It became a popular desktop app, and then a mobile game as companies developed ways for people to play at any time or create their own word search puzzles.

From these humble beginningsĪs a twenty by twenty puzzle with the names of Oklahoma cities, teachers mailed it to other teacher friends around the country and the distribution blossomed into the ubiquitous presence we know today.Īs the puzzles grew in popularity, syndicators created books of puzzles and they found wide-spread adoption in newspapers around the world. Teachers in local schools began to realise that this is an ideal puzzle format to keep kids focused, and asked Gibat for extra copies. The puzzle was immediately very popular, and several more These humble beginnings in a small want-ad digest in a small town, was distributed free to other stores in town. He is normally credited with their invention in the US, although a Spanish puzzle creator was publishing what he called a 'Soup of letters' before that. Gibat originally designed and published the first word search puzzle in 1968 in Norman, Oklahoma. This makes word search puzzles quite new in comparison with crosswords, sudoku or most other word games.Īccording to Wikipedia, Norman E. Where did it all begin? Word searches seem like such a commonly played and popular puzzle that you might find it hard to believe that they were only created in 1968!

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