6:55 First letter of objects on table (Scissors, Piano, Apple, Dice, Elephant) spell SPADE 9:26 First word of each clue, SEA EL EWE BEA (CLUB phonetically) 11:14 Lowercase letters read in order spell HEART
@@Ziirf exactly, that would not get him very far in scrabble. Also, acronyms are the lowest words in crosswords, the more of them, the lesser is deemed the quality of the crossword
@@panda4247 Wasn't trying to defend his 'scrabble skills', but saying "I'd dare to challenge his phonies off" makes it sound as if they were actual faults in their current context.
Keep in mind this is an edited video, he likely spent his time preparing the crossword off camera. He is simply recreating this puzzle on camera using the original as reference. He demonstrates how he gets his words using onelook. Not to say he isn't word smart, we don't have enough info to make that assessment one way or the other.
Vikas Patil, It doesn't make you an idiot. It's change blindness, and everyone is subject to it. Have a look at this. ruclips.net/video/VkrrVozZR2c/видео.html
@@JenniferOzak Did you solve Patrick Berry's "Crossing Words" puzzles? No machine could have come up with those ideas and those puzzles are timeless. Reference NY Times in fall of 2011.
My record for solving a NYT Sunday is about 18 minutes. My record for constructing a solid Sunday with a good theme is 3 months. And even then it was rejected. I worked on it every night for at least 30 minutes. With software.
Antidisestablishmentarianism.. THAT is the most useless word. Yes, important meaning.. but how and WHEN would u EVER use it in a sentence?! Like a proper sentence with meaning in its word, not just: ____ is the longest word ever. Also: phlocinocinhilipilification. Useless waste of letters.
CLUB - 9:27 Sea, El, Ewe, Bea (are pronounced like C L U B) SPADE - 8:37 Scissor, Piano, Apple, Dies, Elephant. (First letter in each) HEART - 11:15 (h, e, a, r, and t are the only lowercase letters in the grid) DIAMOND - The pin on his chest (his right side, our left side) is changing letter throughout the video, spelling out D I A M O N D Edit: the letters spelling out Diamond are not in order. To get them in the right sequence you need to look at the color of his shirt. The letters are then placed in order of the color of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet)
@@jancarlyt4556 I don't want to take credit for this, I basically just read a bunch of different comments and decided to put all texts together into one.
So I was a little bit confused when he mentioned seemingly random rules like "must have rotational symmetry" or "each letter has to be accessible across and down"... until he mentioned this is a New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I've been doing European-style ones like Bumper Big Crosswords (UK) my whole life and I don't remember such patterns. Also, hiding themed words inside other words? And clumping two words (that should be spelled with a space in between) together, like marqueename or zacefron is okay? Or that the daily crosswords get progressively harder as the week goes by? Huh. The more you know. Is this just the NY Times cruciverbal "house style", or is this how most American crossword puzzles look like? Not having a go, honestly curious
This is how most US crosswords are built. Certainly having all letters accessible across and down, and allowing clues to contain more than one word without spaces. The difficulty getting harder through the week was popularized by the New York Times but some other papers have adopted it.
Love this video puzzle! Thanks for making it!!! To the UK question: yes, US puzzles are all filled in like this, so much easier to solve than UK puzzles! Additionally, if you read Will Short's rules, he'd label one row of each of the 5-black squares as filler and probably not accept it for the New York Times!
THANK YOU! I had the exact same question as european mainlander and was very curious if that is a NYT and/or cultural thing. We have 2 letter words and "non-appetizing" words like urethrae all the time in ours, too!
I saw Kwong create a puzzle at his live magic (and puzzle) show using words submitted by the audience; I think he completed it in under10 minutes. It was phenomenal, as was the rest of the show.
For people saying these clues were really hard, I think they were pretty fair. Looking for case differences is very easy, and I'm sure most people got this one right away. The others had the camera focus directly on the solutions/clues at points in the video. In general, if something is being randomly focused on and you know there's a puzzle, it's probably a clue. For example, why did he only make clues specifically for those words? And then the camera zoomed in on the paper. Earlier there was a point where the camera pans over the objects whose first letters spell out SPADE. The objects are also placed very prominently on the table, are of similar size and are in focus and in frame when the narrator is sitting, further giving us a chance to ponder their significance. Being patient and methodical also helps a lot! You don't need to be a genius to be observant and doing puzzles regularly can get you into the habit being more observant in your daily life! Your mind is like a muscle and you should exercise it to keep it strong and healthy. Plus puzzles are fun!
things on the table 5:50 Scissor.Piano.Apple.Dice.Elephant SPADE At 9:27 the clues start with SEA(C), EL(L), EWE(U), BEA(B) . Spells CLUB At 11:15 Simple letter from left to right starting from the top spells heart
@@tachisme perhaps the shiny thing above his shoulder in an "urn". Idk if we're reaching, tho. I think the clues he wrote down are obviously what he wanted us to notice.
I love that this guy admits Will Shortz rejected him several times before he finally broke through. My father and I were a constructing team for years and never got published; seemingly for mostly silly reasons. I wish we’d kept at it.
Cooper Hilinsky I have a co-worker who has recently had his crosswords published in NYT and WSJ. He’s pretty young, not long out of college, but I have no idea how many times he was rejected before finally being accepted.
It exists, but it's the cruciverbalist who actually makes the puzzles interesting instead of just filling a 15x15 grid with words. On his laptop, you can see one of his apps with the XWD logo, which is a crossword making app with built in suggestions and autocomplete.
I still have no idea how he did that. It feels like he places some random words, and then out of nowhere he can get words with the letters in place. Like that FACEOFF, found in like a tenth of a second that perfectly fits
Pin changes- diamond Items on table- spade Lowercase letters- heart Clues on paper- club 9:27 Explanations: Pin changes to OIDMONA, turn it into roy-g-biv order with the correspondng shirt color and get diamond Lowercase letters in the crossword puzzle are h, e, a, r, and t "heart" Clues on paper are "SEA safety" (c), "EL paso" (l), "EWE mate" (u), "BEA arthur won for "mame" (B). "club" Items on table were Scissors (s), Piano (p), Apple (a), Dice (d), and Elephant(e) "spade"
I *love* this and am now starting my first puzzle creation, for a holiday gift. Thanks for sharing these ideas! I've loved your puzzles over the years.
Is those "rules" an American thing, or just a New York Times thing? In Norway most crosswords are asymmetric and has plenty of two letter words. Even one letter words are not uncommon, though though those are pretty simple because it can only be 'i' (Norwegian for "in"), 'å' (Norwegian for either the infinitive marker or a rare word for 'river') or 'ø' (archaic Norwegian/Danish for 'island'; usually spelled 'øy' today).
I just looked up crossword puzzles on Wiki and it looks like every region uses a different grid or format. So yes, this only applies to American crosswords.
Most standard American crosswords are like that (in contrast to the British version), but the NYT is definitely one of the hardest. One other thing is that easier puzzles often tell you it's multiple words in an answer. I believe the NYT and other hard puzzles do not.
Interesting technique! I used to make simple crosswords with my dad just for fun. For beginners, you don't have to make the puzzle look symmetrical... As far as i know that's just for aesthetics on the page but a crossword works fine if you just arrange words wherever you can fit them together (i think easier to make).
Trouble there is that it entails a black just below the Z, which (to avoid a bottom-row word starting unchecked) entails expanding the black block to what he calls a Utah. Perhaps four blocks of 5 black squares each is too many for Will Shortz.
I was thinking that you need to overlay the maze at 0:42 to the completed Crossword at 8:21 to get the answer. (The maze looks to be a 15x15 grid like the crossword with, in my opinion, a weird route/solution. I spent a good hour trying to overlay and thinking I need to mirror the route due the the solver of the maze being behind the glass maze. I tried reading the maze route, backwards, mirrored, mirrored backwards, reading just the corners of the route, and I even tried to overlay the maze on the crossword at 1:00 . But I guess the maze had nothing to do with the crossword. :P )
I could swear this process was at the very least semi-automated. I always imagined a database of words being fed to a system that arranges the puzzle. Different clues are assigned for each word, and the clues would be chosen based on desired complexity (or even just to differentiate each puzzle). Seems like I was wrong!
Igor Freitas I have a co-worker that constructs crosswords in his free time and recently got published in NYT and WSJ. With all of that word play involved, there’s no way a computer could create them. It’s not something that AI can accomplish yet with the tech that exists.
Awwwwwwwww nice video! I really love crosswords, but as a foreigner who doesnt speak English as a native language, those puzzles, even the easiest ones are still naturally impossible to me despite that i have been learning English for almost 10 years. I dont even know the word rebound (not until i looked it up), not to mention words like "Renoir". My vocabulary basically deprived me of the chance of trying those puzzles, and im really sad :(
I love videos like this where it sounds interesting and I give it a shot. Then get really into it because of how cool and surprising it turned out to be...
