Category Archives: Games

A 9-letter word for candy and costume-fueled fun.

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Greetings, fellow puzzle solvers and enigma enthusiasts! Happy Halloween to you and yours!

I had a lot of fun a few weeks ago scouring the Internet for pictures of puzzle-centric tattoos, and with today being the most costume-y of holidays (unless you dress up for Bastille Day or the Fourth of July or something), I thought I’d wander back out into the wilds of the Internet and see what kind of puzzly costumes are out there.

Naturally, I would be remiss if I didn’t post at least one picture of the most famous of the puzzly supervillains from pop culture, so here is your prescribed dose of Batman villain The Riddler, nabbed from deviantart.com’s Dubya87.

Now, when you’re doing any sort of puzzle-focused image searching on the Internet, you’re bound to get jigsaws as well as pen-and-paper puzzles.

There were numerous examples of couples, pairs, and groups going as interlocking jigsaw puzzle pieces, but that’s not really the sort of puzzle costume I was going for. Nonetheless, this jigsaw puzzle costume rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night is really impressive, so I’ll share it with the puzzle world at large anyway.

But let’s get down to business. Puzzle costume business, which I daresay is the best kind of business, outside of being paid to eat ice cream.

Astonishingly, there’s simply not a lot of crossword-themed costume play going on. I know! I was surprised too! I did, however, find these crossword grid-patterned pajamas, which could easily double as a costume, or examwear for a tardy college student.

From crosswords, it’s a quick hop to Scrabble costumes, which seem to be much more popular!

This was my favorite of the “replicating the board” costumes I found.

And, naturally, there’s an awkward mass-produced costume along the same lines, which looks both uncomfortable and a bit too pillowy for my tastes.

From there, we get into the more creative interpretations. This woman seems inordinately proud of her Scrabble board dress.

This homemade dress is absolutely adorable. I only wish I’d been able to find a better picture.

And, as above, there’s a “sassy” mass-produced version of the Scrabble dress.

(There’s a more scandalous variation on that costume as well, but for propriety’s sake, let’s ignore that and move onward.)

Sudoku! While not as popular a costume choice as Scrabble, I still had little trouble tracking down several choice examples of sudokuriffic costumes. (Though I really doubt that’s a puzzle of three-star difficulty.)

I’m not sure how racially sensitive this guy’s Sudoku accoutrements are, but it certainly adds some flair to his interactive Sudoku board.

And then there’s this guy! Kudos on finding an appropriately-scaled giant pencil for your Sudoku board. (In case you’re trying to solve his costume, as far as I can tell his forehead is 8, and his mouth 4 or 5. Good luck!)

And, as before, here’s the weird mass-produced costume version for Sudoku. I respect that they kept it to a 4×4 grid, but I still can’t imagine anyone wearing it.

Now, when it comes to puzzles and puzzly games, it’s hard to imagine a more visual one than the Rubik’s Cube. Simple shape, great colors, and instantly recognizable. Somewhere, there are photos of my oldest sister in a Rubik’s Cube costume. (Had I been able to locate them, I would absolutely have posted them here.)

But do not fear. There are plenty of marvelous Rubik’s Cube costume pics on the Internet, and I’m happy to post a few of my favorites.

This one is outstanding. Not only is the center row offset, but I’m pretty sure you can actually spin those rows!

(I imagine it’s quite difficult getting him in and out of the car. I had a similarly boxy Optimus Prime costume as a child and got wedged in the backseat for at least ten minutes.)

This one is undoubtedly an improvised dorm room costume, but it’s still terrific.

I think the young lady’s expression is what really sells this one. She’s obviously proud of getting three yellow squares on a single side.

Okay, I promise that this is the last weird mass-produced costume. But it’s so bizarre and mod that I couldn’t NOT post it. I mean, look at that hat!

I’ve saved the best two for last. The first will instantly ring bells for anyone who has played the puzzletastic Professor Layton video game series. It’s the Professor himself, alongside Luke and Flora!

