Word Search Round-Up - December 2022

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First published: Sunday January 1st, 2023

+48

Quick Links

Summary of Changes
Themes This Month
Quickfire Stats
One Year Later...

Summary of Changes

While no new features were introduced this month, we do have some rather sad news regarding the future of JetPunk Daily Word Search. See the end of the blog for more information.

Themes This Month

Below is a list of all the custom themes this month, outside of the normal expected ones (e.g. generic Geography and Saturday countries etc...)

#	Day	Theme
304	Thursday	Ice Things
305	Friday	Mariah Carey
307	Sunday	Alphabetical
308	Monday	Sports
309	Tuesday	Lakes
310	Wednesday	Verbs
311	Thursday	U.S. Presidents
312	Friday	Colors
314	Sunday	Anagrams
315	Monday	California
316	Tuesday	Rivers
318	Thursday	French Presidents
319	Friday	Avatar
321	Sunday	World Cup 2022
322	Monday	Languages
323	Tuesday	Mountains
324	Wednesday	'Ch' Words
325	Thursday	Christmas Movies
326	Friday	Christmas
328	Sunday	Christmas Songs
329	Monday	Boxing
330	Tuesday	Countries
332	Thursday	Logos
333	Friday	Elements

During December we had 24 custom themes, the most ever in a single month, thanks to all your suggestions on the previous blog!

My personal favourites this month were World Cup 2022 (since it contained every team in the finals) and also Elements as I was surprised the theme was never done yet!

Quickfire Stats

All 30 word searches were played over 100,000 times in total.
Logged-in users represent 58.2% of those takes.
83.9% of takes were submitted before the end of the day.
74.2% of takes achieved 100% status.
The easiest grid was Languages on December 19th, with 98.2% of people completing the grid.
Similarly the hardest grid was Saturday December 24th with 16.3% completion rate.
The hardest non-Saturday grid was Christmas Movies on Thursday December 22nd with 45.1% completion rate.
Over 22,000 unique people played a single word search this month.
349 people attempted the word search every single day in December!
Over 3,900 people played at least 7 of the word searches.
The first person to complete the word search each day was, as usual, dominated by Liam with 19 wins. Modestus was in second with 3 wins.
The fastest word search completed first was by Liam with just 42 seconds on December 26th! (Boxing).
The slowest first-completion was December 25th, being one of the largest Saturday grids. It took AnEverydayNerd8 7 minutes and 28 seconds to complete.
42 users achieved 100% in every grid of December.
The most-taken word search this month was #315 on December 12th California) with over 4,200 takes!

One Year Later...

We are soon approaching the 1 year anniversary of JetPunk Daily Word Search. When this endeavour began, with the very first puzzle on February 1st 2022, I did not expect it to perform so well and gain such a following. However, having now been taken over 1 million times, it is time for change.

I can confirm, that the final "normal" word search ever will occur on January 26th, being puzzle #360. Then, January 27th to January 31st will contain puzzles #361 to #365 (marking 1 year) which will be "mega" grids with 50+ words to find (or so).

Then, after January 31st, JWS will end and no longer be available. There will be no future word search after this. The primary decision fuelling this is the fact that creating a word search every day has become too much of a burden on me, and it cannot continue much longer without taking its toll.

After January 31st, there will be the usual "round-up" blog and then a special blog afterwards with stats for the whole year of word search. Including a leaderboard of the top users, as well as users that attempted every single word search. If you have specific stats you would like to see on this, please let me know.

I am sorry it is coming to an end, but I hope you can understand.

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Level 60

Jan 1, 2023

Awww, RIP. Completely understandable though, props to you for keeping up with this for a year.

+23

Level 66

Jan 1, 2023

Aww that's too bad, but definitely understandable, it must have been a massive challenge to create one every day for a whole year! Perhaps it could be brought back to a weekly, or fortnightly word search instead?

Level 23

Jan 1, 2023

RIP

Level 66

Jan 1, 2023

All good things must end someday. RIP.

+13

Level 63

Jan 1, 2023

Maybe you could pass on the challenge of creating one to the community, and have a submission page where a random search gets selected each day, week, or whatever you want. I just think it would be cool to have such a fun part of JetPunk in the hands of the people. If nothing works out, it was fun while it lasted. Until a possible future day when something with as great a magnitude as the word search comes, I think it's time to let one the greatest things to have ever graced JetPunk come to an end. So long Word Search, you will be missed.

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

I had considered the option of user submissions, but the time it would take to develop something friendly-enough to be usable, and also having to verify the ones I'd "feature", it felt like it would not save on the amount of work.

Level 60

Jan 1, 2023

That's too bad :(

Is there any hope of automation in the future?

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

As much as I could was already automated. Unfortunately, we can't show randomly generated puzzles each day because the generator is.not good enough for that. (it always requires the human touch)

Level 55

Jan 24, 2023

Would it be easier to automate if the uncrossed letters didn't make a coherent sentence?

