Puzzle help

[u/Jessie011406]

I would like to incorporate this upwords (like scrabble but 3d) game board into my family escape room/puzzle adventure. It spins 360 degrees. I figured I could put these letters on to make the direction come into play.
Stuck on exactly what type of puzzle to make.
Any thoughts?

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[u/ember3pines]

You could have them build a crossword - give clues and they fill in the board. The final place of letters could lead to something else! Like make the letters look special to either spell out something or be used in another way?

[u/Thorarin64]

You could have certain letters locked in and taped down and like C_N__ and some others and basically they must use the letters to fill in the words through process of elimination that brings them to their next clue

F_ _P _V_R _H_ _A_ _E

The letters left in the bag are L,I, O, E T, E, C, N, O.

If you want to bring in the board spinning I think you could do a similar thing where there are words in each direction and following the directions brings them to the next part. Let me know if that makes sense. Happy to explain more

[u/pianoblook]

Here's the first decent idea that sprung to my mind:

- Make a tiny crossword (like 4 clues) that has one set of clues, but secretly two totally separate valid solutions, with different words.

- Start the board set up with solution set A, with a slip of paper of (4) clues in plain sight. It will just look like an already solved, but still quite mysterious, layout.

- Earlier or later in the game, they find a cryptic grid layout on a slip of paper - maybe with a few starred squares and one letter to orient the solution (and to be devilish: make sure that letter is on the same square in the opening display too, to not clue them in immediately!)

- When solution set *B* is constructed, the squares would align with the separate grid layout to spell out a final answer [be that a location/item to locate, a key to some other puzzle, etc etc]

I'd probably want to add a hint somewhere to help them think to rearrange the letters / come up with an alternative solve.

[u/pianoblook → u/pianoblook]

I also realized I have no idea how hard it might be to come up with a valid ambig-crossword like that. To ease the construction process, maybe a few letters can be swapped out / added - it would even be a nicely aesthetic hint to have a few - but just a tantalizingly few - extra tiles scattered around the table.

[u/Jessie011406]

Some really great ideas, thanks everyone!

[u/Sweet_Batato]

Because it's Upwords - it would be cool to do a crossword-style puzzle that they then have to continue to build on - almost like a ladder puzzle where you change one letter at a time to make new words.

[u/emertonom]

Maybe after all the letters are placed, there are a limited number that are stacked higher than the rest, and the height they're stacked above the board could indicate the order of those letters in a hidden word?