What makes an acrostic puzzle fun?

[Bullwinkle311]

After struggling to understand how to solve them as a teen, my mom sat me down and showed me how. I college, I remember making a couple acrostics for her to solve! On vacations, or when sick or in hospital, I always requested variety puzzle books, as there were no acrostics-only puzzle books. I found this site a few years ago and I love it! I love the challenge of solving them! I'm an editor, so I love almost all word puzzles, but I've grown bored with some of them. My favorite were criss-cross as a child--my older brother and I did them to pass the time--and we would fight over grandma's Modern Maturity magazines from AARP when we visited since they had mega huge difficult word searches. I still can't find any that challenging. I've also recently started doing the Word Twist puzzles on here--takes me back to when my younger brother and I spent a lot of time playing Boggle to improve his spelling skills in school.

[duhmel]

I AM HOOKED. I have done over 1500 puzzles and try to limit my play to 100 or so per month to avoid losing connection to the rest of my life. About 6 months ago I made a major change in the way I go about solving the puzzles. At first I was totally focused on getting the solutions as fast as possible. As soon as I had a few words in the puzzle I would start searching online for the quote an then fill in the solution as fast as I could. If I couldn't do the puzzle quickly I would move on to the next puzzle. After doing this for many months I came to realize the the joy is to solve the puzzle and I wasn't getting to the tough part of struggling to get enough clues to have a chance of solving and then closing out the puzzle end game. Since changing my approach I have completed 99 per cent of the puzzles. I set up doing puzzles with the same number of clues throughout the month and change the range each month. I average solutions at about 1.8 x average solution and am quite happy with that result.

In another thread that I have posted, I derived the scoring algorithm that is used by the Administrator

Score = (1-0.4*(actual solution time/average solution time))*maximum score (for the number of clues).

This holds as long as the computed score is greater than 100 (I never use hints so I have never received a score less than 100 in over 1500 puzzles. If the 'computed score' via the formula is less that 100, you receive a score between 100 and 132. About 400 of my puzzles have gotten this 'adjusted' score but I see no method to how this assignment is made. Clearly it is not dependent on total time, solving percentage, number of clues or per cent of average time. Unfortunately my requests to the Administrator have gone unanswered so I can only conclude that the result is randomly assigned.

Finally I must commend the Administrator on the massive amount of puzzles that are available on this website although I only do Crostics. I used to have to wait for the monthly WSJ Crostic puzzle toget my fill and then wait another month. Here we have a bottomless set of puzzles. I am curious as to their origin as the most puzzles indicate a time frame of 1995-2010 for the Entertainment and Politician clues.

[jugl11]

I like reading the comments from other members.

[DoctorOctopus]

Acrostics are simply the best. A challenging brain workout and a pleasant pay off when the quote is finally solved. Regular crosswords often seem pretty thin and uninteresting in comparison.

[sewaneesue]

I do care what the quotes contain, and I do thumbs up when I have enjoyed them. Lovely and funny quotes are my favorite. Same goes for clues; I give thumbs up for the funny clever ones.

[canswp1]

I've yet to solve an acrostic that I didn't enjoy. I come for the daily brain exercise. I will often go and look up the book that the quote is from if it sounds interesting. Clues have led me to look up further information too... and sometimes sent me on a search that has left me forgetting I'm supposed to be solving a puzzle! Thanks for the puzzles and a site that is reliable and never glitches.

[christinedux]

Thank you for asking this question. I’ve been doing acrostics for many years, from wherever I can find them. And for a couple of years, I was a constructor, which was VERY fun and gave me insights into solving. I’d love to do it again.

I like literary quotes, witty quotes, funny quotes, and quirky quotes. Doesn’t matter where they’re from. And I’m fascinated by the link to the books on the Amazon website, which shows me books I would never look at twice on my own. I’ve read a few of them, and just poked around some others.

I’m a paid subscriber (can’t stand the ads), and I consider this website very inexpensive therapy.
Thank you again,
Christine

[lemon99]

I'm one of those paying members, but I still enjoy doing all the puzzles, and I'm very grateful that this site exists. I think it's definitely worth the $ to eliminate distracting ads.

[Vladimir]

It's clear I have been both ungrateful, and ungracious.
For which I can only apologize.

