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Photo: DER SPIEGEL
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Background knowledge: A new game idea is conquering the world
On December 21, 1913, the American journalist Arthur Wynne came up with something very special for his employer's special supplement: Readers of New York World had to guess 31 terms in order to completely fill in the then diamond-shaped field with letters.
So-called word puzzles and logic puzzles with word searches appeared in various publications as early as the end of the 18th century, but the "Word-Cross Puzzle" by Wynnes went down in history as the first official crossword puzzle in the world.
After a few revisions, the letter puzzle looked the way we know it today, with symmetrical grids and black fields to separate the individual words.
Every week, countless people with pencils out waited for the latest riddle, and other American newspapers also adopted the idea.
In 1925, the Berliner Illustrierte was the first German newspaper to publish the tricky game, which is still very popular today: In Germany, crossword puzzle championships have been held since 2010.
Basics: Structure and rules of the game for crossword puzzles
A crossword puzzle consists of a mostly rectangular playing field, which is divided into small boxes - one box per letter - with horizontal and vertical lines.
The aim of the game is to find the words you are looking for and gradually fill every free box with the correct letters.
So-called blind fields serve to limit the words, they are marked in color and are not filled.
In the very classic variant, the simple crossword puzzle, some boxes on the playing field contain small numbers.
On the one hand, these mark the beginning of a word and, on the other hand, refer to a tip for the respective content sought.
These tips are hints, such as that the word you are looking for is a famous building in Paris, an old-fashioned variant of a word, or a synonym.
The challenge with crossword puzzles is that apart from the number of letters, the position of the word and the respective clue, nothing is known about the word you are looking for.
In the end, all the horizontal and vertical words must make sense.
Our online version is a so-called Sweden puzzle.
The only differences to the simple crossword puzzle are that the clues are already inside the puzzle field in colored boxes and an arrow indicates the correct column or row for the word you are looking for.
Digital brain teaser: play crossword puzzles online
As you are used to from the printed newspaper, you can put your vocabulary and persistence to the test every day with a new puzzle.
Here, too, your goal is to use the hints in the colored fields to fill all the boxes with the correct letters and also to receive the answer word for the respective puzzle.
But the digital version of the popular game also has some advantages over the classic crossword puzzle on paper:
You can easily remove incorrect letters by clicking the "Back" button on your keyboard.
Simply jump to the letter field of your choice with a click or tap of your finger and enter the word or letter conveniently using your PC, tablet or mobile phone keyboard.
For easier operation, you can also use a virtual keyboard by clicking on the "Show keyboard" field.
Note: Clicking on the small keyboard symbol within the virtual keyboard makes it disappear again.
The word you are working on is automatically highlighted in orange.
This gives you a practical overview of the length and position of the word you are looking for.
You can change the alignment of the word display by clicking on the "Horizontal input" or "Vertical input" field.
Once you have filled in a word, the orange display automatically jumps to the next search word.
Independently of this, you can also display the fields for the other words by clicking the space key on your keyboard.
By clicking on the "Joker" field, you will be given a randomly chosen additional letter up to three times, which will appear permanently on the playing field.
Attention: The "Joker" field is no longer visible as soon as you use the virtual keyboard.
In the meantime, switch off the virtual keyboard to display it again.
Answer of the day: useful hints for missing words
Some boxes on the puzzle field also contain numbers and gray circles - at the end of the game, the letters that appear there are used to compose the solution word of the day.
You can find this directly above the playing area.
It fills up automatically as soon as you enter a corresponding letter in the puzzle field.
The solution word can also be used the other way round: If you guess this before you have completely solved the puzzle, you can simply enter the corresponding letters above.
These are then automatically displayed within the field and can give you helpful tips on the words that are still missing.
Live evaluation: See your progress in the game at a glance
Next to the playing field, the percentage under the date of the puzzle shows you at any time to which part you have already completed the puzzle.
In the opposite corner you can also see which level you are in and how much game time is up.
If you do puzzles regularly, you will find yourself getting faster and faster over time!
With a click on the level and time display, you can also take an even closer look at your progress: You can see in a percentage how many fields are still empty and find out how many solved puzzles you have left for jumping to the next Levels are missing.
On to the next level: helpful final evaluation
As soon as you have filled in all fields and thus completed the crossword puzzle, the option "End puzzle" appears next to the playing field.
By clicking on it, you will receive an evaluation of the current game and find out how you fared.
This shows whether your answer is correct, the percentage of you filled in the puzzle correctly and the number of incorrectly inserted letters.
If not all letters are correct, you can either start with the next puzzle or try to correct the wrong letters first.
Click on the "Correct" button to return to the playing field.
Your playing time will now continue and the letters concerned are marked in red.
Improve this and then click on "End puzzle" again to receive an evaluation and to complete the game.
Endless fun: You can also solve all puzzles from days gone by.
In the corner next to the playing field you can see the date of the respective puzzle.
To switch to another puzzle, simply click on the arrows next to it.
Tips and tricks for crossword puzzles: how to solve a crossword puzzle
First, get an overview of the existing information.
What words can you possibly solve right away?
As soon as you come up with a suitable word, all you have to do is check that the number of letters fits into the corresponding row or column.
If the number of letters matches, this is initially a good sign.
But be careful - especially at the beginning, if you have only guessed a few words, it could of course be a wrong word with the correct number of letters!
Words that have already been entered will give you letters from words you are still looking for and thus further information on how to combine them.
Due to the grid shape of the game, many letters in the crossword puzzle are part of two or more words.
In many cases, you will only know in the further course of the game whether the word is correct or whether errors have crept in in previous words.
Get more letters by entering the answer word
Do you think you have already guessed the answer of the day correctly?
Then just enter the letters directly above - they appear automatically on the puzzle field and may give you the decisive clues to solve missing words,
Use your Joker sparingly and skillfully.
You start every game with three jokers.
With one click on the "Joker" field at the bottom right, you can get help with an additional letter.
Everything new?
By clicking on the "Start again" button, you can start over with the same puzzle at any time.
Caution - you will delete all previous letters from the playing field.
Alternatively, you can of course switch to other puzzles in addition to the date display using the arrows.
Every beginning is difficult, but the more words you guess correctly, the faster you will get closer to solving the puzzle.
We wish a Lot of fun!
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