42 Platripedia—Game Tips
Word Search Strategies: Which Type of Player Are You?
Word Searches, Word Seeks, or Word Finds—whatever you call them, these word-hunting puzzle games have been around for decades in your daily newspaper. The simple but addictive puzzle remains unchanged to this day. But while there is no way to fail a word search (unless you give up) there are several different methods to discovering all the hidden words the fastest. Here we describe each type of word search player.
The First Scanner. The First Scanner is methodical, accurate, but slow. This player’s plan of attack is to scan the word grid—left to right, top to down—until he finds the first letter of the word he is looking for. When that letter is found, this player will look at the eight surrounding letters to determine if the second letter of the word is present. The First Scanner continues with this method until the entire word is inevitably discovered. While this no word can escape the precision scanning of The First Scanner, he also takes the longest in achieving his goals.
The Oddball Sniffer. The Oddball Sniffer relishes the peculiar letters in words and believes the fastest way to uncovering a word is through its eccentricities. This player will decide on the most uncommon letter in a word, such as X, Z, or Q, and scan the letter grid for that letter. To The Oddball Sniffer, these unusual letters will jump off the grid and allow him to find the rest of the letters of the word attached to this key letter. While this method is fast, not every word may contain an odd letter. This causes The Oddball Sniffer to risk wasting time while sniffing out common letters.
The Double Finder. The Double Finder is the older brother of The Oddball Sniffer. Instead of looking for the odd letters in the grid, the adjacent letters that are the same stand out to him. Words like “batted” or “jammed” are his friends. But The Double Finder’s talents are limited. If a word on the word list does not contain two of the same letters together then he is helpless against the imposing word grid.
The Big Game Hunter. The Big Game Hunter doesn’t care for puny, little words. He bravely stalks the longest, most imposing words on the word list. The Big Game Hunter believes that the bigger they are, the easier they fall—and it’s open season for the massive words that eclipse the word grid. The Big Game Hunter takes great satisfaction in drawing enormous loops around the sizeable words he captures. However, the smaller words flee from the range of his sight, making them difficult to apprehend.