1- He is wearing 7 different coloured T-shirt each time he came to write something on the board..... that's also a clue guys..... it might be *V I B G Y O R* .... colours of rainbow..... 2 - small letters on the board spell *h e a r t*
You cant have words in the clue that are in the puzzle, like ‘one that lives in el paso’ because ones is in the puzzle Proceeds to put something along the lines of ... won ONE for his acting abilty (Could be bothered going back to check)
Very nice how he used the magician's skill of misdirection to perform the DIAMOND trick. You'd just assumed it took a few days to actually finish creating the puzzle, thus the different colour shirts... if you even noticed the shirts were any different while you were paying attention to how the guy goes about filling up the grid.
I didn’t get any of the other puzzles cause I’m watching this in bed lol but I did see that he used “one” in one of his clues before literally saying he can’t use answers in the clue.
having a bachelors in mathematics, having read many of the star wars expanded universe, and owning all of star trek on dvd I feel uniquely qualified to make the following statement. NNNNNNEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
Thank you for an interesting video. Next time though, could you please not change perspectives as often as you did here? Oh, wait. Did you have to change the shot that often to get the clues into the video?
As a video guy, yes and no. They did not HAVE to change the shot that often. Doing so made the "Lapel Pin Change" harder to notice, but it was still too frequent in my opinion. I was interested in listening in than solving a puzzle, and it was hard to focus on his face with all the edits.
Sorry, just hate it when someone throws in something like "Marquee Name" hoping I get that there is a "Queen" in it and then connect it to the fact that there are queens in a deck of cards. Some answers are so abstract that even if I have 70% of the letters, I still can't get it.
Not a fan of the word variations chosen. They dont seem like common single words, as I would expect. For example, fmaj. Wow. No thanks. Thought the whole point was the answers were 1 word each... not multiple word phrases or names or shortened variations that no normal personal would ever think of on their own. It's just filling in bs and pretending it makes sense. Guess that's why this puzzle isnt for me!
Serbian crossword puzzles are 12*12, but here is the kicker... there are ONLY 18 black spaces. This is the standard in the main Serbian newspaper 'Politika'. Also, the choice of locations for the black spaces isn't free but instead there are about 20 or so different symmetric and aesthetically configurations. In specialized crossword magazines, the puzzles are larger and the black spaces are no longer fixed, but these puzzles pride themselves on having an extremely small number of black spaces. There is usually at least 8*8 zone or even larger that is completely bereft of them. They are also usually thematic.
Some weird words coming down. What does FMAJ mean? What does ENC mean or UVEAS or RELO or ODELL or ALA or ASPREE or POLEAX or YAN or ALA or HBS? Here in the U.K. I think the editor would get some letters. 😆
I imagine this guy transforming a regular first date into a huge puzzle where things like location or food have to be found based on clues hidden in different random spots of the city.
This guy never explains why rotational symmetry is desirable or why he would hide additional words in the crossword puzzle. It seems like an attempt to make the task more interesting than it is. I feel like the point of the crosswords is the clues, not the arrangement of the answers. Ultimately it's not a very interesting type of puzzle.
I was so sure the puzzle had to do with the maze he drew near the beginning (which while rough, has basically a 15x15 grid) mapping onto the eventual puzzle, and you get a phrase which might start with MARS, tying back to Maenad and the greek stuff... I'm still not sure he wasn't going for that too, I just can't quite line it up haha
You guys should have put the final puzzle at the beginning and let the viewers have a go at it before giving us the process of creating it :( missed opportunity
i was so amazed by the process of how a crossword is made that i didn't even notice the letter pins & the colors of shirts changing ... big "woah" moment !
Yes, this crossword was way "cheatier" than the computer-generated ones. However, it had several cool ideas behind it and looked much more fun to solve. CG crosswords are too repetitive
6:55 First letter of objects on table (Scissors, Piano, Apple, Dice, Elephant) spell SPADE
9:26 First word of each clue, SEA EL EWE BEA (CLUB phonetically)
11:14 Lowercase letters read in order spell HEART
you are a machine! Hats off to you.
thanks man
That club puzzle. oof. work of B-U-T
authorblues _ Harvard here, boi you wanna a scholarship?
authorblues for pres
Imagine trying to play scrabble against this guy...
I'd dare to challenge his phonies off. Such as, if he ever tried to slip them past me, BQE or CPAS.
