Category Archives: Games

Collection 26 is Here! Plus Bonus Boxes!

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Thanksgiving might be just around the corner, but we won’t make you wait! Belly up to the table for some puzzly delights! We’ve got new puzzle sets for the Penny Dell Crosswords App!

Collection 26 just landed for both iOS and Android users, and we’ve got a range of puzzles and difficulty levels to fit every solver!

 

You can get 30 easy, 30 medium, or 30 hard puzzles in the Collection 26 set, or level up to the Collection 26 Combo sets, which offer 60 easy or 60 medium puzzles!

And if you’re still hungry, the Collection 26 Value Pack has 150 puzzles! Plenty to sate your puzzly appetite!

But that’s not all! We’ve also got a new 35-puzzle Deluxe Bonus Box for you (which includes 5 themed puzzles) AND our Deluxe Bonus Box Combo 2 that offers double the bonus puzzles! 70 puzzles, including special themed ones you won’t find anywhere else!

You can’t go wrong with these awesome deals! PuzzleNation is dedicated to bringing you the best puzzle-solving experience available, with world-class puzzles right in your pocket, ready to go at a moment’s notice! That’s the PuzzleNation guarantee.

Happy solving, everyone!

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PuzzleNation Product Reviews: Big Letter Bananagrams, Qwordie, & Word-A-Melon

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[Note: I received a free copy of these games in exchange for a fair, unbiased review. Due diligence, full disclosure, and all that. /end disclaimer]

When it comes to word-forming tile games, the folks at Bananagrams are the masters. Their fruit-inspired packaging is synonymous with that particular brand of puzzling, giving Scrabble a run for its money in terms of letter-tile games. And they have an uncanny knack for putting new spins on classic puzzle-game tropes, breathing new life into the genre.

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at three of their latest efforts: Big Letter Bananagrams, Qwordie, and Word-A-Melon.

Big Letter Bananagrams is pretty much the tried-and-true Bananagrams model you already know: solvers pull tiles from a central pile and use them to build a grid of overlapping words, hoping to be the first to use up all of their letters.

The difference here is simple but important: Big Letter Bananagrams offers greater visibility for solvers with visual impairments. The tiles are 50% larger than those in the regular Bananagrams set — complete with a bold, easily discernable font — ensuring that older generations of puzzlers will still get to enjoy family game night.

Plus, a portion of the sale of each set of Big Letter Bananagrams goes to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation.

Qwordie takes the word-forming basics of Bananagrams and adds a twist: solvers must use their own letter tiles (as well as ones pilfered from a central pile, a can of extra tiles, or another player’s personal tiles) in order to form a word that fits a certain category.

For instance, say the given card asks you to spell one of the five senses. Each player draws tiles from the central pile or the can of extra tiles and tries to spell a word that satisfies the card on the table. The first player to do so adds those tiles to their stack. The first player whose stack of winning letters passes the finish line on the side of the game tin wins!

Qwordie works at a slower pace than traditional Bananagrams games, since there’s a bit of a wagering aspect to grabbing new tiles. Sure, the quickest speller usually still wins, but the gamesmanship offers players more options than the regular game, since you can use wild card tiles (the platypus tiles), steal tiles from other players (the robber tile), or chose from several piles of extra letter tiles to pull.

This more methodical pace offers a distinctly different play experience for players familiar with more rapid-fire Bananagrams-style solving, and skews the game slightly older than most other Bananagrams products.

The categories come in easy and hard sets, allowing you to tailor the game to whichever group of puzzlers you play with. Qwordie is a smart hybrid of word-building games and Family Feud-style name-something-that-fits-this-category games, combining them for a fun solving experience for puzzlers.

Finally, we’ve got Word-A-Melon, one of the most cleverly designed and realized games in the Bananagrams game library.

Not only are the instructions of the game disguised as a watermelon rind cover for the game board, but the game board itself can be used to store the game’s tiles and die for easy transport.

Players race to claim seeds — aka letter tiles — by flipping over random tiles on the watermelon-shaped game board and using those seeds to spell out the longest word possible. You then claim the tiles used in that word and remove them from the board, adding them to your stash of seeds.

A roll of the die determines how many tiles you get to reveal on the board, but any letters you can’t use are turned back over. This adds a marvelous Memory-style mechanic to the word forming, one that adds a bit more strategy to everyone’s gameplay.

As you spell words, you remove those letters from the watermelon board, and the player with the most tiles (or seeds) at the end of the game wins.

You can also tailor the game’s difficulty to your liking: excluding common letters makes it harder to form words during the game, while excluding the tougher, rarer letters (like Q) makes for less of a challenge for younger solvers.

Between these three games, solvers of all ages and levels of experience have a word-forming game that fits them, encouraging group gameplay while challenging the anagram and resource management skills of each and every puzzler. Factor in the high replay value built into all of these games, and you’ve got a trio of winners for any puzzle fan.

The Bananagrams crew has done it again (and again, and again).

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Answers to the Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

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

That’s right, today we’ve got the answers to our latest edition of the Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the punny answers!

PuzzleNation’s Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

#1

It’s a formal apology!

#2

They’re green with envy!

#3

Kevin Bacon has arrived at the party!

#4

Why, it’s the devil in disguise!

#5

Holy guacamole! What a costume!

#6

For the history-pun fans out there, it’s The Grape Depression!

#7

Now that is a cap-sized ship!

#8

What a classy Jackie O’Lantern!

#9

Meow! It’s Cat-niss Everdeen from The Hunger Games!

#10

It’s a song of ice and naps with Jon Snow White!

And as for our bonus pun, my Halloween costume:

halloween201711

It’s a hooker with a heart of gold!

How many did you get? Have you seen any great punny costumes we missed? Let us know!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Riddle Me This: Answer Edition

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[Image courtesy of Nyafuu Archive.]

Last week, we shared a sampling of riddles from Raging Swan Press’s series of riddle-filled handbooks, “So What’s the Riddle Like, Anyway?”

And today, we’ve got the answers ready for you. So let’s see how you did!

1. What always runs but never walks,
Often murmurs, never talks,
has a bed but never sleeps,
Has a mouth but never eats?

Answer: a river.

2. What has a head and a tail, but no body?

Answer: a coin.

3. I can be cracked, I can be made.
I can be told, I can be played.

Answer: a joke.

4. What should the tenth number in this series be? 3, 3, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4

Answer: 3. (Each number is the number of letters in the digits one through nine, so ten would be “3.”)

5. A carpenter was in a terrible hurry. He had to work as quickly as possible to cut a very heavy ten‐foot plank into ten equal sections. If it takes one minute per cut, how long will it take him to get the ten equal pieces?

Answer: 9 minutes. (The first 8 minutes yield 8 pieces, but the ninth minute will yield pieces 9 and 10.)

6. Can you find a four‐digit number in which:
The first digit is one‐third the second digit,
The third is the sum of the first and second and
The last is three times the second?

Answer: 1349.

7. I am always hungry, I must always be fed.
The finger I lick will soon turn red.

Answer: fire.

8. A precious stone, as clear as diamond.
That shuns the sun’s bright fire.
Though you can walk on water with its power,
Try to keep it, and it’ll vanish ere an hour.

Answer: ice.

9. I am sometimes strong
And sometimes weak,
But I am nobody’s fool.
For there is no language that I can’t speak,
Though I never went to school.

Answer: An echo.

How did you do on these riddles, fellow puzzler? Let us know in the comments section below!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Kickstarter Roundup!

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I’ve covered a lot of puzzle-centric Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns here at PuzzleNation Blog, because I think it’s fascinating how many puzzle variants there are, and how many creators are enthusiastically seizing the opportunity to add their own delightful gaming and puzzling twists to the market.

In previous posts, we’ve seen Baffledazzle‘s jigsaws with a twist, Completely Puzzled‘s community-building outreach, and 64 Oz. Games‘ campaign to adapt popular board games and card games for vision-impaired players. Some very creative and worthwhile projects have been realized with the help of crowdfunding.

So let’s take a look at some projects that are currently seeking funding and see if any pique your interest!

For any game enthusiasts out there who have problems organizing or transporting their collection, the crew at Init Gear have you covered with The Gamefolio System 2.0.

A line of binders, inserts, and duffles designed for all types of card games and board games, this system is all about helping you get the most out of your game collection while keeping it mobile and easy to tote along with you to game nights! You won’t be hefting a bunch of boxes with wasted space. Instead, you can condense your collection into something far more portable.

Plus, this project has already surpassed its initial funding goal, so there’s an excellent chance you’ll see your pledges fulfilled in a satisfying and timely fashion.

With only a week or so to go to get in on this one, time is of the essence.

And speaking of games, if you’re looking for a party game that mixes strategy and socializing, Death of the Party might be right up your alley.

A mix of Clue, Mafia, and bluffing games like The Resistance, Death of the Party is all about uncovering the identity of the murderer(s) before you get killed. It cleverly melds several established types of gameplay into a card game with a few other bits and bangles.

I must admit my bias on this one, since the premise is straight out of one of my all-time favorite movies, the comedic mystery film Murder By Death. Just like in the movie, every character plays a parody of a famous detective, trying to unravel the mystery without getting killed.

With almost two weeks left to fund, this one has a good chance of exceeding expectations.

If you’re looking for something a bit more puzzly, check out Puzzle Card.

This is an escape room/brain teaser contained entirely within a greeting card. It’s a fascinating concept, but given that there are only a few days left to fund the project — and they only ship to the UK, which hurts interest from puzzlers in other countries — it’s dubious whether this one will fund.

Still, it’s a very cool idea.

Turning from a puzzly challenge for adults to one for kids, we’ve got Tree Top Hop.

A spelling game for younger solvers, Tree Top Hop has players maneuvering through an elaborate network of trees connected by rope bridges in order to spell out different words.

It’s a nice intermediate step for kids to move them beyond simpler board games and into more strategic ones, all while encouraging spelling and other puzzly skills.

I had a chance to try out this game at this year’s New York Toy Fair, and I was impressed by the adaptive design and how quickly kids could get into the game play.

With nearly a month before its closing date, I suspect this offering from Befuddled Games will do well.

Finally, from the wholly unexpected idea pile, we have Plan 9 From Outer Space: The Deckbuilding Game.

Yes, someone has devised a card game based on one of the most infamously awful films in history, Ed Wood’s classic Z-grade alien invasion film.

Loaded with screenshots from the film — as well as references to both the plot itself and various in-jokes that have emerged among B-movie fans over the decades — this game puts you in the role of one of the movie’s heroic protagonists. Can you thwart the devious aliens and their undead minions as they try (for the 9th time) to conquer the Earth?

With three weeks left to fund, I think this one will squeak across the finish line, depending on the level of fan interest and crossover appeal to gamers. On the puzzly side, there does seem to be a fair amount of strategy to the gameplay itself, though luck will no doubt also play a big role in the cards you draw.

Let us know if you end up contributing to any of these campaigns, fellow puzzlers! We’re always interested in what interests you!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Riddle Me This!

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[Image courtesy of Forbidden Planet.]

A PuzzleNationer reached out to me recently and asked about riddles. Specifically, he was asking about wordplay riddles, the ones that can take you a bit of time to mentally unravel, rather than the jokey riddles found in most children’s puzzle books.

You see, he’s a Dungeon Master, the man runs a Dungeons & Dragons game, shaping the story for the other players. He was about to lead his players into a lost catacomb left behind by a crafty wizard known for his love of wordplay, and he needed ideas for riddles that might challenge his players.

Thankfully, I had the perfect resource for him.

[No, not that guy… (Image courtesy of Nyafuu Archive.)]

The puzzly crew at Raging Swan Press foresaw the need for something like this, and years ago, they assembled three handbooks about riddles for anyone who might need them. This series is called “So What’s the Riddle Like, Anyway?” Downloadable PDFs of the books can be found on DriveThruRPG.com.

From the book’s introduction, where the authors present possible scenarios:

Your PCs are deep in the dungeon and have just encountered a terrifying monster which they have no chance of defeating. Luckily, the monster is bored and challenges the party to a riddling contest instead of simply just killing them. Alternatively, the party have encountered a sentient statue that will not let them past until they have answered three riddles correctly.

I am a huge fan of Raging Swan, because they’re all about providing additional content for roleplaying games in order to make the games more varied and interesting, and they price these expansions and idea-boosters very affordably.

For instance, each of the three editions of “So What’s the Riddle Like, Anyway?” are only $1.99 apiece.

And I figured, why not pit the puzzly minds of the PuzzleNation readership against the crafty campaign creators of Raging Swan Press.

Enjoy!

Volume I of the series not only walks the reader through the process of designing and choosing riddles for your game, but also instructs you on how best to use the riddles to advance your story. Volume I also offers some examples to get you started.

1. What always runs but never walks,
Often murmurs, never talks,
has a bed but never sleeps,
Has a mouth but never eats?

2. What has a head and a tail, but no body?

3. I can be cracked, I can be made.
I can be told, I can be played.

Volume II delves deeper into the puzzlier aspect of riddles, employing pattern identification, word problems, and brain teasers to offer another possible challenge for your players.

4. What should the tenth number in this series be? 3, 3, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4

5. A carpenter was in a terrible hurry. He had to work as quickly as possible to cut a very heavy ten‐foot plank into ten equal sections. If it takes one minute per cut, how long will it take him to get the ten equal pieces?

6. Can you find a four‐digit number in which:
The first digit is one‐third the second digit,
The third is the sum of the first and second and
The last is three times the second?

Volume III rounds out the trilogy with numerous traditional riddles about various aspects of the standard medieval roleplaying setting. Riddles about elements, dragons, weapons, creatures, and more await you inside this slim tome.

7. I am always hungry, I must always be fed.
The finger I lick will soon turn red.

8. A precious stone, as clear as diamond.
That shuns the sun’s bright fire.
Though you can walk on water with its power,
Try to keep it, and it’ll vanish ere an hour.

9. I am sometimes strong
And sometimes weak,
But I am nobody’s fool.
For there is no language that I can’t speak,
Though I never went to school.

How did you do on these riddles, fellow puzzler? Let us know in the comments section below!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!