JetPunk Word Search Puzzle Statistics - Updated to December 2022!

Another month has gone by since the last stats blog, and we are already near the end of 2022! In this blog you'll find the latest stats for JetPunk's Daily Word Search, which is still the newest minigame on this site, updated to Sunday, December 18, 2022. Without further ado, let's get started!

1. Overview

✓ From March 1 (#29) to December 18 (#321), there were 5,392 total words in all grids. The number of words in the average grid now stands at 18.4.

✓ The largest puzzles are now puzzles #302 (Tue, Nov 29) and #321 (Sun, Dec 18), both of which contain 32 words. Meanwhile, puzzle #89 (Sat, Apr 30) managed to remain as the smallest word search puzzle, with just 10 words.

✓ Overall, Sundays' puzzles had the most words (21.3 in average grid), whereas Mondays' puzzles had the fewest words (14.2 in average grid).

✓ For Saturdays (since April 9), Iran is now the country with the most appearances, with 15. Meanwhile, Oman appeared 14 times, Italy appeared 13 times, and India appeared 12 times.

2. Puzzle Size Distribution

So far (as of December 18), we have had:

✓ 30 "mini" puzzles (≤12 words);

✓ 92 "small" puzzles (13~16 words);

✓ 79 "medium" puzzles (17~20 words);

✓ 65 "large" puzzles (21~25 words); and

✓ 27 "extra large" puzzles (≥26 words).

The following is a more detailed distribution of puzzle sizes.

3. Total & Average Number of Words by Week

Want to know which week in the past month had the highest number of words? Allow me to present a new stat! The numbers of words in all word search grids, as well as the average numbers of words per grid, of each week are listed below:

4. Average Words per Grid by Weekday

The following table summarizes the average number of words per grid for each weekday, as well as how they compare with last month:

As you can see, all weekdays went up a little over the last month!

5. Measures of Spread

Now let's take a look at the variance (a measure of how spread out the data are) of the number of words in each weekday's puzzles, as well as how they compare with last month:

0. Caveats

Before we dive into the stats for the letters, let me point out a few things:

- These data are for letters in the words, not the grids.

- Only words from April 9 onwards are included since that's when I started collecting data.

- For Sundays, the actual words are used instead of the clues.

1. Overview

✓ From April 9 (#68) to December 18 (#321), there were 4,675 total words in all puzzles (excluding the numbers in puzzle #81) made up of 28,601 individual letters. The average word length now stands at approximately 6.12 letters (same as last month), and there are now about 113.0 letters per puzzle (an increase from last month).

✓ Overall, Tuesdays' puzzles had the most letters in them (129 in average puzzle). Mondays' puzzles, as always, had the fewest letters in them (78 in average puzzle).

✓ The puzzle with the most letters is still puzzle #195 (Sun, Aug 14) with 249 letters. Meanwhile, puzzle #189 (Mon, Aug 8) remains the smallest puzzle in terms of the number of letters, with just 52 (again, that's excluding puzzle #81, which was all numbers).

✓ The letters A and E have managed to continue dominating the word searches. Since April 9, they have appeared 3,522 and 2,953 times respectively. Just these two letters alone have accounted for nearly a quarter (or 22.6%, to be precise) of all letters in the puzzles' words!

✓ Over the last month, the letters D and U topped 1,000 occurrences. So far, 11 of the 26 letters (A, D, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U), including all five vowels, have reached this milestone. Among the other letters, M is closest to 1,000 - currently at 962 occurrences, only 38 away.

2. Average Letters per Puzzle by Weekday

The following table summarizes the average number of letters per puzzle for each weekday, as well as how they compare with last month:

3. Table of Letter Occurrences and Percentages

The following is a detailed table summarizing the number of occurrences of each letter, how they changed from last month, as well as the percentage that each letter accounts for:

With the calendar year ending, the first year of JetPunk's Daily Word Search (which runs from Feb 2022 - Jan 2023) is also nearing its end. Throughout 2022, Stewart (as well as a few other people) has enjoyed making the puzzles, I have enjoyed collating stats on the puzzles, and everyone has enjoyed playing the puzzles!

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2023!

Note: There will be no stats blog in January 2023 due to time constraints, but I do plan to make a "JPDWS Year in Review" for 2022/23, to be released in February. The next edition of the (monthly) stats blog will also come in February.

Update: This will be the final edition of the monthly stats blog series as Word Search will end after January 31, 2023.