@@rosiefay7283 Think they are acronyms BQE being "Brooklyn-Queens Expressway" and CPAS being "Centre for the Public Awareness of Science"
@@Ziirf exactly, that would not get him very far in scrabble. Also, acronyms are the lowest words in crosswords, the more of them, the lesser is deemed the quality of the crossword
@@panda4247 Wasn't trying to defend his 'scrabble skills', but saying "I'd dare to challenge his phonies off" makes it sound as if they were actual faults in their current context.
Keep in mind this is an edited video, he likely spent his time preparing the crossword off camera. He is simply recreating this puzzle on camera using the original as reference. He demonstrates how he gets his words using onelook. Not to say he isn't word smart, we don't have enough info to make that assessment one way or the other.
This guy must have such a large vocabulary
Louis Cashatt or a short distance to his computer.
It comes with playing crosswords. Remember he was playing a lot before he ever started making them.
Great analysis...
@@someoneinsane7783 More like bore-ophyll
beclops haha thank you Kanye very cool
Am I the only idiot who didn't notice any of those changes throughout the video?
Yes.
Zerosonico don’t lie we all didn’t notice a thing 😂
Wait what changes?
Exter Smith read the first comment wrong my apologies. 😂😂
Vikas Patil, It doesn't make you an idiot. It's change blindness, and everyone is subject to it. Have a look at this.
ruclips.net/video/VkrrVozZR2c/видео.html
Making a good puzzle is way harder than solving it.
@@JenniferOzak bruh
Depends really.
@@JenniferOzak Did you solve Patrick Berry's "Crossing Words" puzzles? No machine could have come up with those ideas and those puzzles are timeless. Reference NY Times in fall of 2011.
My record for solving a NYT Sunday is about 18 minutes. My record for constructing a solid Sunday with a good theme is 3 months. And even then it was rejected. I worked on it every night for at least 30 minutes. With software.
cru·ci·ver·bal·ist (noun)- the most unnecessary but awesome word I have heard in a while
in italian we call crosswords "cruciverba"
info like this is useful on Jeopardy!
Now put it in a crossword.
I dont get it, there are no verbs in crossword answers, and you're not verbal when you're solving crosswords, you're writing them down.
Antidisestablishmentarianism.. THAT is the most useless word. Yes, important meaning.. but how and WHEN would u EVER use it in a sentence?! Like a proper sentence with meaning in its word, not just: ____ is the longest word ever.
Also: phlocinocinhilipilification. Useless waste of letters.
I feel dumber than ever.
mattalgrand awe, dont feel bad, im a dum dum too. 😚
Your talents lie elsewhere...
@@magicalleela666 Not everyone has talents. Most people aren't very good at anything.
For every person with a 130 IQ there's another with a 70.
@@QuasiELVIS "MOST people aren't good at ANYTHING"
Now that's just false
Yup.
CLUB - 9:27 Sea, El, Ewe, Bea (are pronounced like C L U B)
SPADE - 8:37 Scissor, Piano, Apple, Dies, Elephant. (First letter in each)
HEART - 11:15 (h, e, a, r, and t are the only lowercase letters in the grid)
DIAMOND - The pin on his chest (his right side, our left side) is changing letter throughout the video, spelling out D I A M O N D
Edit: the letters spelling out Diamond are not in order. To get them in the right sequence you need to look at the color of his shirt. The letters are then placed in order of the color of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet)
You are sooooo smart. Amazing!!!
Interesting, I was stuck on the decor behind him with
Curtain Liquor U? Books/Bike
@@jancarlyt4556 I don't want to take credit for this, I basically just read a bunch of different comments and decided to put all texts together into one.
I knew those letters looked out of place. I was like "this guy makes NYT crosswords and he's putting in lowercase letter?!"
Thx
9:49 “and voila! now you know how to make a new york times crossword puzzle”
...no i dont
lol i had the same reation
"I want to make people feel smart"
Well that's ironic because whenever I try to solve a crossword puzzle I feel dumb af.
I just realized something...
I'm dumb af.
Hahaha
I am feeling dumb right now.
hahahhaa did you just described me HAHAHAHA
Who is here after watching the Try Guys???
MEEEEEE :D
who are the try guys.
Actually quite fascinating the thought that goes into creating every puzzle. Well explained!
Actually very poorly explained. He already had all the words picked out. And he just put black squares in randomly?
Janet Wayman no, he explained how you want to put the black spots in places where it would be difficult to make a word
@@janetwayman9459 it wasn't random if you bothered watching the video
When he speaks i feel like he’s dumbing it down so we understand
And I still don’t understand it.
@@sineadthomas2024 me too
As a "non english speaker" I had never heard of 90% of the words in the puzzle... lol
What is your native language?
@@ArchangelExile Finnish!
@@alyssasmith5083 Ah, okay, cool!
As a native English speaker I am the same way lmao
Calleigh Monton Me too!
So I was a little bit confused when he mentioned seemingly random rules like "must have rotational symmetry" or "each letter has to be accessible across and down"... until he mentioned this is a New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I've been doing European-style ones like Bumper Big Crosswords (UK) my whole life and I don't remember such patterns. Also, hiding themed words inside other words? And clumping two words (that should be spelled with a space in between) together, like marqueename or zacefron is okay? Or that the daily crosswords get progressively harder as the week goes by? Huh. The more you know. Is this just the NY Times cruciverbal "house style", or is this how most American crossword puzzles look like? Not having a go, honestly curious
About clumping words together, it's usually ok if you specify that you did that.
Example: American actor (3)(5)
Answer: Zac efron
This is how most US crosswords are built. Certainly having all letters accessible across and down, and allowing clues to contain more than one word without spaces. The difficulty getting harder through the week was popularized by the New York Times but some other papers have adopted it.
Love this video puzzle! Thanks for making it!!!
To the UK question: yes, US puzzles are all filled in like this, so much easier to solve than UK puzzles!
Additionally, if you read Will Short's rules, he'd label one row of each of the 5-black squares as filler and probably not accept it for the New York Times!
Most of the time to make it fair, two word answers are stated. Usually will say (2 wrds) after the clue or something like that
THANK YOU! I had the exact same question as european mainlander and was very curious if that is a NYT and/or cultural thing. We have 2 letter words and "non-appetizing" words like urethrae all the time in ours, too!
Yeahhhh... Ima just wait for other people to solve it. LOL...
Too early for this lol.
the first letter of each item on the table - scissors; piano; apple; dice; elephant - spells SPADE
Dmitry Litovka There was also a lowercase S and it makes hearts
The third word must be clubs😂
"scissors; piano; apple; dice; elephant - spells SPADE" -- are you sure about that?
Jack yeah? Am I missing something?
@@cedricsdayout - it could spell scpiapdiele, or spaed, or cipil, or soeet or ....
So the guy making the crossword looks up the answers on Google as well? Good to know.
I saw Kwong create a puzzle at his live magic (and puzzle) show using words submitted by the audience; I think he completed it in under10 minutes. It was phenomenal, as was the rest of the show.
For people saying these clues were really hard, I think they were pretty fair. Looking for case differences is very easy, and I'm sure most people got this one right away. The others had the camera focus directly on the solutions/clues at points in the video. In general, if something is being randomly focused on and you know there's a puzzle, it's probably a clue.
For example, why did he only make clues specifically for those words? And then the camera zoomed in on the paper.
Earlier there was a point where the camera pans over the objects whose first letters spell out SPADE. The objects are also placed very prominently on the table, are of similar size and are in focus and in frame when the narrator is sitting, further giving us a chance to ponder their significance.
Being patient and methodical also helps a lot!
You don't need to be a genius to be observant and doing puzzles regularly can get you into the habit being more observant in your daily life! Your mind is like a muscle and you should exercise it to keep it strong and healthy. Plus puzzles are fun!
Yeah some of these clues are very "crossword-y" so if you do a lot of crosswords they're super easy to guess lol
things on the table 5:50
Scissor.Piano.Apple.Dice.Elephant
SPADE
At 9:27
the clues start with SEA(C), EL(L), EWE(U), BEA(B) . Spells CLUB
At 11:15
Simple letter from left to right starting from the top
spells heart
simple letters-> lowercase letters
The shirt one felt like a gimme, as for the other ones I never would have gotten any of them on my own, you’re incredible
@@noah8405 thank you very much!!!
His lettered pins change as well, which spell diamond.
Wow! I am very impressed.
The pheonetic pronuciations of the first words of each clue that he wrote down would spell out CLUB - sea (C), El (L), ewe (U), Bea (B)
9:27
@@CoachShrugs thank you!
@@tachisme perhaps the shiny thing above his shoulder in an "urn". Idk if we're reaching, tho. I think the clues he wrote down are obviously what he wanted us to notice.
Ah geez and all these time I read "ewe" as "Eww".
I love that this guy admits Will Shortz rejected him several times before he finally broke through. My father and I were a constructing team for years and never got published; seemingly for mostly silly reasons. I wish we’d kept at it.
