If you’ve ever wondered how I come up with quizzes, here’s a very long (and exceedingly boring) example. Earlier today I tried a new quiz from SproutCM called “First Letter Appearance Only”. It’s at http://www.sporcle.com/games/sproutcm/FirstLetterAppearance so please try it out.
SproutCM is a puzzling genius. He comes up with brilliant and genuinely new formats of puzzles more often than I brush my teeth. And the best thing about them is that they aren’t just “one-off” puzzles. They open up entire new genres of Sporcle puzzling. Ever play one of those Sporcle games where you have to connect linked items with a common theme from different columns? Or where words, names or titles are split across multiple columns? There’ve been about 50 or more of those recently. SproutCM invented those concepts.
Same with “Word Ladders” where each answer is just one letter different than the answer above.
The “First Letter” quiz is, I believe, going to be another such genre, and I admit, I want to be the first to exploit it. It’s a simple concept, which almost always makes the best kind of puzzle: take a category and select a number of items that fit the category, then removed all but the first appearance of any letter in that item. For example, if the category was U.S. Presidents, then “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” becomes “FRANKLIDEOSVT”.
Now one of the categories he had was “Billboard Charted Groups”, and, to be honest, I thought his clues were a bit, well, lame. I mean “BARENKDLIS” is a virtual gimme, right? So I started trying to come up with some I thought he could use to make the game a bit more of a challenge. I submitted several suggestions as a comment. (I was particularly fond of “THEMASNDP” for “The Mamas and Papas” and “NIECHALS” for Nine Inch Nails.) |
Double Letter States 
'O'-less States 
Unique 1st Letter States
