JetPunk Word Search Puzzle Statistics - Updated to May 2022!

It's been almost a month since I wrote the last blog about the statistics for the puzzles of JetPunk's Daily Word Search, and I feel like this is the perfect time to write an updated version in which I share with you the latest stats and evaluate how things have changed since last month. Furthermore, I began collecting data of the letters that appear in the words as soon as I released the last blog (and after seeing Stewart's comment), so I'm going to share some of those too! Excited? Without further ado, let's get started!

1. Overview

✓ From March 1 (#29) to May 8 (#97), there were 1,229 total words in all grids. The average number of words per grid now stands at 17.8, which is similar to last month's level.

✓ Puzzle #41 (Sun, Mar 13) remains the largest word search puzzle, with 30 words. Meanwhile, the puzzle with the fewest words was puzzle #89 (Sat, Apr 30), with just 10 words.

✓ Overall, Sundays' puzzles had the most words (19.2 in average grid, a slight decrease compared to last month), whereas Mondays' puzzles had the fewest words (13.6 in average grid, also dropped slightly compared to last month).

✓ For Saturdays (since April 9), the following countries have appeared more than once: Benin (2), Chile (2), Ghana (3), India (4), Iraq (2), Ireland (2), Italy (3), Libya (2), Mali (2), Oman (2), Qatar (2), Samoa (2), Sudan (2), Uruguay (2).

2. Highest & Lowest

Just like last time, let's start by listing the top 5 puzzles with the most and fewest words:

3. 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:

4. 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:

As you may have already noticed, one of the most notable changes is that Saturdays' puzzles have become significantly more unpredictable in terms of the number of words in the grids.

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 May 8 (#97), there were 513 total words in all puzzles (excluding the numbers in puzzle #81) made up of 3,177 individual letters, implying an average word length of approximately 6.19 letters and an average of about 109.6 letters per puzzle.

✓ Overall, Fridays' puzzles had the most letters in them (149 in average puzzle, excluding #81), and Mondays' puzzles had the fewest letters in them (73 in average puzzle).

✓ The puzzle with the most letters was puzzle #80 (Thu, Apr 21), with an astounding 174 letters! Meanwhile, the puzzle with the fewest letters was puzzle #89 (Sat, Apr 30), with just 54 letters (excluding puzzle #81, which was all numbers).

✓ The letters A and E have dominated the word searches since data collection began on April 9. Over the 30-day period, they have appeared 403 and 322 times respectively. Just these two letters alone have accounted for nearly a quarter (or 22.8%, to be precise) of all letters in the puzzles' words!

2. Average Letters per Puzzle by Weekday

The following table summarizes the average number of letters per puzzle for each weekday:

3. Table of Letter Occurrences and Percentages

The following is a detailed table summarizing the number of occurrences of each letter, as well as the percentage that each letter accounts for:

In the past month we have seen lots of positive and neutral changes in the word search puzzles. As always, I am hoping to see even more improvements to this awesome daily minigame, and I'm also looking forward to compiling and sharing with you more stats in the future. Thanks for reading!