Solve the crossword then slide the blocks to create another configuration with eight new words.
Across
1. Lure
5. Before long
6. Frosted
7. Permit
Down
1. Scold
2. Formerly
3. Frost, for example
4. Limit
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Sign up to join this communitySolve the crossword then slide the blocks to create another configuration with eight new words.
Across
1. Lure
5. Before long
6. Frosted
7. Permit
Down
1. Scold
2. Formerly
3. Frost, for example
4. Limit
The solution to the crossword is:
And this can be arranged as:
My strategy:
After several failed attempts, I started with
P?LE
andP?N
in the upper left, andTEND
along the bottom: the first two because they could be filled with many vowels (giving me freedom to move the vowels around if necessary), and the latter because all of those letters were very common as ending letters. Next cameALOE
, because I'd need vowels in the middle-right area, and thenIRON
was the best word ending inON
. After that, I placedCAT
/CERO
/NOED
, and was disappointed thatPELE
was a proper noun, not a word (andCERO
was obscure too)... then didn't realize until the next day that I could just swap theE
andO
to fix it.
But is this solvable as a 15-puzzle?
Yes: The 15-puzzle is solvable in exactly half of its positions, based on parity of swaps. If you can't get to a particular position, you can always get to that position with any two tiles of your choice swapped. So, if your correspondence of numbers to letters fails, simply swap two of the tiles with the same letter and it will be solvable.
An explicit solution:
Number the tiles 1-15 so that the puzzle is "solved" at the very start, in the given configuration. (You can use this applet to try it out, as I did.) Then move the following tiles. (Parentheses represent a sequence that should be repeated once.)
12 8 (7 6 10 9 13 14 15 11 8)
: TEND is now in the bottom row.
13 14 5 (9 10 3 2 1) 3 14 5 10 (14 3 9) 14 3 10 5
: PCAT is now in the left column.
13 7 6 4 1 14 9 2
: IOLE is now in the second column.
4 6 7 4 6 1 (14 6 1) 4 7 14 4 1 9 3
: The puzzle has been rearranged into the new grid.