And, in conclusion, here’s my favorite puzzle-themed costume, and the one that actually inspired the entry.

Yup, two Tetris pieces. Hilarious and very sweet all at once.

Happy Halloween, puzzle fiends of all ages! Keep calm, puzzle on, enjoy your candy, and I’ll catch you next time.

She must be no fun to play Hangman with.

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We’ve all seen some lucky guesses and fortunate letters on Wheel of Fortune and other game shows in the past, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this:

Puzzling with the Kids: Blast-A-Way

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There aren’t many games featuring bombs that make you want to say “That’s adorable!” Blast-A-Way from Illusion Labs definitely manages this feat. In this cheerful kid-friendly game for the iPad, you control a number of adult “Boxies” — basically boxes with legs — and are tasked with rounding up the little ones, who have gotten lost and need some rescuing.

Each level is essentially an abstract maze, and to navigate the maze you will need several kinds of bombs. You’ve got your basic blow-things-to-smithereens bomb — useful for rescuing little Boxies who have become embedded in a wall, or simply to make a path so you can reach the finish line. There are teleporters, which will blip you over to a different part of the maze, as long as the teleport bomb matches the color it lands on. Rebuilders are anti-bombs: They put back together the parts of the maze you previously blew up.

Add to this further complications: Sheets of colored glass will change the color of your bombs. Portals will send your bombs zipping to the other side of the maze. And some levels will require two Boxies to work together to rescue all the little ones.

The puzzles stay at the softball level for at least half of the game’s 80 levels — a smart kid will have no trouble helping to solve them, or pushing you aside and doing it herself. After the halfway mark, you and your child may well need to think things over for a while, and you might even have to leave a Boxie or two unrescued, the poor little things.

Blast-A-Way is loaded with charm. The levels are richly textured — you’ll have just gotten used to the beauty of the wooden-block mazes, when suddenly you’re on to new levels done up in a sleek metal finish, or upholstered in the soft fabric of a kiddie rumpus room. My daughter says at least once during our play sessions, “I love this music!” And then there are the adorable little Boxies themselves, trying to get your attention with a high-pitched “Over here!” and “Miiister!” Blast-A-Way raises the bar on high-polish puzzling on the iPad.

The Nerd Potluck Looms Large!

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Aloha, fellow puzzlers and solvers galore!

Last week, I mentioned that I’d be attending a Nerd Potluck this coming weekend. It’s a celebration of all things puzzle, game, and nerd-centric, and I’ve been working on a new word puzzle to challenge my fellow attendees.

And as promised, you’re getting the first peek at it. I call the puzzle “Word Personals.”

Word Personals is based on the singular parlance of personal ads and dating slang.

Your standard personal ad looks something like this:

SWM, 31, brown hair, brown eyes, calf muscles of a Roman gladiator, enjoys full contact rock-paper-scissors and the films of Ben Stiller…

The breakdown is pretty simple.

–SWM is short for single white male in standard personal ad jargon. SWF would be single white female. (SBF would be single black female, MWM would be married white male, etc.)
–That’s followed by the person’s age and a brief description.

So my idea was to employ this format, but make the ads themselves word puzzles to be decoded by a solver.

Here’s an example:

SWF, 6, one letter once, one letter twice, and one letter three times, enjoys hanging out and giving people the slip.

Again, the breakdown is pretty simple.

–SW stands for “single word.” (If it was “MW,” it would be “multiple words,” indicating a phrase.)
–The next letter, F, stands for “features,” indicating that characteristics of the word will follow. (If it was “M,” it would be “means,” indicating a definition, synonym, or hint toward the definition would follow.)
–The number that follows is the number of letters in the word or phrase.
–Finally, there’s the description, which is in two parts. The first part, as indicated by “F,” gives some characteristics of the word. The second part is a jokey clue to provide further information.

And there you have it, Word Personals. I’m sure you’ve solved the example one already, so how about we check out a few more?

1) SWM, 8, power or vigor, enjoys vowel conservation and Herculean qualities.