I edited my original post here (my first post ever) after I noticed the "Member" vs. "Premium Member" tags next to posters' screen names. I had originally led with something like, "For Pete's sake, the site is free . . ." Now that I realize some people are paying members, even if the premium membership is inexpensive, I'm less inclined to feel strongly about "complaints" from those members. But for non-paying members, like me, I'd say put up or shut up. (In my most friendly tone of voice, of course.)

[sionnach57]

It's clear I have been both ungrateful, and ungracious.
For which I can only apologize.

[lemon99]

I agree completely. Just having these puzzles is great. Very much appreciated, no matter the subject or the quality of the writing.

[Vladimir]

Maybe I'm out of step with most folks, but I just like solving the puzzles. I swear, it's never occurred to me to like or dislike a puzzle based on what I think of the author of the quotation, or whether or not the quotation inspired me, or whether I concurred with the quotation's sentiment(s), or whether some of the clues were drawn from knowledge-bases I'm unfamiliar with. For example, I think Ayn Rand was a nitwit and I've completed multiple puzzles in which her work was quoted, but never for an instant did I consider posting a complaint about the use of her work or composing a screed about why I don't care for her writing or her philosophy.

I just like doing the puzzles. Keep 'em coming. They're a blast.

[admin]

If you'd like to see different kinds of quotes and authors, by all means, suggest them here. I'm a one-man-show on this site, so by default you're going to only get quotes from authors and sources that I personally think are worth using based on my own tastes and predilections. I'm always game for exploring new authors/titles/quotes.

[sionnach57]

Every so often I come back to this thread and vent for a couple of paragraphs about particular texts/authors/themes that have, in my view, worn out their welcome. Then I read over what I've written, decide it's way too mean-spirited for a family game site, delete it, and move on.

This time I'm going to leave it out there, so I will be specific and (hopefully) concise.

ENOUGH WITH THE MOUNTAINS ALREADY! Over the last several months I have been unwillingly exposed to some of the worst writing imaginable, and a surprisingly large chunk of it seems to be inspired by mountains. We've got that old ex-CIA villain Peter Matthiessen roaming around the Himalayas and rambling incoherently and interminably about it. If I wanted to read The Snow Leopard, I'm sure it's not hard to find. It's certainly hard to avoid around here if you choose longer puzzles and it seems as if I'm being forced to read it, one incoherent paragraph at a time VERY MUCH AGAINST MY WILL.
There are other offenders, of course -- the sight of a mountain apparently drives John Muir into the kind of incoherent frenzy of quasi-mystical logorrhea that should be grounds for commitment to a mental institution. Sadly, the quality of his writing never exceeds that of a boy scout given access to a thesaurus.
And then there's my countrywoman, the indefatigable Dervla Murphy, who decided that instead of sending her daughter to school, she would just drag the poor kid to every godforsaken corner of the globe. Normally, Dervla's writing is not so hideous (despite a certain fondness for listing different colors, an insufferable tic shared by many of the lazy nature writers so vastly over-represented on this site) but stick her in the mountains and that lack of oxygen kicks in and she too starts to drivel on in the familiar quasi-mystical manner.

We get it. There are mountains. There are clouds. There is snow. The light changes, depending on the time of day and the altitude. Why is that, in any sense, interesting?

And, to try to establish that I am not an absolute monster who rejects all kinds of writing about nature, let me acknowledge my appreciation for certain authors who manage to do it well. For instance, Robert MacFarlane, Patrick Fermor, Edward Abbey, Olivia Manning, Mary Renault, Gerald Durrell.

You may well be thinking "I rarely, if ever, come across quotes from these authors. What is sionnach going on about?" And this is an entirely reasonable question. Fact is, to some extent I bring this upon myself. Because I generally choose puzzles with 24 to 26 clues. And well, it just so happens that MATTHIESSENTHESNOWLEOPARD has 25 letters. So does MURPHYONASHOESTRINGTOCOORG. If you choose a 26-letter puzzle, why then you may very well get MYFIRSTSUMMERINTHESIERRAS . Or EDWARDABBEYDESERTSOLITAIRE . 24 letters and you risk hitting THEMOUNTAINSOFCALIFORNIA and another steaming dose of John Muir.

Thank you. I feel much better now. I love the site and offering any criticism at all seems wretched and ungrateful. But John Muir will do that to a person.

[admin]

I've bumped up the color for the yellow highlight feature now.