|
February 13, 2026 
|
|
|
 |
| Mathieu Labrecque |
How Strands puzzles are made
I frequently get questions from friends and family about how Strands is made. Anyone on the Games team is allowed to submit theme ideas, but Tracy Bennett, who edits the puzzles, decides which themes to use. Tracy’s job is to take the set of words and arrange them in the board in such a way that there is just one unique solution. Tracy showed me how she lays out Strands boards, and I was shocked by how difficult it is. Two things make a board unusable: when there are multiple paths for a word, and when there are “bad words” in the board.
Some boards are easier than others to lay out, and one thing that makes a puzzle easier to construct is that it has a lot of unique letters. There are certain theme types that we don’t really use because they would be tough if not impossible to construct. In theory, the theme DOUBLE O SEVEN (with seven words that contain double O’s in them) would be a fun idea. But, in practice, the board is a nightmare to create. While constructing a board, Tracy can click a button to “validate” the solution, checking for any words that could be made in multiple ways. The board below fails on multiple counts, with every single word being possible to make with more than one path. You can see, in the example below, how PROOF can also be made with the O’s from HOODY, which would leave two O’s stranded in the corner. Generally, Tracy avoids themes that have a list of words that share some lexical feature.
 |
As for “bad words,” we don’t publish boards with words that are offensive, and we do our best to avoid extremely unpleasant words. When Tracy taught me how to make boards, I was shocked by how often these words pop up when creating a board. The software that checks for multiple paths also checks for curse words, and it often takes many attempts to create a board that doesn’t contain some of these words. Before we created the tool to catch these words, we got a lot of complaints from offended solvers.
Making a Strands board can take between five minutes and several hours, depending on the letter patterns and number of unique letters in the words.
 |
| Grid by Evan Mulvihill/Clues written by Christina Iverson |
In today’s Wordplay column, Sam Corbin writes about how to get back on track when a clue misdirects you. For expert hints on today’s puzzle, read her column.
Were you able to solve the Friday puzzle with Easy Mode? We want your input! Share your experience with us by email.
Easy vs. Hard
In today’s puzzle, one of my favorite tricky clues is [One with a burning passion?] at 4-Down. The key word here is “burning,” and you might have to read the clue with the stress on that word to get the answer. It’s a cute misdirect, but for Easy Mode I went with something more straightforward: [Sort who might play with matches, informally].
How are we doing?
We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to crosswordeditors@nytimes.com.
Thanks for playing! Subscribe to New York Times Games. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it regularly here.
P.S. The answer to Easy vs. Hard is PYRO.
|
|
 | For more solving tips, signup for the Gameplay newsletter. Each week, our puzzle editors share brain teasers, puzzles and Gameplay stories they love. Get it in your inbox |
|
|
