New York Times crossword puzzle constructor (also known as a cruciverbalist), David Kwong, shows us how he makes a crossword puzzle.
David Kwong is a New York Times crossword constructor and magician.
His show in New York City, The Enigmatist, is an immersive evening of puzzle-solving, cryptology, and illusions.
Visit enigmatistshow.com/ for more info.
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How to Create a Crossword Puzzle | WIRED
6:55 First letter of objects on table (Scissors, Piano, Apple, Dice, Elephant) spell SPADE 9:26 First word of each clue, SEA EL EWE BEA (CLUB phonetically) 11:14 Lowercase letters read in order spell HEART
you are a machine! Hats off to you.
thanks man
That club puzzle. oof. work of B-U-T
authorblues _ Harvard here, boi you wanna a scholarship?
authorblues for pres
Imagine trying to play scrabble against this guy...
I'd dare to challenge his phonies off. Such as, if he ever tried to slip them past me, BQE or CPAS.
@@rosiefay7283 Think they are acronyms BQE being "Brooklyn-Queens Expressway" and CPAS being "Centre for the Public Awareness of Science"
@@Ziirf exactly, that would not get him very far in scrabble. Also, acronyms are the lowest words in crosswords, the more of them, the lesser is deemed the quality of the crossword
@@panda4247 Wasn't trying to defend his 'scrabble skills', but saying "I'd dare to challenge his phonies off" makes it sound as if they were actual faults in their current context.
Keep in mind this is an edited video, he likely spent his time preparing the crossword off camera. He is simply recreating this puzzle on camera using the original as reference. He demonstrates how he gets his words using onelook. Not to say he isn't word smart, we don't have enough info to make that assessment one way or the other.
This guy must have such a large vocabulary
Louis Cashatt or a short distance to his computer.
It comes with playing crosswords. Remember he was playing a lot before he ever started making them.
Great analysis...
@@someoneinsane7783 More like bore-ophyll
beclops haha thank you Kanye very cool
Making a good puzzle is way harder than solving it.
I don’t know. Have you solved a Saturday NYT puzzle (without Googling) yet? 🤓 I have the app and even the versatility of the interface gives little advantage. The ease of the Monday puzzle comes as a relief every week to me (like guessing a Wordle on one try after five days of “Phews!”). Also, I was thinking the whole time throughout this video how one could easily build a computer program that makes the puzzle virtually using the rules and tools he describes. In fact, they probably already have something proprietary/in-house, and he’s just using the grease board graph to make the video more engaging.
@@JenHoegeman bruh
Depends really.
@@JenHoegeman Did you solve Patrick Berry's "Crossing Words" puzzles? No machine could have come up with those ideas and those puzzles are timeless. Reference NY Times in fall of 2011.
My record for solving a NYT Sunday is about 18 minutes. My record for constructing a solid Sunday with a good theme is 3 months. And even then it was rejected. I worked on it every night for at least 30 minutes. With software.
CLUB - 9:27 Sea, El, Ewe, Bea (are pronounced like C L U B) SPADE - 8:37 Scissor, Piano, Apple, Dies, Elephant. (First letter in each) HEART - 11:15 (h, e, a, r, and t are the only lowercase letters in the grid) DIAMOND - The pin on his chest (his right side, our left side) is changing letter throughout the video, spelling out D I A M O N D Edit: the letters spelling out Diamond are not in order. To get them in the right sequence you need to look at the color of his shirt. The letters are then placed in order of the color of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet)
You are sooooo smart. Amazing!!!
Interesting, I was stuck on the decor behind him with Curtain Liquor U? Books/Bike
@@jancarlyt4556 I don't want to take credit for this, I basically just read a bunch of different comments and decided to put all texts together into one.
I knew those letters looked out of place. I was like "this guy makes NYT crosswords and he's putting in lowercase letter?!"
Thx
cru·ci·ver·bal·ist (noun)- the most unnecessary but awesome word I have heard in a while
in italian we call crosswords "cruciverba"
info like this is useful on Jeopardy!
Now put it in a crossword.
