The 106th anniversary of the creation of the “crossword” game, which was embraced and supported by newspapers, comes without its familiar glow, great popularity and entertaining influence, after it remained for nearly a century the enemy of the first void and the enjoyable haven from boredom and monotony in the time of the good people, amid questions about its chances of continuation in light of the massive revolution of games .
And because a generation came to the world during the era of programmed games and the huge technical revolution, it is ignorant of many of its details. It is worth mentioning here to define the rules of this mental intellectual game, which consists of several black and white squares in the form of a table containing columns and rows of empty squares, the aim of which is to fill in the white ones, and form words or phrases, by solving clues that lead to answers. Black squares are used to separate words or phrases. A number is placed for each row or column, then something similar to the word to be written in the squares is written in front of the number. Magazines and newspapers used to contain different types of this game, and newspapers mastered the methods of this game to entertain readers, while today, on the International Crossword Day, it has taken a different form and pattern. It is different after being picked up by smart phone applications and operating systems, in the presence of new competitors such as Sudoku and Kakuro games, among others.
The first game of crossword puzzles appeared in the American New York World newspaper on December 21, 1913, and it became one of the wonderful games in the United States, and from there it moved to the rest of the world, in various languages, and the first to introduce it to the press was Arthur Wayne.
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