You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie or hashtag games on Twitter.
For years now, we’ve been collaborating on puzzle-themed hashtag games with our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles, and this month’s hook was #PennyDellPuzzleQuote. Today’s entries all mash up Penny Dell puzzles with famous quotations!
Examples include: “Be the Changaword you wish to see in the world,” “Loose Blips sink ships,” or “Cogito, ergo Sum Triangles.”
So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny Dell Puzzles came up with!
One cannot Step by Step in the same river twice.
We’ll Anacross that bridge when we get to it.
One and Only if by land, Two at a Time if by sea.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t Give and Take.
Piece by piece comes from within. Do not Word Seek it without.
It ain’t over ’til it’s Overlaps.
A Penny Press saved is a Penny Press earned.
It takes two to Tanglewords.
The buck Stoplines here.
It’s all right there in Block and White.
Leave no Stepping Stones unturned.
Don’t judge a Bookworm by its cover.
Chain Words are only as strong as their weakest Linkwords.
Picture This…worth a thousand Word Seeks.
A stitch in time saves Three from Nine.
When the going gets Mind Boggler, the Mind Boggler gets going.
When life gives you Share-A-Letter, make Alphabet Soup.
All Four One and one Four-Most.
That’s one small Stepping Stones for man…
You are the Masterwords of your unspoken Word Seeks, but a slave to the Wordfinders you have spoken.
The only thing we have to fear is test-solving forty Codewords in a row.
. . . and go round and round and round in the Circle Sums game.
The pre-type reviewer’s red pen is mightier than the sword.
Members of the PuzzleNation readership also got in on the fun when we spread the word about this hashtag game online!
On Facebook, fellow puzzler Ralph Angelo B. Sinson contributed this quote that he didn’t even have to alter!
“If you come to a Logic show, you get all creeds, colors, religions, and sexual orientations.”
Today’s board game review was selected by the PuzzleNation readership through polls on social media!
Would you like more polls to determine reviews, pop culture recaps, and other blog content? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!
Godzilla returned to theaters this year for the umpteenth time with Godzilla vs. Kong, and after 67 years of cinematic dominance, the King of the Monsters is still an incredibly popular figure in pop culture.
That being said, Godzilla’s board game resume isn’t nearly as impressive. In fact, it’s mostly the pits. Surprisingly, making a good board game about monsters fighting each other is harder than you’d think. (Only two come to mind — King of Tokyo and Smash City — and sadly, neither features cinema’s most iconic city-smashing monster.)
Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that this dilemma might’ve just been solved by a very unlikely source, a company more famous for their collectible figurines than their games: Funko.
In today’s blog post, we’re reviewing a Godzilla game that finally got it right, as we explore Godzilla: Tokyo Clash.
Not only do you have four famous film kaiju (aka monsters) to choose from — Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Megalon — but the game board is different every time you play, thanks to the tile design that allows for numerous different arrangements.
Each of the monsters has a special ability unique to that monster, as well as a deck of action cards that are specifically designed for your monster. Whoever is playing as Godzilla will have different moves, tactics, and attacks than the person playing as Mothra, King Ghidorah, or Megalon, and this adds further replay value to the game.
Plus you randomly choose two ways that the city tries to fight back against the monsters, adding further variety to the wrinkles that color the game play on multiple playthroughs.
You have an energy bar, which is used to control how much you attack the vehicles, buildings, and other kaiju around you. So, in addition to planning for the moves other players make — as well as the moving vehicles on the game board — you also have to manage your attacks based on your available energy.
Smashing buildings and vehicles gives you energy, which you can use to attack the other monsters on the board. Successful attacks give you trophies, which count toward your overall Dominance point total. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.
That’s right! Every player stays active for the whole game — unlike many other monster-fighting games, where players can be eliminated and then you just sit around and watch the rest of the game.
The art is gorgeous, evoking a vibrant style inspired by classic Godzilla movie posters (and don’t worry, the instructions are in English). The miniatures are marvelously detailed, and the game is loaded in references to the films. You don’t have to know them to play the game, but for diehard Godzilla fans like myself, it’s vindication after years of mediocre kaiju-themed games.
And the game is very reasonably priced, considering the quality of the miniatures, the game board tiles, and the overall art. This ticks a lot of boxes for both board game fans and Godzilla enthusiasts.
That being said, the game does have some downsides. The two-player version is far less engaging than the three- or four-player versions, because your tactics are so limited by just throwing vehicles back and forth at each other and smashing buildings. The strategic moves and planning are deeper and far more enjoyable with more targets, threats, and things to consider.
It might sound silly, but in this game about monsters smashing things, it’s simply more fun when there are other people smashing stuff too.
Also, I’m not a huge fan of the Dominance system, since it’s a little distracting to have two sets of numbers to keep track of — the energy and the victory points — but I confess I can’t think of another mechanic that would still allow all of the players to keep playing.
