Crossplay Evens the Playing Field
In January, the New York Times Games team introduced Crossplay, a two-player crossword-style word game. I got to be part of the early testing, so I’d been playing for quite a while with colleagues and people in Australia who were part of an early test. When it became publicly available in the United States, I was excited to play with more of my friends. I wasn’t prepared for my stats to plummet, as most of my friends in real life are, it turns out, better than average at word games. I had been winning about 75 percent of my matches with strangers, but according to my current statistics, I’ve now won only about 56 percent of my games. I spoke with Rohit Crasta, the lead game designer who worked on Crossplay, to hear more on how some of the decisions were made about the gameplay. There was a lot of research and play-testing that went into each decision, from the design of the board to the distribution and scoring of each letter tile, to the rules about ending a game. Rohit showed me spreadsheets of all the designs that his team had tested for the board, and how each decision had been made to enhance the gameplay and make the game feel more fair. For instance, the board in Crossplay doesn’t have a double-word square in the center. It’s still possible to hit a double-word score on your first turn if you make a five-letter word, but it’s also possible for the second player to hit a double-word square on their first turn, making the first couple of moves a little more even.
The triple-word squares are also distributed in such a way that both players have an equal shot at reaching them, to give the first player less of an advantage and to keep the game progressing at a steady pace. The end game is a little different as well, and designed to feel a little more even. There’s no penalty for getting stuck with letters at the end, and the game wraps up with each player receiving one turn after the tile bag is empty. Finally, there are also differences in the letter distribution and letter values. Rohit told me that the scoring is based on the distribution of letters across all words in the English language, and that his team experimented with many scoring systems and letter distributions to find the sweet spot. There’s a little more variation in the scoring of letters in Crossplay compared with our competitors’ games, and fewer one-point tiles.
Solve Friday’s Crossword on Easy Mode!
For expert hints on today’s puzzle, read the Wordplay column. Were you able to solve the Friday puzzle with Easy Mode? We want your input! Share your experience with us by email. Wordle’s 5th Birthday
To honor five years of Wordle, New York Times Games and touring musicians are bringing V.I.P. (Very Important Player) access to M-U-S-I-C fans nationwide. Select solvers who complete bonus Wordle puzzles created by artists will get V.I.P. access to concerts this summer. Learn more about how to participate, and then submit a screenshot of your completed bonus Wordle puzzle by 4 p.m. Eastern time today to join the fun. Keep an eye out for more special surprises as we celebrate. No purchase is necessary to enter or win. Open to legal residents of the 50 U.S. states/D.C. who are at least 18 years of age. Begins at 10 a.m. E.T. on June 3 and ends at 4 p.m. E.T. on June 5. Subject to Official Rules. Easy vs. HardOne of my favorite clues in the daily puzzle today is [Something a toddler might grow out of] at 37-Across. As the mom of two kids who have grown out of many clothes and seemingly endless pairs of shoes, I was expecting the answer to be something that kids wear. It’s a bit more of a metaphorical meaning, though, in this case! For Easy Mode, I kept the parenting angle, but went with [“It’s just a ___!” (reassuring reminder from one parent to another).
How are we doing? 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 PHASE.
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