! / \ !---!---!---! \ / \ / ! W / \ / \ !---!---!---! \ / !

Each intersection of this hexagonal star is the location of a unique letter none of which is an "A". A "W" is already placed as a starter. Each line is a common English four letter word when read from at least one direction.

What solutions can you offer?

An afterthought:
Using unique letters, but with access to all vowels, what other solutions are available?

What's interesting to me is how to solve something like this.

Starting with a W and requiring that no A and at most one of other vowels makes it hard to come up with words that fit. (Which may seem bad, but in fact it means you have a good starting place)

It's hard to come up with _WU_,   _UW_,  _IW_, _WO_, or _WE_ so that leaves just _OW_, _EW_ and _WI_ Thus, you can start with words like TWIG, SOWN, or NEWS. However, since you can only use each consonant once, using letters like T, N or S comes at expense of not being able to use them later.

Since blends are hard to make match up right (ie having CL match up with SL instead of RL, HL or KL) words with two vowels are easier than words with only one. So I try to use all the vowels.

One nice feature is using the UE at the end, as then you can use the U in the middle and the E at the end. I didn't realize this until after solving for a while, but it does appear in my final solution.

   C
B L O T
 U   W
E R I S
   G

Posted by Gamer on 2008-07-18 18:47:52