How information theory saved my word game

4 days ago

The author is a software engineer who created a word game, Motplot, inspired by crosswords, where players deduce letter placements without guesswork.
Developing the game was challenging because generating deducible puzzles proved unexpectedly difficult due to confusability between cells, an issue related to Shannon's information theory.
The breakthrough came by applying Claude Shannon's concepts of signal noise and confusability graphs, allowing the generator to avoid ambiguous moves and produce thousands of solvable puzzles.
The game highlights how adding context resolves ambiguity, turning potentially unknowable letters into clear deductions, emphasizing simplicity without guesswork.

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