I dont get it, there are no verbs in crossword answers, and you're not verbal when you're solving crosswords, you're writing them down.
Antidisestablishmentarianism.. THAT is the most useless word. Yes, important meaning.. but how and WHEN would u EVER use it in a sentence?! Like a proper sentence with meaning in its word, not just: ____ is the longest word ever. Also: phlocinocinhilipilification. Useless waste of letters.
Am I the only idiot who didn't notice any of those changes throughout the video?
Yes.
Zerosonico don’t lie we all didn’t notice a thing 😂
Wait what changes?
Exter Smith read the first comment wrong my apologies. 😂😂
Vikas Patil, It doesn't make you an idiot. It's change blindness, and everyone is subject to it. Have a look at this. kzhead.info/sun/ic-rorqnsYyIZZs/bejne.html
I feel dumber than ever.
mattalgrand awe, dont feel bad, im a dum dum too. 😚
Your talents lie elsewhere...
@@magicalleela666 Not everyone has talents. Most people aren't very good at anything. For every person with a 130 IQ there's another with a 70.
@@QuasiELVIS "MOST people aren't good at ANYTHING" Now that's just false
Yup.
I saw Kwong create a puzzle at his live magic (and puzzle) show using words submitted by the audience; I think he completed it in under10 minutes. It was phenomenal, as was the rest of the show.
"I want to make people feel smart" Well that's ironic because whenever I try to solve a crossword puzzle I feel dumb af.
I just realized something... I'm dumb af.
Hahaha
I am feeling dumb right now.
hahahhaa did you just described me HAHAHAHA
Actually quite fascinating the thought that goes into creating every puzzle. Well explained!
Actually very poorly explained. He already had all the words picked out. And he just put black squares in randomly?
Janet Wayman no, he explained how you want to put the black spots in places where it would be difficult to make a word
@@janetwayman9459 it wasn't random if you bothered watching the video
9:49 “and voila! now you know how to make a new york times crossword puzzle” ...no i dont
lol i had the same reation
When he speaks i feel like he’s dumbing it down so we understand
And I still don’t understand it.
@@sineadthomas2024 me too
For people saying these clues were really hard, I think they were pretty fair. Looking for case differences is very easy, and I'm sure most people got this one right away. The others had the camera focus directly on the solutions/clues at points in the video. In general, if something is being randomly focused on and you know there's a puzzle, it's probably a clue. For example, why did he only make clues specifically for those words? And then the camera zoomed in on the paper. Earlier there was a point where the camera pans over the objects whose first letters spell out SPADE. The objects are also placed very prominently on the table, are of similar size and are in focus and in frame when the narrator is sitting, further giving us a chance to ponder their significance. Being patient and methodical also helps a lot! You don't need to be a genius to be observant and doing puzzles regularly can get you into the habit being more observant in your daily life! Your mind is like a muscle and you should exercise it to keep it strong and healthy. Plus puzzles are fun!
Yeah some of these clues are very "crossword-y" so if you do a lot of crosswords they're super easy to guess lol
the first letter of each item on the table - scissors; piano; apple; dice; elephant - spells SPADE
Dmitry Litovka There was also a lowercase S and it makes hearts
The third word must be clubs😂
"scissors; piano; apple; dice; elephant - spells SPADE" -- are you sure about that?
Jack yeah? Am I missing something?
@@cedricsdayout - it could spell scpiapdiele, or spaed, or cipil, or soeet or ....
So I was a little bit confused when he mentioned seemingly random rules like "must have rotational symmetry" or "each letter has to be accessible across and down"... until he mentioned this is a New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I've been doing European-style ones like Bumper Big Crosswords (UK) my whole life and I don't remember such patterns. Also, hiding themed words inside other words? And clumping two words (that should be spelled with a space in between) together, like marqueename or zacefron is okay? Or that the daily crosswords get progressively harder as the week goes by? Huh. The more you know. Is this just the NY Times cruciverbal "house style", or is this how most American crossword puzzles look like? Not having a go, honestly curious
About clumping words together, it's usually ok if you specify that you did that. Example: American actor (3)(5) Answer: Zac efron
This is how most US crosswords are built. Certainly having all letters accessible across and down, and allowing clues to contain more than one word without spaces. The difficulty getting harder through the week was popularized by the New York Times but some other papers have adopted it.
Love this video puzzle! Thanks for making it!!! To the UK question: yes, US puzzles are all filled in like this, so much easier to solve than UK puzzles! Additionally, if you read Will Short's rules, he'd label one row of each of the 5-black squares as filler and probably not accept it for the New York Times!
Most of the time to make it fair, two word answers are stated. Usually will say (2 wrds) after the clue or something like that
THANK YOU! I had the exact same question as european mainlander and was very curious if that is a NYT and/or cultural thing. We have 2 letter words and "non-appetizing" words like urethrae all the time in ours, too!
this guy is pure genius ! love the way he hid the puzzles in the video !
As a "non english speaker" I had never heard of 90% of the words in the puzzle... lol
What is your native language?
@@ArchangelExile Finnish!
@@alyssasmith5083 Ah, okay, cool!
As a native English speaker I am the same way lmao
Calleigh Monton Me too!
I love that this guy admits Will Shortz rejected him several times before he finally broke through. My father and I were a constructing team for years and never got published; seemingly for mostly silly reasons. I wish we’d kept at it.
Cooper Hilinsky I have a co-worker who has recently had his crosswords published in NYT and WSJ. He’s pretty young, not long out of college, but I have no idea how many times he was rejected before finally being accepted.
So the guy making the crossword looks up the answers on Google as well? Good to know.
The pheonetic pronuciations of the first words of each clue that he wrote down would spell out CLUB - sea (C), El (L), ewe (U), Bea (B)
9:27
@@CoachShrugs thank you!
@@tachisme perhaps the shiny thing above his shoulder in an "urn". Idk if we're reaching, tho. I think the clues he wrote down are obviously what he wanted us to notice.
Ah geez and all these time I read "ewe" as "Eww".
things on the table 5:50 Scissor.Piano.Apple.Dice.Elephant SPADE At 9:27 the clues start with SEA(C), EL(L), EWE(U), BEA(B) . Spells CLUB At 11:15 Simple letter from left to right starting from the top spells heart
simple letters-> lowercase letters
The shirt one felt like a gimme, as for the other ones I never would have gotten any of them on my own, you’re incredible
@@noah8405 thank you very much!!!
His lettered pins change as well, which spell diamond.
Wow! I am very impressed.
Who is here after watching the Try Guys???
MEEEEEE :D
who are the try guys.
My elderly mother loves doing them. I got sick of buying crossword puzzle books for her, so I created massive ones for her. Kept her busy for days
holy freaking barnacles, i’m in love with this guy
I *love* this and am now starting my first puzzle creation, for a holiday gift. Thanks for sharing these ideas! I've loved your puzzles over the years.
Huge respect to the guy. He is so cool. And he is really living the dream.
Great creativity and extras, David!!!
I love crossword puzzles and have always wanted to create them. Yours is the first video that bring clarity to the process!!!!
I love videos like this where it sounds interesting and I give it a shot. Then get really into it because of how cool and surprising it turned out to be...
i was so amazed by the process of how a crossword is made that i didn't even notice the letter pins & the colors of shirts changing ... big "woah" moment !
Everybody needs to see his Crossword Puzzle Magic Trick. It's dope AF!
I still have no idea how he did that. It feels like he places some random words, and then out of nowhere he can get words with the letters in place. Like that FACEOFF, found in like a tenth of a second that perfectly fits
Very nice how he used the magician's skill of misdirection to perform the DIAMOND trick. You'd just assumed it took a few days to actually finish creating the puzzle, thus the different colour shirts... if you even noticed the shirts were any different while you were paying attention to how the guy goes about filling up the grid.
I imagine this guy transforming a regular first date into a huge puzzle where things like location or food have to be found based on clues hidden in different random spots of the city.
what a straightforward tutorial! time to make my own!
This honestly looks fun. Much more fun than solving one. What a great gig, he explains it well!
