A little program to solve Gogen puzzles. Can probably be made a lot simpler.
Description from http://www.martinhwatson.co.uk/puzzle_news.html
I recently picked up a copy of The Standard, London’s free evening paper. I came a cross a new kind of word puzzle, so I thought I’d spread that word here, and review the puzzle. It’s called GOGEN, and all you have to do is fill the 5x5 grid on the right with the remaining letters of the alphabet. (The angel said ‘no Z’.)
Oh, yes, you also have to make sure that you can trace out the following words in the grid, moving once space at a time in any direction, like a chess king. FORAY - HYRAX - JOBS - LENT - PROD - QUANGO - SCORE - SKIMPY - VERB - WANTED. Then provide the three letters in the shaded circles, reading from left to right.
It wasn’t a really hard puzzle, but I did manage to solve it before reaching my station. I liked it and it seemed a good alternative to Sudoku. The small grid is a bit unforgiving after a few crossings-out. The inventor/compiler is uncredited. Look out for The Standard if you like this idea.
