The Week in Puzzles and Games (November 2nd)

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There’s a lot going on in the intertwined worlds of puzzles and games, so let’s skip the intro and get to it.

The End of The Independent Crossword

Despite the outcry of support and messages and kind words about The Independent‘s daily cryptic crossword, there is no sign that The Independent will be reversing their decision. Which sadly means that the 31st was the final crossword.

It’s a loss for solvers, setters, and the puzzle community in general, but there have been some lovely posts and tributes in honor of The Independent crossword’s legacy, so I want to share a few here.

I think bluesky user Jalata covered everyone’s feelings with this post.

Setter Methuselah shared this cryptic in honor of the setters of The Independent.

Setter Phi posted about the intertwined history of The Independent and his puzzles. You should absolutely make time to read this piece.

And setter Bard shared this terrific picture from the York Sloggers & Betters event this year, featuring two dozen setters! What a lovely way to send off this influential outlet.

Farewell, Independent‘s daily cryptic crossword. You will be missed.

David Kwong’s The Puzzle Room Returns for Season 2!

If you enjoy interactive puzzle-solving and magic tricks, The Puzzle Room on Netflix is right up your alley.

David Kwong — crossword constructor, magician, and all-around expert in baffling people with both words and visuals — has already dazzled audiences with 26 episodes of this show, and it turns out they’re already filming Season 2!

David shared some of his thoughts and a bit of behind the scenes detail on his mailing list. Here’s a snippet:

Every episode is a real labor of love. Leading up to each shoot day, the producers and I research our guests and build out the interviews. Producer (and resident genius) Dave Shukan, whom I call the Puzzle Wizard Behind the Curtain, oversees the puzzles and games.

For me, though, the most challenging part of the show is the weekly magic trick. John Stessel, Chris Chelko, and I set out to create original, TV-friendly magic: effects that haven’t been done before and that hold up on camera (and, ideally, against exposure online, though nothing is truly safe anymore). Coming up with new magic on such a tight turnaround keeps me on my toes, and you’ll often find me testing tricks on unsuspecting folks at my local cafe or at the Magic Castle.

I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen so far from The Puzzle Room, so congratulations to them on the upcoming season 2!

Puzzmo’s Jubilee Continues!

What a celebration it has been so far! Four new games have been launched: (not) solitaire, Draw 2 Solitaire, FlipFlop Solitaire, and FreeCell.

Plus they’ve made an All Games page (so all their puzzle game options are available) and a customizable Playlist feature so you can make sure only your favorite puzzles are waiting for you daily, no scrolling or sifting required.

The Puzzmonauts have plenty to celebrate and keep themselves busy with, and I suspect the team at Puzzmo isn’t done with the surprises yet before the year is out.

No Westwords Tournament in 2027

There’s loads of exciting crossword tournament news for 2027, including the debut of two new tournaments, the Rain City Crossword Tournament and the Canadian Crossword Open.

But sadly, yesterday it was announced that the team behind the Westwords tournament will not be hosting a Westwords event in 2027.

Although this is disappointing news, we wish all the best to the incredible team that has shepherded Westwords for the last three years, and we hope 2027 is kind to all of them.

The team also shared one of the best resources for tournament solvers, this awesome spreadsheet, for those looking to engage in some tournament solving fun next year.

Two Puzzle Game Sites to Try Out!

One of the coolest things about running PuzzCulture is getting to learn about new puzzles and creators in the puzzle space. Several enterprising constructors have reached out to me recently, and I’m pleased to help spread the word about their puzzly endeavors.

The first is Word Burger from Joyella Studios.

Word Burger is a daily vocabulary challenge where you come up with as many words that start with one particular letter and end with another particular letter. Those letters are the buns, and you need to fill the burger with words!

For example, the top bun could be U and the bottom bun E, and you need to type everything from UPDATE to UNITE.

There’s a 60-second version and a Slow Cook version if you want to take your time.

You can try it out on the Word Burger website, and it’s also available for iPhone and Android!

My other recommendation for you today is Movie Horse.

In this movie trivia game, everyone starts with the same movie, and you have to name an actor from that movie. The game then picks another movie featuring that actor, and you name another actor.

On and on it goes, until you’ve either completed ten links or you’ve exhausted your five misses (either through clicking pass or guessing wrong) and you’ve spelled MOVIE (like spelling HORSE in basketball).

I’ve mentioned playing something similar to this with friends for years now, but I love seeing it gameified like this. You can test your skills against friends, and even see some of the most obscure connections made by other players through the Movie Horse Instagram.

It’s cool to see how many different pathways to success players can take, based on their movie and actor choices.

Click here to try it out for yourself!

To close out today’s post, let’s enjoy something puzzly and seasonal with Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, California.

Launched in 2003, the Cool Patch Pumpkins corn maze revitalized the Cooley brothers pumpkin business, attracting loads of new eyes.

They’ve even been honored twice by the Guinness Book of World Records, including in 2007 for “World’s Largest Temporary Corn Maze.” (Gotta love the specificity there.)

It supposedly takes between 90 minutes and 2 hours to complete the maze, which spans dozens of acres!

Check out their website here for more details.

Did I miss any puzzly news or fun board game stories from the last few weeks? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.

Answers to the Punny Costume Challenge!

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Halloween has come and gone, but the creativity and the glorious puns remain.

Let’s check out the punny answers to Friday’s game!

#1

It’s one of the Arctic Monkeys!

#2

It’s the Ghost of Christmas Present!

#3

It’s Oscar Myers! (Oscar Mayer + Michael Myers)

#4

It’s the Good Shepherd!

#5

It’s Pepto Bis-MAUL! (Pepto Bismol + Darth Maul)

#6

It’s the Holy Roman Umpire!

#7

It’s Secretari-IT! (Secretariat + IT)

#8

It’s Rosey the Riveter! (Rosey the robot + Rosie the riveter)

#9

It’s Scare Horrorwitz!
(The Simpsons would be proud of this doubly-spooky pun for Cher Horowitz.)

#10

She’s a steam-pumpkin! (Steampunk + pumpkin)

How many did you get? Have you seen any great punny costumes we missed? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

A Bonus Edgar Allan Poe-st (Puzzle to Solve!)

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This grid, sadly, was too ambitious for my puzzly skills...

Our traditional Halloween Punny Costume Game went up yesterday, but for the crossword aficionados, I have cooked up a little something in honor of the spookiest day of the year.

I’m not much of an artist, but I did try to do a puzzle grid pixel art rendition of one of the classic eerie authors in today’s grid.

In addition to the theme entries, I also placed the title of one of his puzzliest works in the left side of the grid reading down, and a word we all associate with him in the right side of the grid reading down.

I hope you enjoy today’s puzzle. It’s to die for! (In a sinister and ironic way, of course.)

[Click here to download a PDF of the puzzle!]

Happy puzzling, everyone! And Happy Halloween!

A Punny Costume Challenge Full of Tricks and Treats for Halloween!

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Happy (almost) Halloween, fellow puzzlers!

One of the best things about Halloween is guessing what people’s costumes are. Clever costumes can be great fun, and I’m a huge fan of costumes that only cost a few bucks to put together, because they really let your creativity shine through.

Punny costumes lend themselves to the low-budget costume genre brilliantly. So it’s only appropriate that we celebrate Halloween in the puzzliest way possible — by looking at some punny costumes!

It’s simple. I post a picture, and you guess what the costume is.

For example:

She’s a deviled egg!

I’ve compiled ten costumes for you to figure out. Some are mashups, some are straightforward puns. Let’s see how many you can get!

PuzzCulture’s Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

#1

#2

#3

#4

Our first dog costume! (Redacted to hide the pun.)

#5

(Redacted to make the pun less obvious.)

#6

#7

Again, redacted to hide the pun.

#8

#9

#10

How many did you get? Have you seen any great punny costumes we missed? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you. And Happy Halloween!

Product Review: Seas of Havoc

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[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review.]

The life of a pirate isn’t all about gold and raiding and gold and avoiding the authorities and gold and gold. It’s also about building a name for yourself. And the greatest pirates, the most feared, the most successful, they aren’t just famous… they’re INFAMOUS.

And that’s the goal of every pirate sailing the, uh, one sea in Seas of Havoc: gaining the most infamy through deeds both impressive and treacherous.

Seas of Havoc is a game for 2-5 players that is part resource management and part combat tactics.

The gameplay alternates between an Island Phase (where your skiffs gather resources from the Market or the islands surrounding the sea) and a Sea Phase (where the pirates maneuver their main ship around the board to wage war and damage their opponents’ vessels and reputations).

There is no set number of rounds in Seas of Havoc. Instead, the game ends whenever the damage deck has been depleted during a Sea Phase. That phase is completed by the players, and then they total up their infamy.

I quite like the fact that player choices (and not an arbitrary number of rounds) determines the end of play. It adds agency and urgency to the proceedings.

Now, you CAN play the game by acquiring infamy through upgrading and collecting cards and trying to avoid combat, but you’d be playing with one arm tied behind your back. Cannonball attacks and ship ramming are such big components of the gameplay that you can’t really win unless you’re at least a little bit of a bastard, if not a right bastard of a scurvy seadog.

I know adversarial games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, so it’s worth noting there is another way to play Seas of Havoc as a solo or a collaborative game, where you (or you and your fellow players) tackle the threat of the Ghost Fleet.

I did enjoy the collaborative version of the game against the Ghost Fleet — I’m an easy mark for cooperative gameplay that’s the players vs. the game — but I also absolutely had a blast seeing how ruthless I could be against a band of friends going whole hog with cannonballs. (Especially when we grabbed some LEGO cannons and actually started firing at each other like proper scalawags.)

Speaking of cannonballs, I need to highlight how much thought clearly went into all the physical components of this game. The cards are high quality, all of the materials are sturdy, and this feels like a game that will endure many playthroughs without wear and tear.

And the designs help with your immersion! The spinning wheel on the character board, the ship pieces, and especially the flattened edge on the cannonballs… all terrific, creative choices. (I am so glad the cannonballs aren’t round, what a nightmare that would’ve been.)

That level of care means a lot to me as a board game fan, and clearly it means a lot to the team at Rock Manor Games.

Factor in the different ships and captains (allowing for great replay value as you try out various combinations) and this is a game meant to challenge newcomers and experienced players alike across many sessions at the table.

Seas of Havoc delivers exactly what it promises: chaos on land and on deck as a band of avaricious pirates scheme and smash and blast their way into high-seas history.

The mix of all-out combat with carefully tracking and taking advantage of resources offers multiple levels of gameplay that keep either phase of the game from dragging on too long.

Don’t wait for Talk Like a Pirate Day. Give this one a shot soon.

[Seas of Havoc is for ages 14 and up, and it’s available from Rock Manor Games and participating websites, starting at $60. It can also be found in this year’s Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide, coming soon!]

Cracking the Cipher of “The Subtelty of Witches” Was Just the Beginning!

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I started the Halloween season off by discussing the dubious claim of TikTok witches that they’d solved the Voynich Manuscript.

So it feels apropos to close out the Halloween season with a post about two women who actually unraveled some of the mysteries surrounding an encrypted manuscript involving witches!

This video by Kat Saturn details the fascinating journey she and Rian Hagebeuk embarked upon to unravel the secrets of a book entitled “The Subtelty of Witches,” supposedly published in 1657.

It was one of the longest encrypted works of the period, and yet, it sat in the British Library for decades without anyone digging into the cipher or the manuscript’s contents.

In 2018, Kat stumbled across “The Subtelty of Witches” in a list of encrypted manuscripts, and started investigating.

Along the way, she teamed up with Rian, whose facility with Latin helped immensely in unraveling the manuscript’s true contents. They reached out to professionals and fellow amateurs alike, delving deep down the rabbit hole of this manuscript.

Along the way, she and Rian determined:

  • the year was incorrect (the text is actually OLDER)
  • the contents of the manuscript had nothing to do with witches (it’s a list of verbs in Latin and Dutch from a Calepino dictionary)
  • the cipher was consistently applied throughout (meaning it’s unlikely this was a practice exercise for improving the author’s facility with the cipher)
  • the real mystery of this text wasn’t in the cipher…

It was in the book’s creation and reason for existing at all.

The cipher was easily cracked — a one-to-one substitution cipher wouldn’t deter even a casual puzzler — but so many questions still remain.

Who was the author? Why was the manuscript titled this? Why were a dictionary’s partial contents encoded? What is the meaning behind the cover stamp?

Like some of the more puzzly mysteries we’ve pursued in the blog over the years, there’s always more to uncover once the puzzly part is resolved.

I purposely haven’t gone into too much actual detail — hopefully I’ve included just enough to give you a sense of the story here and pique your interest — because I think you should take the time to watch Kat’s entire video. It’s always best to hear from the creators themselves!

This story is the perfect counterpoint to the Voynich discussion a few weeks ago.

I made a point in that post of highlighting that I wasn’t throwing shade at nonprofessionals in scholarly fields. I simply wanted something more reliable than “this looks like this, so they must be related” and wild conjecture.

And Kat and Rian’s work is exactly what I was talking about.

Kat and Rian aren’t professionals, they’re enthusiastic amateurs, but they are scholars nonetheless. They’ve done fantastic, reproducible work, drawing reasonable and insightful conclusions from verifiable data.

They’ve thoroughly and meticulously documented their steps, they’re continuing to pursue leads, and they have genuinely, impactfully contributed to both awareness of the manuscript and the facts surrounding it.

Heck, they published a peer-reviewed paper on the manuscript, and you should absolutely check it out.

TikTok witches and Voynich Manuscript enthusiasts, please take note: this is the way.

Do you have any theories about “The Subtelty of Witches,” fellow puzzlers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.