Level 68

Jan 24, 2023

No, not at all. In fact many of the early ones didn't have this "feature". The problem is making a coherent grid which doesn't look "bad". For example avoiding adjacent lines, maximising intersections etc...

I have spent several hours in the past improving this automation as much as possible, but there's just no way to get good enough grids solely from it. There's always human modification required.

Level 24

Jan 26, 2023

Maybe you could let users make word searches as a quiz type

Level 68

Jan 26, 2023

This is a potential idea for the future, but it would be a massive undertaking development wise, as making a new quiz type always takes many weeks / months to create.

Level 50

Jan 1, 2023

Looks like Simon1006s prediction coming true!

Also RIP

Level 50

Jan 1, 2023

We'll see if it actually gets replaced by something else. If it does, I think the replacement will be in a similar one-per-day format but automatically generated

~~Also RIP my prediction of DWS getting 1.5m takes this year~~

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

It will not be replaced by something else daily, because that does not change anything I said at the bottom (of time commitment).

Level 43

Jan 2, 2023

Maybe a new minigame?

Level 65

Jan 3, 2023

Being replaced by nothing is still replaced ;).

Sad it's coming to an end, but totally understandable and I fully support your decision

Level 71

Jan 2, 2023

I hate how the Word Search is ending after only a year, but I understand. Also, sorry to nitpick, but on todays word search near the bottom of the page regarding this announcement, you put the wrong year, should be January 31st 2023.

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

Oops! Still not used to 2023 yet. I will fix it

Level 83

Jan 2, 2023

While I'm sad to see this go, your sanity and wellbeing come first. No reason to burn yourself out on word finds. Hope to see it make a comeback with a team of volunteers, perhaps. Thank you for all the fun!

Level 54

Jan 2, 2023

Well, news are pretty... unfortunate, but I guess that most of us knew that it has to be the case one day or another, and the first birthday of the DWS is probably the best occasion to do that.

So thank you very much for all the grids! I'm sure that the last ones won't disappoint us. And good luck with the new challenges that you probably have for 2023!

About the stats provided next month ~~(you will be surprise)~~, since the DWS is in English, I would be interested in knowing what proportion of the takes were not by English-speaking users (JetPunk profile not set in English), and why not a short ranking for every featured languages, like you do each year with quizmakers for example. But I'm not sure if these data are easily collectable. Else, I'm sure that I won't be disappointed, the stats you give are always very interesting.

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

I will take a look into language-stats for this, don't worry :)

Level 70

Jan 2, 2023

Well, as sad as that is, it had to happen.

I join the other users to thank you for the extra fun this minigame brought to JetPunk and for the energy you put in providing us these great grids over the past months. Congrats for your relentless involvement in this great project!

As for the statistics, I would be curious to know the top countries DWS grids were taken, if available :)

Level 88

Jan 2, 2023

Thanks for all the fantastic work you do on this site.

Level 57

Jan 2, 2023

The fact that it stayed for one year is already awesome ! I think a lot of people had great fun playing those, but I can definitely understand that making one each day can be boring after a while.

Thank you for your great work !

Level 70

Jan 2, 2023

Aww, I thought Dan collaborated with you on Word Searches. This has been a great adventure, but, like others, it has to end someday. Thanks and stay well.

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

Nope Dan has never done anything towards the Word Searches. Thanks though!

Level 78

Jan 2, 2023

Whilst I am sad to see this feature go, I try to take it most days, I completely understand.

When I made my "On This Day" series of quizzes in 2020 the work involved almost took over my entire day. I was working through the lockdowns of that year as well and researching questions in my lunch break, or any spare time, then compiling the quizzes at home later.

I'm definitely looking forward to the final few mega grids though.

Shameless plug, but my quizzes are still available, one for each day including Feb29. They will be updated next year 2024 (leap year). Sorry for hijacking your comment section Stewart!

Level 58

Jan 2, 2023

It's sad. Thank you for all the effort you put into making this segment, it is very appreciated. You made me create a regime for myself that started with daily word search and I loved it. But all good things come to an end! Love you!

Level 43

Jan 2, 2023

How bad... can't you at least have a page where you can play all the JDWS as a tribute?

Level 68

Jan 2, 2023

Once a word search was released and gone it is gone forever!

Level 43

Jan 2, 2023

Well I guess SVGs of Word Searches wouldn’t be a bad idea for a project of mine. Maybe once by week. I have some ideas for this year, and I’m putting them into practice. I just don’t know if I’ll make through it.

Level 68

Jan 3, 2023

I already have a large quiz series from a few years ago with svg word searches, they do okay but they pale in comparison to the minigame because of the typing limitation.

Level 66

Jan 3, 2023

Had no idea that Stewart created these each day. Thanks for the fun.

Level 57

Jan 5, 2023

Sad that its going, but kudos to you for doing these every day for a year. Great job Stewart.

Level 70

Jan 5, 2023

would you be able to implement something like a big word search with like 100 words once a month, and it could be something like a summary of the month crossword style

Level 65

Jan 5, 2023

Thank you for making these - they are always a bright spot in my day! I wish it were possible to archive them, especially considering the amount of work it must have been to create them.

