Sunday, January 1, 2012

2012 MagicWordSquare posting schedule

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoy visiting this blog, hopefully on a regular basis. Please follow it!

As I told you last year at this time, I started Magic Word Square almost four years ago for a number of reasons. I wanted to explore the fun of playing with words and letters. The fact that one set of letters can be used so many different ways—one word can mean so many different things, one sentence can be interpreted many different ways—is part of the attraction.

And I’m still hoping that a publisher will realize there’s a market for books of this sort of puzzles.

Just like last year, I continue to explore the possibilities of Word Sudoku puzzles. Last year I introduced Word from Word Sudoku, Letter Run Sudoku, and even Last Word Sudoku, using quotes from Terry Breverton’s fabulous book, “Immortal Last Words” (http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Last-Words-Memorable-Statements/dp/1849164789). This year, I’ll challenge you with a consistent schedule of different size Word Sudoku puzzles, as well as providing you more of my “Qudoku” puzzle sets—Word Sudoku puzzles with quote grids.

The overall posting schedule remains complex because I post according to four different interweaving schedules: (1) daily; (2) weekly; (3) monthly, and (4) on specific dates throughout the full year, usually historical.

Here’s the 2012 schedule.

Daily posting schedule, each week

  • Mon: 6x6 Word Sudoku puzzles
  • Tue: 8x8 Word Sudoku puzzles
  • Wed: 9x9 Hidden Word Sudoku puzzles
  • Thu: 9x9 Classic Word Sudoku puzzles
  • Fri: 10x10 Word Sudoku puzzles
  • Sat: Swifty Sudoku
  • Sun: Sunday Challenge

As I’m sure you’ve already discovered, a Swifty Sudoku puzzle is a Qudoku puzzle set spelling out a hopefully very bad adverbial pun. And the Sunday Challenge is a 12x12 Hidden Word Sudoku puzzle. My local newspaper (The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon) publishes 9x9’s all week of increasing difficulty; then it publishes a 16x16 on Sunday, which I find too hard to do in a reasonable time. So I’ve created something in-between that includes a hidden word or phrase. Challenging but doable, I hope!

Monthly posting schedule
In 2012 I’m also challenging you with a regularly-scheduled set of extra Word Sudoku puzzles posted on specific days of each month.

  • 1st: Birthday Sudoku
  • 10th: Top 10 Sudoku
  • 20th: Month in Word Sudoku

Birthday Sudoku presents a quote from someone born in that month, in the form of a Qudoku puzzles set: solve the Word Sudoku puzzles(s) and spell out the quote in the quote grid.

Top 10 Sudoku is a Qudoku puzzle set where you spell out a list of something—and it doesn’t always have to be 10 items long!

Month in Word Sudoku is somewhat like last year’s Word from Word and Letter Run Sudoku puzzles. The Qudoku puzzle set contains a quote grid spelling out several common phrases that each contain all the letters in this month’s name—and then also list the other months that are also hidden there.

Specific date posting schedule And finally, I post based on historical dates.

  • Day of entering the union: State Sudoku (Last year I included state mottoes; this year it’s the largest city in each state, along with the state capital)
  • Birthday: Presidential Sudoku (last year I included birthplaces; this year I include presidential nicknames)

So in 2012, I’m posting more than 500 Word Sudoku puzzles. Please use the blog’s comments to let me know what you think—what you like, what you don’t; what you’d like to see more of or perhaps less of. And please follow this blog!

Thanks,
--Dave
1/1/2012

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