Cooper Hilinsky I have a co-worker who has recently had his crosswords published in NYT and WSJ. He’s pretty young, not long out of college, but I have no idea how many times he was rejected before finally being accepted.
I think the real puzzle here is writing some software to replace him.
But who doesn't want to live in a world where someone's job title is "Cruciverbalist"
It's already been done. Check out crosswordman.com/
It exists, but it's the cruciverbalist who actually makes the puzzles interesting instead of just filling a 15x15 grid with words. On his laptop, you can see one of his apps with the XWD logo, which is a crossword making app with built in suggestions and autocomplete.
@@noneofmynameswork1 - When's the last time you saw an original or interesting crossword puzzle? They are basically ALL auto generated.
You can make robot drip paint , but its human touch that makes art interesting.
this guy is pure genius ! love the way he hid the puzzles in the video !
Great creativity and extras, David!!!
anyone here after the try guys played him
11:14 lowercase letters left to right spells out h-e-a-r-t
And what of the lowercase u in the top left?
Wow that is a great find!!!
Items on the table spell s-p-a-d-e
His lettered pins changed into diamond
Also its 11:15
I still have no idea how he did that. It feels like he places some random words, and then out of nowhere he can get words with the letters in place. Like that FACEOFF, found in like a tenth of a second that perfectly fits
Pin changes- diamond
Items on table- spade
Lowercase letters- heart
Clues on paper- club 9:27
Explanations:
Pin changes to OIDMONA, turn it into roy-g-biv order with the correspondng shirt color and get diamond
Lowercase letters in the crossword puzzle are h, e, a, r, and t "heart"
Clues on paper are "SEA safety" (c), "EL paso" (l), "EWE mate" (u), "BEA arthur won for "mame" (B). "club"
Items on table were Scissors (s), Piano (p), Apple (a), Dice (d), and Elephant(e) "spade"
holy freaking barnacles, i’m in love with this guy
I *love* this and am now starting my first puzzle creation, for a holiday gift. Thanks for sharing these ideas! I've loved your puzzles over the years.
Is those "rules" an American thing, or just a New York Times thing?
In Norway most crosswords are asymmetric and has plenty of two letter words. Even one letter words are not uncommon, though though those are pretty simple because it can only be 'i' (Norwegian for "in"), 'å' (Norwegian for either the infinitive marker or a rare word for 'river') or 'ø' (archaic Norwegian/Danish for 'island'; usually spelled 'øy' today).
In Italy it's exactly the same
I just looked up crossword puzzles on Wiki and it looks like every region uses a different grid or format. So yes, this only applies to American crosswords.
In English there are no one letter words except “I” and “A” so you have to adapt the puzzle to every language.
Most standard American crosswords are like that (in contrast to the British version), but the NYT is definitely one of the hardest. One other thing is that easier puzzles often tell you it's multiple words in an answer. I believe the NYT and other hard puzzles do not.
Interesting technique! I used to make simple crosswords with my dad just for fun. For beginners, you don't have to make the puzzle look symmetrical... As far as i know that's just for aesthetics on the page but a crossword works fine if you just arrange words wherever you can fit them together (i think easier to make).
For some reason I read this as: “Pizza Experts Explains How a Crossword Puzzle Is Made”
And thought the thumbnail was all pizza boxes.
I diagnose you with hunger
Not sure changing shirt colors was necessary. There aren't a lot of words that share the letters in diamond
Yeah, but it's a general rule of thumb in puzzles that anagrams should be keyed.
The F,Z is difficult I thought of Fez right when I saw it.
Trouble there is that it entails a black just below the Z, which (to avoid a bottom-row word starting unchecked) entails expanding the black block to what he calls a Utah. Perhaps four blocks of 5 black squares each is too many for Will Shortz.
Just me or do you feel like the video is cut off lightly at the top
I was thinking that you need to overlay the maze at 0:42 to the completed Crossword at 8:21 to get the answer.
(The maze looks to be a 15x15 grid like the crossword with, in my opinion, a weird route/solution. I spent a good hour trying to overlay and thinking I need to mirror the route due the the solver of the maze being behind the glass maze. I tried reading the maze route, backwards, mirrored, mirrored backwards, reading just the corners of the route, and I even tried to overlay the maze on the crossword at 1:00 . But I guess the maze had nothing to do with the crossword. :P )
at 5:24 he's talking about the movie FACE OFF and uses a gesture that seems unnecessary. it happens to be the ASL sign for "beautiful".
