Does anyone like to do word searches?
 

My MIL has started doing them so I make them for her occasionally, 'cause I love to play with words and she seems to like it when I do that. I just don't enjoy word searches because I don't see the point as I'm a logical computer-brain type person so there's no real challenge to me.

When creating them, I really have no idea what I'm doing. I like to cram in as many words as physically possible, and lots of long/interesting ones, but I avoid words with rarer letters/unusual letter combinations unless there's more than one like it (I once did one where all words had "aa" in them) :D But I know that doesn't necessarily make the best puzzle. Especially as I have no idea why people actually enjoy them. I try to get an equal split of directions (with maybe an under-representation of left-to-right because that's too easy and dull).

What makes a wordsearch fun? what makes one more challenging than another? What makes them suck?

My most recent was a 15*15 of popular trick-or-treat halloween costumes (and a few more unusual), where I repeated the most popular a few times (e.g. Elsa, Batman) ...and then filled the small leftover spaces with short named costumes wherever possible for fun. And then searched for any accidental occurrences of such things and added them in to the find list. :D

It was actually trickier than usual when I tested it :lol: But I'm not sure if that makes it good or it was just way past my bedtime and beer limit ;)

I'll do the occasional word search. As a time killer.

I like the ones where ya don't get a list of words but a list of clues...like "three mammals that start with 'P'", or "The Beatles _____, _____, ______, and _______".

I like them but im not very paitent!!

Amanda buys books of them

I used to know a girl who used those find-a-word puzzle books as a disassociation from the surrounding world. I mean, she was inside those books (absorbed, even) almost all the time. She was...let's say a little off center.

I bet she still is. Inside those books I mean.

Good ol' USA Today. Not great with the news, but a nice page of stuff to do on airplanes.

Monster, do you use a program to make them, or what?

no, there'd be no fun in that!

So they're hand-written?

Oh, I just use Excel. Sorry I thought you meant a program to hide the words!

I save as PDF so she can easily print and share with her friends.

There ya go ;)

Attachment 65355

apologies for image quality, computer wants restart before opening acrobat and I refuse to be bullied in that way....

Usernames! I love it!

and more.... :lol:

You're awesome. I'm right up top!

yeah....but backwards :p: