Snowflake crossword, literally

November 11, 2021 6:09 AM

A friend came across an old photocopy of a very specific kind of word puzzle in the shape of a snowflake with hexagonal cells. She really enjoyed it and I'd love to find more for her, but my web searches have turned up empty, perhaps because I don't know the correct name and there was no identifying information on the photocopy. Here's how the crossword puzzle worked:

a) It was in the shape of a snowflake; roughly hexagonal, but the puzzle itself was made out of seven hexagonal regions or subunits (one in the centre and six around the perimeter).

b) The crossword cells were each hexagonal, so that a given letter could be part of up to three words, not just two.

c) Every word contained exactly seven letters.

d) The crossword clues did not specify the exact coordinates of a word (e.g., there was no "3-across"). Instead, there were clues for each of the seven regions, and you'd have to deduce how they fit together and overlapped.

e) The answers could be written forwards or backwards, and likewise on the diagonals, but you would have to infer the correct orientation by mentally solving adjacent clues.

Any ideas? I would love to find an entire book of these crosswords for my friend if possible.

Thank you!

posted by mcbaya to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

Best answer: The general term is "variety puzzles". What you're describing is similar to, but not exactly like a Rows Garden puzzle; I'm not sure if what your friend did has a specific name/is a known type or was sort of a one off for the holidays a constructor did.

Here's a book of puzzles like this. You can also search for specific constructors (Patrick Berry, Joon Pahk, Eric Berlin, Nathan Curtis, Brendan Emmett Quigley, etc.) who often have websites with puzzle packs like so. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal also regularly publish variety puzzles.
posted by damayanti at 6:28 AM on November 11, 2021

Best answer: Rows Garden is definitely a closer match, but this also reminds me of "Petal Pusher" or "Flower Power" crosswords, described among several other styles in this blog post. She might enjoy that style too.
posted by CheeseLouise at 6:42 AM on November 11, 2021

Best answer: Games Magazine runs puzzles like this. Their new World of Puzzles issues has one on the cover. (I think it probably has other types of puzzles too.)
posted by chbrooks at 8:18 AM on November 11, 2021

Response by poster: These are all so helpful! Thank you all for your quick responses.

There are some really interesting puzzle types in here that she (and I) will enjoy trying. Thanks!
posted by mcbaya at 12:47 PM on November 11, 2021

P&A magazine (aka “panda”) often has variety puzzles in their issues as well. Sometimes they are in the set of puzzles whose answers combine to form another puzzle, but sometimes they are just in the single-puzzle section.
posted by nat at 10:57 AM on November 12, 2021