That sounds really cool as a word-packing exercise. Thinking about it as a crossworder though, if you reduce or eliminate the black fields I wonder whether such a 3d puzzle would be too easy to solve as each redundant use of a letter reduces the challenge on the solver.
Could it be adapted somehow into a series of 2d slice puzzles where the full 3d solution only becomes evident, or even noticeable later on? for example suppose “puzzle 1” is the plane X=1, Y=1. There is no need for subsequent planes to be parallel to the first; puzzle 2 might be Y=2, Z=3 but without any indication of which dimensions are in play at the moment so the solver has to think about which alignment would suffice? Leaving some clues incomplete so they can only be solved by approach from other dimensions after figuring out the relative position of each sub-puzzle?
Take for example a cube of 7 by 7 by 7 letters. There are 343 letters inside and we have 49 “words” which go in Up-Down direction, intersecting 49 Left-Right “words” and intersecting 49 North-South “words”.
Those “words” may be words, more or less common, or a sequence of two words. Might be a blank between those two, the so called black field. But I think it is much better without blanks. A thin separator may be drawn instead, and we have a so called Italian crossword. Now in 3D.
A crossworder in the above 7 x 7 x 7 case gets between 147 and 294 queries. Each letter figured out, has another two orthogonal questions which are a bit easier to solve now. This “orthogonality” makes crosswords interesting in the first place and here in 3D we have twice the “orthogonality” of a 2D crossword.
Maybe I should try some field tests?
Leaving some clues incomplete so they can only be solved by approach from other dimensions after figuring out the relative position of each sub-puzzle?
Perhaps. This could be tested. All for the maximal pleasure of a crosswords solver.
This seems like it would work a lot better as a computer program, where the crossword cube can be rotated by the user to see the different fields. Otherwise a 7 x 7 x 7 seems like it would be too large for a newspaper, where real estate is limited (not to mention the difficulty in doing the “depth” part of the crossword). Making it virtual (either a standalone app, web app, steam game) solves most of the potential problems.
That sounds really cool as a word-packing exercise. Thinking about it as a crossworder though, if you reduce or eliminate the black fields I wonder whether such a 3d puzzle would be too easy to solve as each redundant use of a letter reduces the challenge on the solver.
Could it be adapted somehow into a series of 2d slice puzzles where the full 3d solution only becomes evident, or even noticeable later on? for example suppose “puzzle 1” is the plane X=1, Y=1. There is no need for subsequent planes to be parallel to the first; puzzle 2 might be Y=2, Z=3 but without any indication of which dimensions are in play at the moment so the solver has to think about which alignment would suffice? Leaving some clues incomplete so they can only be solved by approach from other dimensions after figuring out the relative position of each sub-puzzle?
It’s a whole new ball game, actually.
Take for example a cube of 7 by 7 by 7 letters. There are 343 letters inside and we have 49 “words” which go in Up-Down direction, intersecting 49 Left-Right “words” and intersecting 49 North-South “words”.
Those “words” may be words, more or less common, or a sequence of two words. Might be a blank between those two, the so called black field. But I think it is much better without blanks. A thin separator may be drawn instead, and we have a so called Italian crossword. Now in 3D.
A crossworder in the above 7 x 7 x 7 case gets between 147 and 294 queries. Each letter figured out, has another two orthogonal questions which are a bit easier to solve now. This “orthogonality” makes crosswords interesting in the first place and here in 3D we have twice the “orthogonality” of a 2D crossword.
Maybe I should try some field tests?
Perhaps. This could be tested. All for the maximal pleasure of a crosswords solver.
This seems like it would work a lot better as a computer program, where the crossword cube can be rotated by the user to see the different fields. Otherwise a 7 x 7 x 7 seems like it would be too large for a newspaper, where real estate is limited (not to mention the difficulty in doing the “depth” part of the crossword). Making it virtual (either a standalone app, web app, steam game) solves most of the potential problems.
Well, here is a low-tech version of a user interface. Printed (3D) crossword. Or at least printable. Perhaps it would do for some.
http://www.critticall.com/cubus_maximus/test.html
The virtual spaces could be also somewhat filled with them, yes.