2) MWF, 11, can read backwards and forwards, enjoys formal greetings and the days before holidays.

3) SWF, 4, goes from one syllable to three by adding a letter, enjoys taking car trips in the past tense.

4) MWM, 9, stutter-stop way of talking, enjoys frequent breaks and a certain British inspector.

I admit, It’s a bit esoteric, but I like the concept quite a bit, and I think it’ll be a hit.

Naturally, your thoughts are welcome. What’s confusing? What works? Is it too prone to alternates? Too easy? Too difficult? Your input would be very much appreciated.

In the meantime, I hope Word Personals provided you with a bit of brain-teasing today. So keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you next time. Wish me luck!

Warming up for a Nerd Potluck

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Greetings, fellow puzzlers and enigma enthusiasts!

I’m attending a Nerd Potluck next weekend, and I could use your input.

Now, for the uninitiated, a Nerd Potluck is a party where everyone brings something suitably nerdy. It could be a game, a puzzle, a brain teaser, or something else that fits the nerd party aesthetic.

This is a natural extension of other parties my friends and I used to throw. We’re all gamers, RPG fans, and puzzle nerds.

No matter what the occasion — birthday, homecoming, reunion, Thursday — I can’t remember a party that didn’t include a few rounds of Mafia or a spirited game of the trivia/Truth-or-Dare hybrid my friend Dan invented, Who Wants to Eat a Millionnaire?

Last time we threw a Nerd Potluck, my contribution was a handful of Politos, jokey off-kilter summaries of movie plots.

(I based the idea on the writings of Rick Polito, a writer for the Marin Independent Journal in California, who is known for his sharp single-sentence summaries of films.)

Example: Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.

Answer: The Wizard of Oz

How great is that?! The answer is very. Very great.

So, I opted to come up with some of my own to challenge my fellow puzzle-loving movie buff pals. Here’s a sampling of them:

–A suicidal man has an intense hallucinatory psychotic episode, then is saved by a timely family-organized intervention.

–The minds and opinions of a group of prisoners are gradually changed by a charismatic knife-wielding stranger.

–An improperly supervised gang of miscreants, when left to their own devices, commit acts of trespassing, property damage, assault, consort with known criminals and pillage historical artifacts for their own gain.

–A group of friends scatters and licks their wounds after bullies wreck their secret snow fort.

(Feel free to leave guesses in the comments section. I’ll follow Eric’s example, and ask you for one answer per person. I’ll post the answers in the comment section later!)

It was a fairly popular exercise in outside-the-box thinking, but it feels a bit “been-there, done-that.”

This time around, I’m working on something new, more brain teaserish than anything else.

It’s not quite ready; I’m still ironing out a few kinks stylewise. (If I have the chance, I’ll post it here next week, a few days before the Nerd Potluck. I’m sure your input would be helpful.)

But a ladyfriend of mine will be attending, and she has a different challenge in mind.

She wants to make a puzzle-themed dessert.

Naturally, I suggested strawberry shortzcake, but she was considering tiramisudoku. (I know, a puzzle fan with a sweet tooth. She’s awesome.)

So, any suggestions for puzzly dishes? Cryptograham crackers could be fun, but who wants to do all that writing in icing?

Oh well, if not, no worries. I’m sure she’ll come up with something. (Hopefully I will too!)

But in the meantime, thanks for reading. Keep calm and puzzle on, gentle readers!

Loopy Fruits

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In the delicious physics puzzle game Fruits, you have to smash fruits together. I really don’t know why. Perhaps you are trying to make a smoothie. What I do know is that smashing together a pineapple and a lemon isn’t as easy as you might think: First you have to figure out the right sequence of events so that no fruits are left unsmashed — which rope should you cut first? Or do you first need to break the glass platforms? No, no, first you have to pop the balloons, right? And so on. Don’t be fooled by the cartoonish look and catchy music — the puzzles get pretty involved about halfway through the game’s 25 levels.