Level 59

Jan 6, 2023

Maybe make it possible to do old word searches? Is this already possible somehow?

Will there be weekly word search, or some other longer interval?

The DWS was great while it lasted tho!

Level 68

Jan 6, 2023

It is not currently possible, no there won't be weekly ones. Thanks

Level 67

Jan 6, 2023

That's sad to hear. I always did the word search before doing any quizzes whenever I logged in to JetPunk.

Level 46

Jan 6, 2023

Can we see an overview of January word searches?

Level 68

Jan 6, 2023

You will get a Round-Up at the end of January as usual anyway

Level 63

Jan 7, 2023

could it be possible to at least get acces to past world searches? i joined somewhere around half a year ago so i wasnt able to try them and i would love to

Level 55

Jan 20, 2023

Same, I would like to see, for instance, if all word searches' uncrossed letters make a sentence. And also take them:)

Level 67

Jan 7, 2023

I thought it was some really clever software that came up with the words

Level 67

Jan 7, 2023

The word searches have been the main reason for coming back to JetPunk on a daily basis.

Level 63

Jan 8, 2023

Thanks for all the work you put into these Stewart! Always a fun change from quizzes (not that I'm complaining about quizzes or anything) and I love doing them!

PS is today's message MOZAMBEE???

Edit : I meant the Jan 7 one.

What happened to the Jan 8 one!!?? It's not there!!! I'm hyperventilating!!!!

Level 68

Jan 8, 2023

Yes to Jan 7th. And Jan 8th is a very clear example of why this needs to stop. I have been busy and exhausted all week and didn't get a chance to make Sunday's grid. So for 4.5 hours it did not exist.

Level 50

Jan 8, 2023

Just curious: how long does it normally take to make a word search grid?

Level 68

Jan 8, 2023

Anywhere from 10 minutes for a Saturday grid (since it's always countries) to several hours for a Thursday one (having to research words, images etc... takes a long time).

Level 63

Jan 9, 2023

Oh that's OK. you work hard on these, that's for sure

Level 50

Jan 8, 2023

I'm coming on this site mainly because of the World Search and if you break it down I won't succeed my 365 day streak :(

Level 71

Jan 9, 2023

Way fun! My morning coffee won't be the same, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted, so thank you for putting it out there.

Level 68

Jan 10, 2023

Thanks! Glad it could provide enjoyment for you daily :)

Level 28

Jan 11, 2023

would it be possible to upload these as permanent quizzes after jan 31? or at least the mega quizzes?

thank you for doing all this by the way ;-;

Level 65

Jan 15, 2023

Cheers Stewart, enjoyed doing them and probably learned a bit along the way! Thanks for all your efforts making them.

Level 68

Jan 15, 2023

Just now I noticed the bottom line regarding the ending of the DWS.

That’s sad to see it goes, but of course the mental sanity of the developer comes first.

Thanks for all your effort Stewart. I used to think it was generated automatically by a supersmart AI or such thing.

I’ll end my streak a little bit before 100 takes. Regret not having noticed it before… July or August. Just like many others, it brought back me here every day. It will be missed.

Level 68

Jan 15, 2023

Glad you enjoyed it! And glad to hear I was able to simulate being a supersmart AI :)

Level 20

Jan 19, 2023

are word searches archived? i would love to go back and play any old ones ive missed

Level 65

Jan 22, 2023

Making them freely playable in the future would be a great idea.

Level 69

Jan 24, 2023

It was great fun, thanks for taking the time to do these!

Level 68

Jan 24, 2023

You're welcome! Only 1 weeks' worth left now :O

Level 69

Jan 29, 2023

This is depressing news

Level 81

Jan 30, 2023

Just fifty words are left till it is over... :) :(

Level 67

Jan 31, 2023

As all good things must come to an end, so must JetPunk's Daily Word Search puzzles.

Level 70

Jan 31, 2023

And these were very good things.

I am both happy and sad to have finished this final grid. The last occasion to thanks Stewart for the great job done til the end!

Level 44

Jan 31, 2023

damn final one is here

Level 47

Jan 31, 2023

really sad to see it go but amazing work, it was always a lot of fun!

Level 65

Jan 31, 2023

A big thanks to Quizmaster for the amazing word search every day! I enjoyed searching for the words the last year. I understand the effort it took every day to make this puzzle. The themes and the series within it were wonderful as well. Keep up the good work, because you are doing absolutely amazing!

Level 68

Jan 31, 2023

Ahem, just to clarify, but Quizmaster has had no involvement with Word Search, and has only even played a single one (the first one) to test it.

Every single Word Search (except 3, made by users) was made by myself.

Level 64

Jan 31, 2023

Thank you for all the DWS, I liked every one I played and it is understandable that you stop.

Take care of you, you made a great job.

Level 68

Jan 31, 2023

Thank you! Glad I could provide some enjoyment for you

Level 63