Sightseeing in the WordSquared world

I have posted several previous articles about WordSquared, which is essentially simultaneous multiplayer Scrabble on an infinite grid. The interesting thing about WordSquared is that it can be played in so many different ways. Some players focus on maximizing their score with rack-clearing words that hit lots of bonus squares. Others take a more defensive approach, working to build away from anyone who might try to encircle or entrap them. And then there are those who, amidst everything else that is going on, find the space and time to build some wonderful things. In this post, I'm going to highlight some of my favorite WordSquared creations.

For those who want to navigate to the sights and see whether they are still there, I give the (x,y) coordinates for each location which you may use to locate features in the WordSquared world, as I previously described.

Let's start with this elegant chain of linked diamonds around (1600,-3800).
Note that it is formed almost entirely from two-letter words.


Then there is RON at (1300,2950):


What seems like someone's name has been rapidly covered in word kudzu, like some ancient relic.


What is the biggest designed structure in all of Word²? The hugest one I could find is this pair of parallel lines, stretching across hundreds of 15-by-15 boards like the Great Wall of WordSquared. They are located near y=-320; the longer one stretches from x=-5530 to x=-630 (over 300 Scrabble boards in length), though there are some gaps in there (just like in the Chinese version).


The area below caught my attention because it is unusually spindly. I initially dubbed this area Longwordia until I realized their was a fancier-pants (and more appropriate) name for it: Sesquipedalia.



Since the WordSquared "rack" consists of 7 tiles, obviously not every long word can easily be constructed. Either one must choose a long word that can be formed by starting with a medium length word and extending it as the letters become available, or one must separately form two or more carefully placed words and then link them up to form one superword.


Admittedly, art is not the only motivation for building Sesquipedalia. Making those long words (and, more specifically, making them on top of triple word score squares) must have earned the architect a lot of points.

Once you think through this process, you can better appreciate the challenge of assembling a bunch of interlocking long words like this. An even better example of a construction challenge is this 6-by-6 word square at (-45,-1480): It's not enough to just accumulate letter and start building words. If you play DIAPERS horizontally and then IGNORE underneath it, you will have made several invalid vertical words (like DI, IG, and PO). I'm close to solving the puzzle of how this square can be made, but solutions are still welcome.


This impressive spiral form at (2300,1200) must have been made from the outside in, winding down, fittingly, with the word SPIRALS.



Above and to the left of the spiral is a huge triangular structure, best appreciated up close: Notice how the words snake around in a pattern that is always one tile wide, while leaving empty space that is also everywhere only one tile wide. A pattern of this scope and complexity makes me wonder whether it is the work of one of the few "bots" that have been programmed to play Word². Or, possibly, aliens are responsible...

These are just some of the wonders you can find while playing WordSquared. And as the WordSquared world continues to boom, the number of amazing things will grow along with it. Stay tuned!

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Further reading:

• Totally Unofficial WordSquared FAQ

The ancestry of Bananagrams

What if a game like Bananagrams had been invented before Scrabble? Would Scrabble be as popular as it is today? Would it even have been manufactured? There are definitely people who like Scrabble but do not enjoy the pace of Bananagrams. But I would guess that Bananagrams could not have become popular before Scrabble, because the idea of the freefrom grid would have been a little too radical.

Scrabble was invented in 1931, and the inventor was inspired by crossword puzzles (which were a massive fad during the Twenties... picture women wearing crossword-puzzle stockings). And the inventor of the crossword puzzle was, in turn, inspired by word square puzzles where the objective was to construct a grid of tightly interlocking words to form a square (or other shape) based on clued words. A typical word square looks like this:

     C A R D
     A R E A
     R E A R
     D A R T

It is an interesting exercise to try to construct a word square,
By specifying the letters in such a square, this can be turned into a relatively easy puzzle.


Word squares as puzzles date back centuries, but the word square formation has been in existence for at least two millennia. (See the palindromic SATOR square.) Finally, the Greeks are credited with the idea of ordering letters in lined-up rows and columns (c. 600 B.C.), though without any words running vertically.

These are some of the giants whose shoulders Bananagrams perches upon. Remember to thank them the next time you pray to the Bananagrams gods for good tiles.

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Further reading: The Straight Dope on why crossword puzzles are symmetrical.