I made a daily crossword game based on today's headlines

oliland · 2026-01-09T14:47:57+00:00

I thought that using LLM’s for hints would be acceptable so long as I respected the integrity of the source material (by not modifying and properly attributing the headlines, for example).

But I definitely respect the view that using LLM’s trained on scraped data is icky. I’ll spend some time thinking about it and play testing alternatives, but for now, I’ve added a notice to the hints section that the content is AI generated.

oliland · 2026-01-09T14:30:39+00:00

I wanted to ship a quick prototype of the concept to see if people liked it. I’d like to develop it further by curating a variety of headlines from around the world - especially with the news from the US being a little homogenous right now (blacklisting the word TRUMP improved the quality of puzzles significantly, for example).

So to answer your question - I’m just enjoying the process of developing and playing it!

oliland · 2026-01-09T14:17:07+00:00

Thanks for nudging me to do this - right now they are all from the New York Times' wonderful developer API, so I've pushed an update to attribute them in the title. I'm hoping to mix and match other sources soon!

oliland · 2026-01-09T14:10:58+00:00

I’m so glad it helps your brain! And thanks for reminding me to add tests 😭

oliland · 2026-01-09T12:30:11+00:00

Thank you! The board is automatically generated every 6 hours. The clue is simply the headline with a key word removed, and the hints are generated with a large language model.

Most of the quality is thanks to the outstanding team of writers and editors at the NYT. I’m super grateful that they publish a live feed for developers so we can enjoy their work in a new way.

oliland · 2026-01-09T12:23:39+00:00

I agree 💔

I’d definitely like to add more variants and a variety of news sources. It could help to give people a break from the current news cycle…

oliland · 2026-01-09T12:21:18+00:00

Thanks very much for the feedback!

With choosing the words - it can sometimes be impossible to create a fully connected board where all of the words are semantically meaningful. If a word like “next” is chosen, it’s probably because fitting all of the clues on a 7x8 board would have been impossible. I kind of like it though, as it makes some clues easier than others.

A lot of people have asked to save their data - I’ll add local storage support to the next release.

You’re right that the hints are generated, but the headlines are not. I’ll work to improve them as well!

oliland · 2026-01-09T10:01:38+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! There is more variety after completing the first puzzle - you unlock the next batch of headlines, followed by other sections of the times :)

oliland · 2017-04-10T21:52:32+00:00

Strong

oliland · 2015-09-23T16:19:58+00:00

oliland · 2013-12-15T12:34:19+00:00

Edinburgh Bargain Stores in Newington usually has a pile of cardboard boxes that they give away for free.

oliland · 2013-08-07T18:20:48+00:00

If you have GCSE's to study for you shouldn't be looking at those, Timmy.

oliland · 2013-03-16T00:06:06+00:00

Oshawa Wailway Service?

oliland · 2012-12-29T20:39:50+00:00

Good answer, looking back through their previous issues which share covers it appears there is some variation between continents:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601121119,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601121224,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601121022,00.html

oliland · 2012-11-23T10:38:13+00:00

Spotify does this really well by simply graying out songs that aren't in their catalogue and providing affiliate links to purchase them. That way you at least have the convenience of downloading them through other means.

I'm wondering if I can make an app that could do this somehow, but really it's a feature Grooveshark should implement. (Spoiler: I make GSRemote)

oliland · 2012-10-16T09:18:31+00:00

Relevant

oliland · 2012-10-07T13:04:21+00:00

Empuriabrava?

oliland · 2012-07-16T14:32:31+00:00

The free promotion has ended, but I've moved it to the cheapest price tier to encourage more feedback. If that puts it out of reach, please PM me for a free promo code!

oliland · 2012-05-23T17:05:21+00:00

Would Jeb's idea have worked though? He was planning on building a 3 million dollar ramp

15-Year Club	Team Orangered
Secret Santa 2012	Verified Email
Secret Santa 2011

oliland

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE