How To Make A Basic Grid Quiz

(Last Updated On: June 28, 2019)

You may have already heard the news, but Sporcle now has a new quiz type – Grid quizzes! This new format is great for making crosswords, Sudokus, and many other types of word and number puzzles.

The tools used to make Grid quizzes are a little different than for other Sporcle quizzes, so before you get started making one of your own, it might help to have a little overview of some of the basics. This post will give you some tips to help you get started.

Getting Started – The Basics

First things first – navigate to the Quiz Management Dashboard and click the orange ‘Create a Sporcle Quiz’ button. Then enter some basic information about the quiz you’re making.

Quiz Name:
Start by typing in the name of your quiz. (Don’t worry, you can change this later if you want.)

Similar Quizzes:
If your quiz has already been made by another user, it will display in the ‘Similar Quizzes’ box below.

Quiz Type:
For ‘Quiz Type,’ choose ‘Grid’.

Grid Size:
You will also need to select the size of your grid. The grid size must be no less than 1×1 and no greater than 30×30. Number values must be separated with an ‘x’. (You can change the grid size later too.)

Once Your Draft Is Created

1. Game Info

Now that you’ve created the quiz, you’ll start off in the ‘Game Info’ tab. This should look familiar if you’ve made a Sporcle quiz before. Here you can edit the quiz game description, set the quiz URL, and adjust the quiz timer among other things. (Make sure to set a quiz category as well!)

2. Options

The ‘Options’ tab is where you can turn on/off quiz play features. For Grid quizzes, you can chose to do things like show number hints in your grid puzzle. You can also set when you want answers in your puzzle to reveal – on game end, on correct letter entry, or on complete and correct word entry.

3a. Data – Making a Basic Crossword Puzzle

The ‘Data’ tab is where things get a little more interesting. The quiz edit tools for Grid are unlike any other quiz editing tools on Sporcle.  

The first thing you might notice in this tab are a handful of tools above your newly created grid. This post won’t cover them all in depth, but you can hover your mouse above each for a description of what they do.

If you’re making a crossword puzzle, the two main tools you’ll need to concern yourself with are the Text tool and the Toggle tool.

The Text tool does just that – allows you to enter text. The text you enter into your grid will be the answers quiz players will guess. You can click through your grid to enter in various words. Using the space bar or double clicking while in your grid will cause the text orientation to shift between horizontal and vertical.

Once you have all your words entered, you can use the Toggle tool to fill in gaps. As you click in empty squares while using the Toggle tool, you’ll notice they become black. These will be blank spaces in your puzzle. You can also use the Symmetry tool to help fill in blank squares while using the Toggle tool – this will help your grid follow standard crossword symmetry rules.

After the grid is all set up, you can click the ‘Generate Crossword’ button. This will give you the ability to enter in hints that will correspond to the answers you want players to guess. Once you enter text for all your across hints, you can enter down hints as well. Furthermore, you can create new hint groups by clicking the Folder icon.

Like with other Sporcle quizzes, you can test your quiz by hitting ‘Test Quiz!’ button.

3b. Data – Making a Basic Sudoku or Number Game

In addition to making crossword puzzles, the Grid format is also useful for making Sudokus or other number games and puzzles.

Just like with making a crossword, you’ll need to start by entering your answers. Of course this time, they will be numbers.

Once you have entered in all your numbers, you can use the Grid tools to better format your puzzle. Clicking the Eye icon lets you mark cells to be prefilled at the start of the quiz.

You can also add some style to your grid by using the Background Color tool, and the Glyph tool, which lets you do things like make grid lines thicker and add shapes.

If you are unsatisfied with your quiz, you can always use the Grid extras tool to reset your cells, or to adjust your grid dimensions (click the gear icon in the Grid tools).

Finishing Up

Once you’ve created your puzzle and made sure everything looks good, you can wrap things up by adding a few appropriate tags. Make sure to give your quiz a few good tests to make sure everything is working as you expect it to, then you can move over to the ‘Finish Up’ tab, and select either ‘Launch Game to the Public’ or ‘Make Game Private’. Private quizzes are only viewable to you, or to others who have a direct URL link to it.

Hopefully you found this Grid quiz guide useful. If you’re interested in learning how to create other quiz types, be sure to read our other quiz creation guides.

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