That Word Game

With Hofstadter’s mention of the word puzzle game “Jumble” my eyebrows raised. My grandfather had introduced me to the daily “Jumble” when I was around fifteen years old. Since that time I have always had a fascination with word games. But I never really gave any thought about the process that I used in solving the puzzles that I played.

On thinking of my three favorite word games, “Jumble”, “Scrabble”, and “Boggle”, I wonder if my process for creating words in those games is the same for each or if there is major variation. I suppose that in particular with “Scrabble” I tend to separate the letter tiles into consonants and vowels, until a good word can be arranged. But in “Jumble” and “Boggle” I think that I try to chunk the letters more like Hofstadter suggested into words that are possible solutions.
I look forward to learning more about Jumbo and Hofstadter’s rational for solving anagrams. Over the course of Hofstadter’s conversation on anagrams I am going to make a conscious effort to compare his process in solving and my own. It will be interesting to learn where our processes are the same and where they differ.

Here are some links to the word games mentioned above.

Jumble: http://www.jumble.com
Boggle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggle
Scrabble: http://www.hasbro.com/scrabble/en_US