A variant crossword puzzle. In this puzzle, the clues are all very short, so that they can be written into the black squares. (These squares, at least in the American examples I have seen, are shaded lightly in another color -- pink, in GAMES -- rather than being black.) The squares are a bit larger than is typical, but the puzzle can use the entire page -- and it usually does.

This puzzle format was popular in the Scandinavian countries, but it became known in the U.S. only after GAMES Magazine started printing them. The first U.S. examples appear in GAMES Special Edition no. 1, summer 1987 * (a precursor to the current GAMES World of Puzzles). The first issue of GAMES Deluxe, August/September 1987, also had Pencil Pointers in the Pencilwise Plus section (which was the only Pencilwise to have red/pink printing at that time).

User ThePope tells me these are called "Swedish puzzles" in Dutch.

A few unchecked squares are typical in this sort of puzzle. In addition, it is customary to try to make every black square have a clue. The left and top edges are full of black squares to provide clues to the words at these edges of the grid, but where a black square on the edge has interior black squares adjacent to it, it is customary for one of the words in an adjacent row to run all the way to the edge of the grid, and an arrow indicates the clue for this word (written in the "enclosed" black square).


* There is no actual issue date on this issue, but the special editions came out 4 times a year. The first issue is a summer theme and is dated 1987 on the masthead. Later, they started using issue dates of the form "season year" that are consistent with this issue being summer 1987.

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