Pin changes- diamond Items on table- spade Lowercase letters- heart Clues on paper- club 9:27 Explanations: Pin changes to OIDMONA, turn it into roy-g-biv order with the correspondng shirt color and get diamond Lowercase letters in the crossword puzzle are h, e, a, r, and t "heart" Clues on paper are "SEA safety" (c), "EL paso" (l), "EWE mate" (u), "BEA arthur won for "mame" (B). "club" Items on table were Scissors (s), Piano (p), Apple (a), Dice (d), and Elephant(e) "spade"
I saw him do a live demonstration using the periodic table of elements as the theme. It was really cool and a fun event! The crowd was stunned. 😮
This is a science and artform simultaneously, fascinating.
the creation of a crossword puzzle is a puzzle in itself
WOW, a magician and a puzzle designer, nice!
He’s makes creating a puzzle look so easy
I heard this guy on a podcast once and that was cool but getting to see it is even better.
11:14 lowercase letters left to right spells out h-e-a-r-t
And what of the lowercase u in the top left?
Wow that is a great find!!!
Items on the table spell s-p-a-d-e
His lettered pins changed into diamond
Also its 11:15
Yeahhhh... Ima just wait for other people to solve it. LOL...
Too early for this lol.
I could swear this process was at the very least semi-automated. I always imagined a database of words being fed to a system that arranges the puzzle. Different clues are assigned for each word, and the clues would be chosen based on desired complexity (or even just to differentiate each puzzle). Seems like I was wrong!
Igor Freitas I have a co-worker that constructs crosswords in his free time and recently got published in NYT and WSJ. With all of that word play involved, there’s no way a computer could create them. It’s not something that AI can accomplish yet with the tech that exists.
Look up this guy's other videos, he does amazing crossword magic tricks!
I was thinking that you need to overlay the maze at 0:42 to the completed Crossword at 8:21 to get the answer. (The maze looks to be a 15x15 grid like the crossword with, in my opinion, a weird route/solution. I spent a good hour trying to overlay and thinking I need to mirror the route due the the solver of the maze being behind the glass maze. I tried reading the maze route, backwards, mirrored, mirrored backwards, reading just the corners of the route, and I even tried to overlay the maze on the crossword at 1:00 . But I guess the maze had nothing to do with the crossword. :P )
For some reason I read this as: “Pizza Experts Explains How a Crossword Puzzle Is Made” And thought the thumbnail was all pizza boxes.
I diagnose you with hunger
Clever. I really enjoyed this video and the puzzle within. Well done to all.
This is very well done production and the talent. I love it 👏
Genius level. Mixed-media next level solving fun!
The F,Z is difficult I thought of Fez right when I saw it.
Trouble there is that it entails a black just below the Z, which (to avoid a bottom-row word starting unchecked) entails expanding the black block to what he calls a Utah. Perhaps four blocks of 5 black squares each is too many for Will Shortz.
Fantastic video -- exactly the kind of content I come to Wired for!
They revealed the second puzzle in the end. Pretty cool.
This dude is such a puzzle nerd!! Loveit, just imagine when his girlfriend asks him where the keys are and he starts giving hints and clues haha
So Ted Mosby was right, "Its because of the vowels!!!"
I find this process fascinating.
This is awesome! You should have a video like this every week! :P
I was so sure the puzzle had to do with the maze he drew near the beginning (which while rough, has basically a 15x15 grid) mapping onto the eventual puzzle, and you get a phrase which might start with MARS, tying back to Maenad and the greek stuff... I'm still not sure he wasn't going for that too, I just can't quite line it up haha
This might be my most favorite KZhead video ever!!!!!!! I’ve always wanted to learn how to create a crossword!!
Did not anticipate a mention of Most Def, but I'm here for it
Skimming over the part i was most curious about. Great...
What a fun video, so clever on so many levels! Thanks!
kakashi: those who solve puzzles are smart obito: but those who makes them are smarter
DUDE, actual magic!
