to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com to enter Part I of the contest. After the deadline (11:59 PM on November 15, 2019), one random entrant with the correct answer will win
a book of Penny Press Codewords puzzles!
Part II. Make a Puzzle!
Now you get to write your own Codewords puzzle! To learn how I made the above puzzle, go to tinyurl.com/tjop-[answer], replacing "[answer]" in the URL with the puzzle's final answer in lowercase letters. It is not, however, necessary to watch this video or even solve the above puzzle to enter this part of the contest. Your puzzle must obey all of these rules:
* The puzzle must obey Codewords rules.
* All 26 letters of the English alphabet must be present.
* All words must be Scrabble-legal in America. (Use
http://scrabble.merriam.com/ if unsure. Note that Penny Press Codewords puzzles do sometimes use hyphenated words and even multi-word phrases, but I choose to restrict myself a little bit more.)
*
The puzzle must use the same grid as the puzzle above. (I hate to constrain the creativity of those who want to use words of 10 letters or longer in their puzzles, but Codewords puzzles are a dime a dozen in magazines, and this is the absolute dead simplest anti-plagiarism measure I could come up with.)
* No entry may be repeated.
* Unlike the puzzle above, there is no need to select 8 cells to anagram to a final answer.
Since test-solving is one of the most important parts of the puzzle-construction process, you are allowed to seek the assistance of one test-solver.
Send your completed puzzle, its answer, three letters you want to give as hints, and the e-mail address of your test-solver (if you had one) to
devjoe@gmail.com [NOT TO ME!!!], before 11:59 PM Central time on November 15, 2019. The puzzle and its answer should be in plaintext. After the deadline, /dev/joe will then send the puzzles to me in random order and with no bylines, and without the hint letters. I will judge which puzzle I like best and give the rest of the puzzles (with the hint letters) to a couple of longtime friends who aren't as experienced with Codewords puzzles as I am (a retired math professor and his wife), and they will judge which of those puzzles they like best; the constructors of the two selected puzzles and their test-solvers (if any) will both win
a book of Penny Press Codewords puzzles! The winning entries (and honorable mentions, at my discretion) will also be reproduced on my blog for my readers' enjoyment. The following things are likely to win us over:
* Fresh entries.
* PG-ratedness.
* Strategically chosen hint letters that will allow relative laypeople to get a foothold and solve it. (For the puzzle above, I'd select numbers 15, 17, and 18, because they give over half of the 9-letter word in row 3, and if they can solve that word, they get four more letters instantly.) Remember that I won't know where the hint letters are when judging my winning entry, so this judging criterion is solely for my third-party solvers (they'll almost certainly enjoy solving a puzzle more than not solving it)!
The following things will not win us over:
* Too many obscurities. (It's okay to teach me a few new words, but too many obscure words may interfere with the fun of solving it. The third-party solvers who will judge the final winner will also be senior citizens who will have trouble breaking into a puzzle which is jam-packed with newfangled words like CAZH, which is slang for "casual".)
* R-rated things (I want to reproduce the winning entries on this highly PG-rated blog, so none of George Carlin's seven dirty words, for instance, should be in the grid).
* Etymological relatives, especially obvious ones like two compound words that share a root word in common, are frowned upon by me. Keep your words varied.
* Plagiarizing my puzzle is also frowned upon! Be creative and use different words than I did!
* Submitting the puzzle to me instead of to /dev/joe is an absolute no-no! No matter how good your puzzle is, if I know who wrote it, I cannot trust myself to judge the entries impartially. Seeing the entries without knowing who wrote them ensures that the prize goes to the puzzle I like the best, and not the person I like the best. So again,
DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR PUZZLES TO ME!!!
You may only submit one puzzle, but you can change it at any time before the deadline. You may be the test-solver for any number of other entrants.
Good luck, and happy constructing!
