Category: Newspaper Games

Crickler is a crossword-derived digital puzzle game named for its creators, Michael and Barbara Crick. Crickler puzzles retain the verbal clues and one-word responses of crosswords, but they explode the layout of the puzzle into a list rather than an interlocking grid. When players type an answer, letters from one response automatically fill certain cells in other responses down the page, mimicking the way a crossword's answers provide clues for orthogonal responses. On their website, the Cricks explain why this arrangement makes for a better puzzle:

Traditional crossword puzzles are incredibly successful but they have several serious drawbacks: (1) They are difficult to construct, (2) Most words are short and often silly--chosen only because they fit, (3) Matching clues to numbers is a distraction, and (4) A given puzzle is usually either too easy or too hard. Cricklers solve all of these problems while retaining the essence and feel of a traditional crossword puzzle.

Everybody knows now that eBay and Craigslist did a number on newspaper revenue. We're told that newspaper producers were caught completely off guard by these online classifieds. One thing we wanted to know is: what would happen to the circulation of a newspaper if its game-playing constituency also migrated to the Internet?

This leads to a tacit first question: what number of newspaper-subscribers buy the paper just for the puzzles? There are some difficulties acquiring statistically significant numbers here. First, most newspapers don't do regular surveys of their readers to actually find out why they're buying the paper. Will Shortz at the New York Times shares an interesting figure - he does after all have a lot at stake here as the world's current Dean of Crossword Puzzles. In a 2004 interview Shortz discussed a survey from earlier in the decade that found 27% of newspaper readers playing the crossword occasionally. That numbers isn't particularly compelling for our purposes, but there is one other number dropped by Shortz that does carry some weight: 1%. That's the percentage of Americans who named crossword-solving as "their favorite activity in the world."

"If you're a former ballet dancer with a hot temper and nine and a half fingers, you're probably glad to see that this Rahm Emanuel fellow came along. If he can make it, so can you! Emanuel also has two brothers, Zeke and Ari, with whom you might have more in common than you might think. Take Wonkette's Official Emanuel Brother Diagnostic Personality Test and find out!"

Is how The Wonkette Quiz begins and, with it, an interesting approach to news quizzes.

In examining various sort of games that newspapers currently employ in order to see what can be changed to increase the level of journalistic discourse these games can offer, I have been looking at the quiz. With this in mind, I look at the quiz from various perspectives. In this entry, I will survey the history of the quiz as well as the various formats that quizzes are presented.

Last week, I explored the notion that digital media - and games in particular - might provide an opportunity for journalists to publish news "fragments" - pieces of relevant information that would otherwise be left on the editing room floor.

Turns out, major newspapers have already been playing around with this idea.

The day before the election, The New York Times published a series of small op-ed pieces about the campaign. Light-hearted and short, these commentary pieces wouldn't work individually, on their own; they aren't full fledged articles. One piece, for example, reminisces about Obama's victory in Iowa. Another calls attention to John McCain's Viagra gaffe.

So how would one organize these pieces under the banner of one coherent feature?

The Times editors chose Trivial Pursuit.

The quiz is an interesting format that has been used for both pedagogical and entertainment purposes. Quizzes usually take the form of "general knowledge" or "trivia", but news themed "news quizzes" exist. These take various forms with radically different goals ranging from pedagogy, to entertainment, to self-exploration. The news quiz has permeated through various media, most interestingly, in digital forms.

One traditional news quiz is the New York Times News Quiz, which has a strictly pedagogical bent. The focus of this quiz, which is similar to many other newspaper-based news quizzes,  aims to instruct younger readers about techniques of reading and synthesizing information from a newspaper article whose style of writing is different than styles taught in school such as the essay or short story.

In looking at everything from online journalism courses open to anyone, to those under brick and mortar offered as part of a declared major at a college or university, it is clear that there are several journalism communities with different needs. For example, there is a community that cut its teeth on the traditions of print/text and a dedicated readership; a community born into a digital world - hybrids interested in print as well as interactive engagements; a community that has been defined as citizen journalists, watchdogs of events and points-of-view often not covered by mainstream press and unattached to corporate interests,  and more. Journalism communities have different backgrounds, interests and needs and interests.  When we rub the communities up against each other it can be uncomfortable. When we rub then up against gaming, as we are exploring, it could be disastrous.

But then

on Nov. 4th, as CNN was covering the presidential election, musical artist Will I Am appeared as a hologram interviewed by Anderson Cooper.  An odd/hilarious and memorable(for some) television moment, but also one suggesting that along with the hologram and Jeff Han's scalable interactive multi-touch display system (aka John King's screen), at least there is interest in embracing new forms of interactivity. Whether they work, are desired by journalists or forced by corporations is a different issue.

Update for Journalism 2.0 - remember to review facts given to you by holograms.

I love the idea of this and the possibility for expanded thinking on what games might offer seems not so far away.

In analyzing the intersection of games and journalism, I thought it would be fruitful to look at games as they presently exist in print journalism. In this article, I touch upon the crossword, its history, and its possible use as a platform for Journalism.

While the crossword is a relatively recent construction (about 95 years old), word games and riddles have appeared in newspapers since the 17th century. The forms themselves, the riddle, word square, rebus, and enigma date back thousands of years .

On July 5th, 2003, in the Op-Ed Page of the New York Times, instead of the various daily columns, a large puzzle is in its place. This puzzle, entitled Patriot Games, is one of ten so-called "Op-Ed Puzzles" created by Puzzability, a firm made up of three veteran crossword and other puzzle constructors: Wall Street Journal Crossword Editor Mike Shenk,  Former Games Magazine Managing Editor Amy Goldstein, and Puzzle Constructor and Illustrator Robert Leighton.

The puzzles take the form of several smaller puzzle, each a take on the theme (usually a holiday or event, such as the United Nations Day Puzzle, Country Club). The answers to these smaller puzzles are then used as entries in the last puzzle which answers a question posed by the writers at the beginning of the puzzle. For example, in Patriot Games, the question asked is: "our vote for the best way to spend Fourth of July holiday weekend". The answer for this puzzle (I hope it's not too much of a spoiler) is "Join a Party" which, as many word puzzles tend to be, is a pun on the word party as both a festivity and a political group.

This led me to think about the nature of these puzzle's construction and whether the creators themselves saw themselves working in a journalistic or editorial capacity. Moreover, how did these puzzle even come about in the New York Times and why did they take the form of "Op-Ed" Puzzles?

I'd like to once again thank Amy Goldstein and the other members of Puzzability for politely answering my questions regarding these puzzle and both the formal and ideological processes behind their construction.

Below my interview with Amy Goldstein of Puzzability: