Online crosswords in Vindis

Hi, there was an online crossword puzzle to solve in Postimees yesterday. I solved it, it was pretty awesome. It would be pretty cool if Vind had the option to solve online crosswords too: There would be a separate game room where everyone could solve it alone, you could watch others solve it live, etc. In addition, of course, there are nightly tournaments where you can increase your rating: Everyone gets the same crossword puzzle and whoever solves it faster wins (rating system similar to Sudoku). Everything else is technically feasible, but where can you get crosswords for Vind's database? Is there a digital database somewhere where about 100,000 pieces can be pulled from? If they can't be pulled from somewhere, you need to create a functionality for entering/composing crosswords. I guess you have to create crosswords separately for Vind - for example, 15x15 size. But who will create them? This person will definitely want to get some kind of reward for this work. So should we make solving crosswords only possible for VIP users so that the person who enters the crosswords can be paid from there? If you do a one-by-one input solution, it will probably look like this: within one day, a new crossword puzzle will be created, which everyone will solve in the evening tournament. In the game room, you can then solve crosswords that have already been entered. Different ideas are welcome. Marten

Good idea. The idea came up that if any of the users bothers to create a crossword puzzle, they will receive VIP status for it. For example, 1 crossword puzzle 1 day VIP.

In some ways, solving crosswords is still different from solving sudokus. First, you have to make sure that there is a unique correct solution. If the second letter of the four-letter word does not intersect with other words and the question asks for a wooden object, then both "cabinet" and "stick" are correct. Second, in crossword solving competitions, the winner is determined by the combination of the speed of solving and the correct solution. In other words, the solution can be given away even if it has not been completely solved. This is not done in sudoku. There are probably other differences that should be kept in mind. I can offer help, for example, as a trial solver.

I got in touch with the editor-in-chief of Ristiku and we're trying to find ways to collaborate. In short - a random thought might even become a thing :)

Yes, I would also like to play a game, otherwise I don't play mind games, but I am a passionate crossword solver :D

It is possible that your contacts with Ristik will also be relevant, although I have some doubts about this due to some aspects. Enno Faster/Ragistaja is currently involved with PM crosswords, and the emergence of online crosswords is primarily the result of PM making a new crossword and sudoku contract with him - instead of Ristik, who was there before. Ristik did not do online crosswords for Postimees. Before Postimees, there was a small daily online crossword in Õhtuleht for at least a decade, which I personally compiled and formatted. A few months ago, Ristik started doing small crosswords for Õhtuleht, supposedly more cheaply. At first, they also tried to continue with the online crossword, but it disappeared quite quickly. Ristik once tried online in Delfi, and it also ended quickly. In my opinion, Ristik simply cannot handle online crosswords. Why, I don't know. As for the technical part, so far the Crossword Compiler has been used online in Estonia, which in turn uses JScript (the previous Java applet is now obsolete due to security concerns), and in this sense, if you want to compose and post a crossword yourself, you don't need Ristiku so much as your own compiler and this program - it costs about 50 USD/EUR. You can do it yourself - but initially it will definitely be more time-consuming/unreliable. In Estonia, the R-club tried to do it in early 2000. The appearance was perhaps more clumsy, but competitions could be held. Apparently, the online version of the Compiler can also be adapted for competitions, because there is a time measurement function and the program can understand the correct/incorrect letters entered. But this setting also requires programming skills. As for crossword digital databases, we hardly have any.. I myself am a poor saver, for example, and although I should have all the 10×10 crosswords ever compiled for the Estonian National Library, computers have broken down and other things have happened during that time. I can't even imagine how much I would have collected and in what format, and I probably have the largest online word database here precisely because of making small crosswords for the Estonian National Library. But 100,000 is science fiction. The number is still in the thousands. Of course, you can also make other types of puzzles with the compiler, besides direct crosswords: http://paremalla.ee/crypto00.html Variants made with the compiler that are slightly different from PM: scandi with arrows: http://www.paremalla.ee/on.html "questions next to the crossword" - http://www.paremalla.ee This is getting long and it's bad, but I'll answer all possible questions if I can. Marek Kuub/«Right and Down»

Hi, Interesting thoughts. I've thought about it so far that if we do crossword puzzles, we'll do it as follows: 1) We'll do 10x10 crosswords 2) We'll make it possible to enter a Vint crossword, save the crosswords to the Vint database 3) In terms of solving, we'll integrate the crossword solving vint.ee game space (so that you can solve alone, have duels and participate in tournaments) 4) Every day we should have at least one new crossword in the database that no one has solved yet. The question is, who will enter that one there every day. A theoretical possibility is to search out old evening newspapers and manually enter the crosswords for us? As egoo suggested, we could give users the ability to enter crosswords. We wouldn't have a problem giving one week of free VIP status for each crossword entered. In this case, the question arises about quality - if any user can enter a crossword, who guarantees that it is uniquely solvable and difficult enough? It would be better if an expert took it upon himself. 5) This one new crossword puzzle can be solved every evening in the tournament. 6) Those crossword puzzles that have already been solved in the tournament but that this particular user has not yet solved will be solved individually in the game room. 7) In the case of duels, neither user may have solved this crossword puzzle.

Also, while welcoming you, I can add that I would be very interested in creating a platform that would allow you to submit online crosswords and also evaluate the solver. If you decide to do so, I can and will hopefully be able to help. The ones currently in use have enough errors, which are primarily based on the fact that they are a British product and their standard crosswords are different from ours. If the people here have enough skills to create such a platform, then you won't have any shortage of crosswords here at vint.ee. A more specific discussion would take time in the forum, or readers' heads would ache, as to what kind of thing could meet the requirements from both the solver and the compiler, and that would be discussed more specifically and with potential makers. M. Kuub/«PjaA»

It seems that online crosswords are the next thing we're going to do. The idea came up to solve it like this: 1) We give interested users the opportunity to enter questions and answers in the database, of course we pay for the effort. So in principle, interested users should take on solved crosswords and then start entering information to us 2) We will make a crossword generator that can create a random crossword from questions and answers. This generator only makes sense if we have a database with at least a few thousand questions and answers. If there are users who are interested in point 1, they can let us know!

Crossword puzzles published in newspapers, magazines, and crossword publications are protected by copyright law - don't forget this, otherwise you could get into big trouble.