All in all, I was very impressed by this game. It’s easy to pick up, fun to master, and offers a ton of variety for new and experienced players. Plus there’s a surprising amount of tactical puzzling involved, which elevates the game beyond a simple you-go-then-I-go mentality.
Before we start with today’s blog post, we’ve got a special offer for you from the puzzly folks at ThinkFun!
Have you checked out our reviews of their new unsolved crime series of puzzle games? In Cold Case, you’re tasked with going through the evidence and solving the case!
There are two editions of Cold Case; A Story to Die For is available for preorder now, and A Pinch of Murder will be available for preorder on June 14th!
And if you click this link and use the promo code 20COLDCASE, you’ll get the puzzle game for 20% off!
Enjoy!
Last week, we celebrated International Tabletop Day with some puzzly recommendations, suggestions, and an anagram mix-and-match puzzle, all in the spirit of celebrating gathering with friends and loved ones — in person or virtually — to play games together.
The challenge was to unscramble the names of famous board game characters from the entries on the left, and then match them up with the correct board game from the list on the right.
We’re sure you managed to unravel all those jumbled phrases, but just in case, let’s take a look at the solution.
First, let’s look at the anagrams.
Resist Clams = Miss Scarlet
Screenplay Bunching = Rich Uncle Pennybags
Niceness Fir Sport = Princess Frostine
I, Hyphen Pro = Henry Hippo
Air Ma = Maria
AI Zag Rug = Gigazaur
Cam Sat Ivy = Cavity Sam
Be Brother = The Robber
And now, for a splash of color, here is the solution for the matching portion of the puzzle.
How did you do with the puzzle? Did you enjoy International Tabletop Day? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
[A sampling of puzzles of many sorts: crosswords, puzzle boxes,
mechanical brain teasers, tile puzzles, riddles, and more!]
It really is incredible how many forms puzzles can take.
Think about it. Whether you’re talking Rubik’s Cubes, cryptograms, jigsaws, Sudoku, brain teasers, riddles, crosswords, escape rooms, tangrams, word seeks, sliding tiles, deduction problems, coded messages, or anagrams, they all fall under the umbrella of puzzles.
A puzzle can be as simple as pencil and paper or as complex as a multi-stage puzzle hunt or escape room, replete with codes, keys, hidden buttons, mechanical devices to assemble or utilize, and more. The folks at ThinkFun, for instance, have employed everything from ropes and magnets to lasers and mirrors in their puzzles.
That’s some extreme variety.
And the field of possibilities only widens when we add video game puzzles to the mix. We’ve previously talked about games like Tetris and Portal, where you must think in 2D and 3D respectively. We’ve seen games where you change the rules of the world to proceed or even interfere with the coding of the game itself to solve problems.
In the last few years, indie game designers and big studios alike have produced puzzle games that continue to push the boundaries of puzzly minds.
For instance, in Iris Fall you solve puzzles and maneuver around obstacles by playing with light and shadow. By moving light sources and interacting with the environment, both the light and the shadows it creates allow your character to play with perspective and illusion in order to accomplish tasks. It’s very cool!
In a similar vein, the game Superliminal challenges you to solve puzzles and move from room to room by shifting perspective. For instance, if you pick up a small item and then pull it close to you so that it looks bigger, it BECOMES bigger.
Check out this playthrough to see this mindbending puzzler in action:
The game Maquette works off of a similar concept, but requires you to think in both big and small terms. In Maquette, you have a city to explore, and in order to do so, you also need to manipulate a miniature version of the city that affects the world outside.
For instance, there’s a bridge with the center path missing. How can you reach the other side with only a key in your hands?
Easy. You take the key, place it over the same bridge gap in the miniature, and then walk back to the real bridge, where a giant version of that key is now spanning the gap.
And now there’s Viewfinder, a game where you use a Polaroid-style camera to take pictures that you can then place into a three-dimensional world and turn them into structures you can interact with and solve problems!
These sorts of puzzle games help reinforce one of the fundamental rules of puzzle-solving: always be willing to change your perspective and come at the puzzle from another angle. It works with wordplay, it works with brain teasers, and it works in three-dimensional perspective puzzles in video games.
What’s your favorite flavor of puzzles, fellow PuzzleNationers? Have you learned something from one kind of puzzle that you’ve been able to apply in another style of puzzling? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
Whether you play board games, role-playing games, card games, dice games, puzzles, or logic games, this is the holiday for you, family, and friends to come together and enjoy games.
So, to celebrate, we’ve got a grab-bag of different ideas for you today. Want to learn more about games through video playthroughs? We’ve got you covered. Want to solve a Mix and Match puzzle all about games? We’ve got you covered. Want to play something similar to Monopoly that’s not Monopoly? We’ve got you covered.
Please enjoy this somewhat chaotic sampling of board game-themed goodness in honor of Tabletop Day!
Monopoly is the most famous board game in history. We really can’t discuss the topic of board games without mentioning Monopoly.
But Monopoly has its issues. It takes a long time to play, and if you fall behind, it’s incredibly difficult to catch up. Plus, if you get eliminated, it’s not fun to watch other people keep going.
So what do you do if you like some of the game mechanics in Monopoly but not the total package? Easy! Use our handy-dandy guide to find other games that do part (or ALL) of Monopoly better than Monopoly!
Maybe you enjoy buying property and building it up with enhancements and making money with it. That’s great. You should check out Lords of Vegas.
It’s a casino-building game set in the early days of Las Vegas. It’s got play money, dice, all sorts of strategy, plus a gambling mechanic where you can make up for monetary shortfalls. It’s a brilliant game and so so much fun.
Maybe it’s collecting valuable cards, negotiating and trading with other players that you enjoy most about Monopoly. Terrific! You should try Sheriff of Nottingham.
In Sheriff of Nottingham, players collect cards with different goods to take to market — apples, chickens, bread, and cheese — as well as cards of contraband items (like spices, mead, and weapons). Each turn, one player is the Sheriff, trying to stop the other players from sneaking contraband into the market. So you can bluff, or bribe, or try to sneak goods past the Sheriff, or just play it straight with regular goods.
The game allows for trading, cutting deals, being sneaky, and bonuses for being the person with the most of certain goods (apples, for instance) at the market. It’s so much fun, and allows for lots of fun interaction throughout the game, since nobody is ever eliminated.
Do you like completing colored sets of items? Outmaneuvering other players? Claiming valuable property that other players want? Pretty much everything involved in Monopoly is also part of Ticket to Ride.
In Ticket to Ride, players collect cards and play train cards on a map in order to complete different train routes to earn points. Not only can you score by completing those routes under your banner, but you gain bonus points if you can connect distant locations through your railways.
It covers a lot of the strategy and craftiness that made Monopoly famous, but in a sleeker, quicker package.
Oh, and if you want a totally off-the-walls Monopoly-inspired game, there’s always The Doom That Came to Atlantic City.
In this game, you crush houses to claim properties, play Chants (instead of Chance) cards, and basically try to be the best doomsday cultist at the table, summoning your monstrous god to end the world before the other players can.
It’s delightfully tongue-in-cheek, great fun, and a hilarious inversion of a lot of classic Monopoly tropes. I highly recommend it.
Oh, were you looking for some great video content? We’ve got you covered!
If you’re looking for great recommendations and playthroughs of games that your family will love — like Sushi Go, Codenames, Tak, or Takenoko — Girls’ Game Shelf is one of my favorite YouTube channels. The hosts (Kiki and AnnaMaria) are brilliant and insightful, the players are hilarious, and the game choices are topnotch.
It’s been a few months since they’ve uploaded, but there’s a load of terrific content already waiting for you there. Check out Girls’ Game Shelf!
And for slightly less-family friendly — but still fantastic — fare, No Rolls Barred‘s game playthroughs are uproariously funny. Whether they’re bickering over Telestrations, betraying and misleading each other in epic-length games of Blood on the Clocktower, or simply pitching insane products with Snake Oil, their videos are incredibly entertaining.
Plus the channel has top ten lists of games by genre or play-style, skits, and glimpses of game history. They recently passed 50,000 subscribers on YouTube, and their content keeps getting better. Check them out!
Yes, it’s a puzzle on International Tabletop Day. Hey, we’re PuzzleNation, we’ve got to include some puzzly fun, don’t we?
Today, we’ve got a Mix and Match puzzle for you. Can you anagram these phrases into the names of characters from famous board games, and then match them up with their board game?
How are you celebrating International Tabletop Day? Let us know in the comment section below! We’d love to hear from you.
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In today’s blog post, we’ve got a movie title game for you. The challenge is simple: can you name these pairs of movies with titles that are opposites?
We’ll give you the genre for each film, the year each was released, and one star from each film. (Occasionally, we’ll offer a bonus hint as well!)
For example, let’s give you this breakdown:
-Horror, Horror
-2016, 1996
-Kate Siegel, Neve Campbell
Did you come up with Hush and Scream?
We’ve got more fifteen pairings for you to figure out! Let’s go to the movies!
#1
-Comedy, Romcom
-1985, 1995
-Madeline Kahn, Paul Rudd
(Bonus hint: Tim Curry, Alicia Silverstone)
#2
-Action/Crime, Drama/Crime
-1995, 1990
-Will Smith, Robert DeNiro
(Bonus hint: Martin Lawrence, Joe Pesci)
PuzzCulture 