Hot Plates

Pencil-paper game from Equinox 58 -- "Hot Plates" by Sally Picciotto (Alice). Computer program by Brandon Nutter (Brampersandon)

This is based on the classic License Plates game, but in this version, computer-generated license plates appear every ten seconds on a screen, and there is no preference for shorter words.

Worksheet, with instructions
Hot Plates applet

License Plates

A wall game from Equinox 51:  License Plates by Henri Picciotto (Hot)

I used a computer to generate completely random trigrams, and printed a bunch on a page. The object is to come up with a word for each trigram, containing the three letters in order, but not necessarily consecutively. Example: DKG --> DucKinG. Best word is shortest. Among equal-length words, earlier in the alphabet is better.

I don't know the origin of this game, which is usually played using actual license plates, while driving.

Sample set: XTX, USL, JDO, CQZ, XNE, HVQ, SYI, ZLI, JMP, LEH. Any letter has an equal chance of showing up, so you have to deal with challenging trigrams such as XTX, some of which may yield nothing.

This was also played as a paper-pencil puzzle at Equinox 1 (with different plates, of course -- someone might remember the original set!)