This helped me so much on my project thank you
Not sure changing shirt colors was necessary. There aren't a lot of words that share the letters in diamond
Yeah, but it's a general rule of thumb in puzzles that anagrams should be keyed.
This guy did the wired video on illusions too
He was so pleased when he did the Fave/Off gesture lmao
you dont know its hard until you actually MAKE one
This kind of also helps tell how a cross word puzzle works
I noticed the letters but I couldn’t see them clearly enough.
I am obligated to watch it over and over again because of the mystery at the end and also because of my curiousity
this would be a good way to memorize definitions for a class. I'm sure someone's done that already but it isn't being done enough!
at 5:24 he's talking about the movie FACE OFF and uses a gesture that seems unnecessary. it happens to be the ASL sign for "beautiful".
I always notice ppl doing inadvertent signing. 😊
That gesture is used in the movie Face Off, it's a reference.
0:16 “There are problems *everywhere* ” wow if that isn’t me
Dude this guys a genius.
Ive made these before he is making it way harder than it needs to be.
Oh, David, you're such a card!
I think the real puzzle here is writing some software to replace him.
But who doesn't want to live in a world where someone's job title is "Cruciverbalist"
It's already been done. Check out crosswordman.com/
It exists, but it's the cruciverbalist who actually makes the puzzles interesting instead of just filling a 15x15 grid with words. On his laptop, you can see one of his apps with the XWD logo, which is a crossword making app with built in suggestions and autocomplete.
@@noneofmynameswork1 - When's the last time you saw an original or interesting crossword puzzle? They are basically ALL auto generated.
You can make robot drip paint , but its human touch that makes art interesting.
This guy is such a magician
This was cool, I really want to see how cryptic crosswords get made now
Never really cared for the craft of crosswords until I randomly tuned into a tik tok live of a guy doing NYT crosswords. I never knew so much creativity and genius went into creating a crossword puzzle. I was always stumped at the revelation of the long answer of each puzzle
Is those "rules" an American thing, or just a New York Times thing? In Norway most crosswords are asymmetric and has plenty of two letter words. Even one letter words are not uncommon, though though those are pretty simple because it can only be 'i' (Norwegian for "in"), 'å' (Norwegian for either the infinitive marker or a rare word for 'river') or 'ø' (archaic Norwegian/Danish for 'island'; usually spelled 'øy' today).
In Italy it's exactly the same
I just looked up crossword puzzles on Wiki and it looks like every region uses a different grid or format. So yes, this only applies to American crosswords.
In English there are no one letter words except “I” and “A” so you have to adapt the puzzle to every language.
Most standard American crosswords are like that (in contrast to the British version), but the NYT is definitely one of the hardest. One other thing is that easier puzzles often tell you it's multiple words in an answer. I believe the NYT and other hard puzzles do not.
I remember solving the puzzle. Very interesting video.
The best video I've seen this morning wow
His Pin changed 7 times, O I D M D N A... Diamond! Very proud of my self
Congrats
anyone here after the try guys played him
This is a video I didn’t know I needed
PLEASE MORE OF THIS GUY IN THIS SPECIFIC SETTING!!! -it gives me a calming feeling and I presume others feel the same
Awwwwwwwww nice video! I really love crosswords, but as a foreigner who doesnt speak English as a native language, those puzzles, even the easiest ones are still naturally impossible to me despite that i have been learning English for almost 10 years. I dont even know the word rebound (not until i looked it up), not to mention words like "Renoir". My vocabulary basically deprived me of the chance of trying those puzzles, and im really sad :(
this made me feel very dumb I didn't know what half those words meant
I always thought crosswords now days were randomly generated by a computer. Fascinating!
N in N-digo While mentioning Nypd BLUE. Nice.
People look at his shirt throughout the video. He was changing between different color shirts
I wonder why?
it says it at the end of the video lol
@@alaralpaca1486 was reading comments while watching it. i didn't bother to find this comment after i watched the whole thing lol
I have always thought they have some AI for this 😮
Me too! I'm quite amazed. I also think that sudokus are made by an AI, but maybe it's the same.
Ive learned so much!!
Planning a lesson is exactly the same!