I always notice ppl doing inadvertent signing. 😊
That gesture is used in the movie Face Off, it's a reference.
I could swear this process was at the very least semi-automated. I always imagined a database of words being fed to a system that arranges the puzzle. Different clues are assigned for each word, and the clues would be chosen based on desired complexity (or even just to differentiate each puzzle). Seems like I was wrong!
Igor Freitas I have a co-worker that constructs crosswords in his free time and recently got published in NYT and WSJ. With all of that word play involved, there’s no way a computer could create them. It’s not something that AI can accomplish yet with the tech that exists.
Awwwwwwwww nice video!
I really love crosswords, but as a foreigner who doesnt speak English as a native language, those puzzles, even the easiest ones are still naturally impossible to me despite that i have been learning English for almost 10 years.
I dont even know the word rebound (not until i looked it up), not to mention words like "Renoir".
My vocabulary basically deprived me of the chance of trying those puzzles, and im really sad :(
I love videos like this where it sounds interesting and I give it a shot. Then get really into it because of how cool and surprising it turned out to be...
This dude is such a puzzle nerd!! Loveit, just imagine when his girlfriend asks him where the keys are and he starts giving hints and clues haha
1- He is wearing 7 different coloured T-shirt each time he came to write something on the board..... that's also a clue guys..... it might be *V I B G Y O R* .... colours of rainbow.....
2 - small letters on the board spell *h e a r t*
he gave us the first one already, its diamonds
@@bummeryyy6306 where??
@@YASHPRATAP007 diamonds is on the pins he wears on his right side (when standing up, not sitting down).
You cant have words in the clue that are in the puzzle, like ‘one that lives in el paso’ because ones is in the puzzle
Proceeds to put something along the lines of ... won ONE for his acting abilty
(Could be bothered going back to check)
Very nice how he used the magician's skill of misdirection to perform the DIAMOND trick. You'd just assumed it took a few days to actually finish creating the puzzle, thus the different colour shirts... if you even noticed the shirts were any different while you were paying attention to how the guy goes about filling up the grid.
I didn’t get any of the other puzzles cause I’m watching this in bed lol but I did see that he used “one” in one of his clues before literally saying he can’t use answers in the clue.
having a bachelors in mathematics, having read many of the star wars expanded universe, and owning all of star trek on dvd I feel uniquely qualified to make the following statement. NNNNNNEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
r/iamverysmart
This explains why the theme has NEVER made any sense to me at all. I didn't realize that the hints were additionally hidden within the answers.
My elderly mother loves doing them. I got sick of buying crossword puzzle books for her, so I created massive ones for her. Kept her busy for days
Thank you for an interesting video. Next time though, could you please not change perspectives as often as you did here? Oh, wait. Did you have to change the shot that often to get the clues into the video?
As a video guy, yes and no. They did not HAVE to change the shot that often. Doing so made the "Lapel Pin Change" harder to notice, but it was still too frequent in my opinion. I was interested in listening in than solving a puzzle, and it was hard to focus on his face with all the edits.
Sorry, just hate it when someone throws in something like "Marquee Name" hoping I get that there is a "Queen" in it and then connect it to the fact that there are queens in a deck of cards. Some answers are so abstract that even if I have 70% of the letters, I still can't get it.
My brain works like this. I want to make crossword puzzles now! But could there be much employment out there for puzzle making...?
Huge respect to the guy. He is so cool. And he is really living the dream.
I’m just curious, do crossword people have other interesting names for black blocks? Like, in this video, Utah shape is being mentioned.
I have always thought they have some AI for this 😮
Me too! I'm quite amazed. I also think that sudokus are made by an AI, but maybe it's the same.
I'm surprised "Face Off" wasn't used as a clue for the theme. There's certainly some wordplay available on "face cards."
I love crossword puzzles and have always wanted to create them. Yours is the first video that bring clarity to the process!!!!
Not a fan of the word variations chosen. They dont seem like common single words, as I would expect.
For example, fmaj. Wow. No thanks.
Thought the whole point was the answers were 1 word each... not multiple word phrases or names or shortened variations that no normal personal would ever think of on their own. It's just filling in bs and pretending it makes sense. Guess that's why this puzzle isnt for me!
So Ted Mosby was right, "Its because of the vowels!!!"
I always wonder why don't they put meaningful words in there, like most of the words are some kind of names, proper nouns, trivia.
because it is hard to find meaningful names, and very time consuming. try funarrowwords.com , it only has meaningful words in there
What is the point of a theme if you'll hide it?
Serbian crossword puzzles are 12*12, but here is the kicker... there are ONLY 18 black spaces. This is the standard in the main Serbian newspaper 'Politika'. Also, the choice of locations for the black spaces isn't free but instead there are about 20 or so different symmetric and aesthetically configurations.
In specialized crossword magazines, the puzzles are larger and the black spaces are no longer fixed, but these puzzles pride themselves on having an extremely small number of black spaces. There is usually at least 8*8 zone or even larger that is completely bereft of them. They are also usually thematic.
0:16 “There are problems *everywhere* ” wow if that isn’t me
I am totally creating a crossword puzzle section in the student newspaper! Answers will be in the following issues!
the creation of a crossword puzzle is a puzzle in itself
Some weird words coming down.
What does FMAJ mean?
What does ENC mean or UVEAS or RELO or ODELL or ALA or ASPREE or POLEAX or YAN or ALA or HBS?
Here in the U.K. I think the editor would get some letters. 😆
how come for the clues, you are able to write "Bea arthur won "one" for "mame", when the word "ones" appears in the puzzle?
Strong hint to look closer at the position of "El Paso" leading the sentence.
Maybe he didn’t catch it right away. It could always need an edit and get switched to “Bea Arthur won this for Mame”.
I imagine this guy transforming a regular first date into a huge puzzle where things like location or food have to be found based on clues hidden in different random spots of the city.
this made me feel very dumb I didn't know what half those words meant
9:27 You said you can't use the word "one" but you used it when putting "Bea Arthur won one"
People look at his shirt throughout the video. He was changing between different color shirts
I wonder why?
it says it at the end of the video lol
@@alaralpaca1486 was reading comments while watching it. i didn't bother to find this comment after i watched the whole thing lol
This is the real life Phil Dunphy
I noticed the letters but I couldn’t see them clearly enough.
This guy never explains why rotational symmetry is desirable or why he would hide additional words in the crossword puzzle. It seems like an attempt to make the task more interesting than it is. I feel like the point of the crosswords is the clues, not the arrangement of the answers. Ultimately it's not a very interesting type of puzzle.
I was so sure the puzzle had to do with the maze he drew near the beginning (which while rough, has basically a 15x15 grid) mapping onto the eventual puzzle, and you get a phrase which might start with MARS, tying back to Maenad and the greek stuff... I'm still not sure he wasn't going for that too, I just can't quite line it up haha
I prefer English crosswords with more black squares - fewer weird words.
Oh, David, you're such a card!
You guys should have put the final puzzle at the beginning and let the viewers have a go at it before giving us the process of creating it :( missed opportunity
kakashi: those who solve puzzles are smart
obito: but those who makes them are smarter
HIS NAME IS LITERALLY "DAVID" *LOL*
Uugh there better be some Blindspot fans out there to appreciate this
This guy did the wired video on illusions too
i was so amazed by the process of how a crossword is made that i didn't even notice the letter pins & the colors of shirts changing ... big "woah" moment !
being able to use person or artist names,plurals and made up abbreviations seems a lot like cheating......
Yes, this crossword was way "cheatier" than the computer-generated ones. However, it had several cool ideas behind it and looked much more fun to solve. CG crosswords are too repetitive
you are very cool and make this look easy! would like to try my hand at puzzle design i’m inspired!
His Pin changed 7 times, O I D M D N A... Diamond! Very proud of my self
Congrats
I'm here after reading Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi... I recommend it to you btw
I see he managed to slip GNU in there at the bottom left lmao
nostos GNU is actually a word. “gnu
/n(y)o͞o/
noun
a large dark antelope with a long head, a beard and mane, and a sloping back.”
Crossword puzzles were boring in 1913, now we had to invent a new word for the level of boring, "cru-ci-ver-bal."
Genius level. Mixed-media next level solving fun!
I notice he changed his shirt
Thanks for making me feel dumber WIRED.
*THANK YOU SO MUCH* .
I used to make crossword when I was in elementary...
too bad i didnt know I can make a career out of it.
this would be a good way to memorize definitions for a class. I'm sure someone's done that already but it isn't being done enough!
This honestly looks fun. Much more fun than solving one. What a great gig, he explains it well!
Huge Zac Effron fan? Wtf?
I was so focused on the dice on the table expecting them to change what numbers were showing...didn't think to consider every object on the table
Is this dude really constructing by hand? What in the Merl Reagle??
WOW, a magician and a puzzle designer, nice!