Getting Started with the Floor Thing
Alright, so I had this idea kicking around for a bit. A crossword, but like, on the floor. Sounds a bit weird, I know, but stick with me. I was just messing around, thinking about ways to make puzzle stuff more physical, more interactive maybe. Not just pen and paper, you know?
Figuring Out the Basics
First thing, I grabbed a notebook. Started sketching how this might even look. Big squares, right? Big enough to walk on, or at least place big letter tiles onto. I thought about materials. Could I use tape? Chalk? Maybe cut out squares from cardboard?
- Tried painter’s tape first on my workshop floor. Easy to put down, easy to remove. Made a small grid, maybe 5×5 to start.
- Then, the letters. Needed something chunky. Considered wood blocks, but ended up cutting letters out of thick foam sheets I had lying around from another project. Cheap and light.
Getting the grid straight with tape was trickier than I thought. Floors aren’t perfectly flat, who knew? Spent a good while just trying to make the lines look decent, not like a drunken spiderweb.
Making the Actual Puzzle
Once I had a grid I could live with, I needed a crossword puzzle to actually put in it. I didn’t want anything too crazy hard, just something fun to test the concept. Found a simple puzzle online, printed it out for reference. Then I started transferring it to the floor grid.
This took time. I had to figure out where the black squares should go. Initially, I thought about using black tape, but decided just leaving squares empty looked cleaner and was less work. Then, placing the foam letters into the grid according to the clues. It was kinda cool seeing it take shape, bigger than life.
Testing and Tweaking
Got my partner to try it out. They stood at the edge, reading the clues I’d written on a separate whiteboard. Then they’d walk over (carefully!) and place the foam letters. It was… okay. A bit clunky.
- The foam letters sometimes slipped around.
- Reading clues off a whiteboard wasn’t ideal.
- It took up a lot of space.
So, I made some adjustments. Put little non-slip pads on the back of the foam letters. That helped. Instead of a whiteboard, I just wrote the clues on big index cards placed near the grid. Better flow. The space issue, well, couldn’t do much about that without shrinking the whole thing, which defeated the point.
Where It’s At Now
So yeah, that’s the story of the floored crossword. It’s still taped out in the corner of my workshop. It’s not perfect. It’s a bit cumbersome, honestly. But it was a fun experiment. Got me thinking about interacting with puzzles differently. Maybe I’ll revisit it, try different materials, maybe even make themed ones for parties or something. For now, it’s just a big, slightly goofy crossword on my floor, a reminder of a weekend spent trying something new.
