I know someone who regularly combines sports and crosswords, but not how it might sound

They play a crossword like a golf game!

Where they find the hardest puzzle in the paper, tee off in the NW corner and try to get to the SE corner.

Once there, they move on to the next hole (crossword).

A long word counts as a "drive," short words are "putts," tough areas are "traps," ...

:) Sounds like fun.

I've been trying (well, "trying" might be a bit strong of a word), since before fusion fortnight was even a suggested idea, to create a chess+sports hybrid...

Sports knowledge or sporty action or?

Basically present a board with a classic, "how does white win in X moves" scenario, but with different "rules".

So a soccer/football version, where pieces move normally, but there's a "ball", and if you "take" the ball it moves equal/opposite to your move

Aim being to get the ball into the middle 4 squares on the opponent's baseline

Had a volleyball set of rules too, and a dodgeball set

The dynamics are already my favorite aspect of chess, What a great extension!

Yeah, mulled over ideas like if you land the ball on another (same colour) player, they get to move too before the opponent gets a turn to have pseudo-passing

...For mechanical-puzzles you the chessboard can be tilted....

:) pinball chess

so the "ball" is a neutral piece? never heard of that but can make a lot of games more interesting

I'm just not sure/experienced enough how to construct a nice clean, provable set of starting positions to guarantee the desired outcome without making it obvious.

So it stagnates in my notebook

Yes. It would be a neutral piece of some kind. (I was just using a second king when I was playing around with it).

Kings were "goalies" and were the only pieces who could go in the "in zones"

One thing i was going suggest even with your difficult multilinguual self crossingwords was to post a simple purely experimental version. That's what i'm considering for "Crosswording Puzzles & Word Golf" (got it as far as a title already)

the title's the most important bit :P

Wordberg to the wise!

My chess/soccer one will (let's stay positive, I'll get it out one day) be titled something like: "d3 Nf3 Qh6 Bc5 GOOOOAAAAALLL!!!"

!

You still can put out a patently experimental version first. Certainly helped with the honeycomb mazes (if you happened to notice). The first one looks like a turd now but really helped get some kinks out. .... straying from the topic of this room ...

..all good. "topic fusion" :)

think text-editing puzzles would count as mechanical-puzzle?

had one where each line was shifted left and right,,, mechanically on the screen, to line up for the solution

Yeah, it's a bit a fuzzy one... I think if it follows consistent "rules of physics" so to speak (i.e. you could plausibly construct a true physical one in real life), it should be ok. But I think it was originally intended for rubiks cubes and such.

That's why i didn't tag with that after all. Wanted to , though.

Yeah, same reason I don't think I'll use either reverse-puzzling or retrograde-analysis on my crossword one

Feels not 100% correct, even though it probably should fit in one (or both)

Retrograde analysis could cover a lot of ground. Perhaps even crosswords where the words are given and have to be assembled.

Guess that's a lot like a jig-saw puzzle too.

True, especially given that (non-chess) link you gave me. But in my case it's secondary/tertiary to the main "puzzle", so it's not a big deal

Basically it give all the clues and the grid, but doesn't match clues to the grid, and part of the solution will be which clue maps 1:1 to which answer

...hopefully more interesting than that description sounds :D

My favorite crosswords tend to be diagramless because they're so visual in fitting islands together

Don't know that I've ever tried one, but I think I'd like them. I'm very much a visual person

(somewhat related to your idea) (and your secret interest in the visual is safe with me)

:) No one would ever guess based on my history

(snicker)

Diagramless crosswords tend to have easier clues too, and the best ones don't have proper NW corners so you have to juggle possible locations for square 1

Yeah, mine's a mixed bag.. But I went through it yesterday "cold" and I'm pretty sure it's solvable...

Sneak peak example (and my favourite) clue: "Number of answers potentially clued by a clue that could have been, but isn't for this answer"

That's a clue to leave hanging like a ripening fruit, while circling in on what that number of possible answers might be

sounds like your _________ (did you mention a name?) is just about ready!

By the way retrograde-analysis is so rarely used, it would count as uncoventional all by itself

Very true

Anyway thanks for coming over and hearing the crossowrd golf idea

and for tantalizing with your fusion piece

:) no worries. thanks for listening to my rambling ideas

Pleasure and privilege, .. ah, one more (from Sphinx's):

I have seen clues just like "one of 7" for "continent." Perfectly acceptable, and makes a solver think extra when they realize that it actually is a valid clue.

nuf sed for now i guess . . . to be continued in unconventional ways . . .

@humn Good to hear. At the moment I have something to the effect of "Something of which there are 7 examples of in the world", but I think I prefer the simpler wording