January 16, 2018
by Alex
5 Comments
UPDATE: There is now a JavaScript Star Battle Solver! It’ll solve fairly simply ones no problem. Don’t expect miracles on harder puzzles, though — more likely than not they will just crash your browser. This past weekend I “attended” my … Continue reading
September 13, 2015
by Alex
Comments Off on Introducing Crossword Dash
Yesterday, at the September 2015 Southern California Puzzle Party, I introduced a game called Crossword Dash. It’s a bluffing game along the lines of Balderdash (TM), but instead of guessing the definition to a word, the players guess a clue … Continue reading
May 21, 2015
by Alex
Comments Off on NPR Puzzle for 2015-05-17: Solving With Python
Here’s this week’s NPR puzzle: Name a country with at least three consonants. These are the same consonants, in the same order, as in the name of a language spoken by millions of people worldwide. The country and the place … Continue reading
May 16, 2015
by Alex
Comments Off on How to embed puzzles with the Nexus JPZ Solver
So you’re aware that the Crossword Nexus JPZ Solver exists, and you know it can be embedded in websites. But how can you get it into yours? It’s a fairly easy process and I’ll walk you through it right now.
April 30, 2015
by Alex
12 Comments
At this point the HTML5 Crossword Solver is basically done, so I’m taking it out of its brief “beta” phase. There is now a recommended way to embed it in websites, like I’ve done above. And it will even automatically … Continue reading
April 18, 2015
by Alex
2 Comments
People seem to agree that JPZ files are the future of crossword solving. JPZs are extremely flexible, well-documented, and supported by the most popular crossword-making software. The problem thus far with JPZs has been solving them. XWord is great but … Continue reading
September 14, 2014
by Alex
2 Comments
Here in the Los Angeles area, puzzle-minded people like myself gather every two months for what we like to call a “puzzle party.” Several regulars will bring puzzles or games and we’ll solve them as a group. In the most … Continue reading
August 14, 2014
by Alex
5 Comments
Here’s this past week’s NPR puzzle: Name a well-known movie of the past — two words, seven letters in total. These seven letters can be rearranged to spell the name of an animal plus the sound it makes. What animal … Continue reading
December 27, 2013
by Alex
2 Comments
It turns out crosswordese is universal. pic.twitter.com/ROIJmpdur9 — Alex Boisvert (@al_ex_b) August 21, 2013 I’ve been solving some French crosswords lately (well, trying to) and let me tell you, they are desperately in need of a Margaret Farrar-type figure there. … Continue reading
November 14, 2013
by Alex
2 Comments
We’ve had the Wikipedia Regex Search live for a while at Crossword Nexus, and this past week we made a few changes: The search is much, much faster now. It is also easier on our servers, so making that change … Continue reading