Category Archives: Games

PuzzleNation Product Review: Brad Hough’s The Maze

Posted on by
6

Mazes are nothing new to even the most casual solver. Whether it’s a puzzle collection, a place mat at a chain restaurant, or a coloring book loaded with time-filling activities, we’ve all traced a path through a maze with pencil, crayon, or marker.

But in most paper-and-pencil mazes, we look down on the map from above, so we have the advantage of perspective, the ability to spot dead-ends ahead of time, the opportunity to make wiser choices with more information.

As anyone who has ever tackled a corn maze will tell you, maze navigation is far more challenging when you’re inside the puzzle itself, rather than observing it from a bird’s-eye view.

And that’s what makes Brad Hough’s The Maze series of puzzle books something different and far more challenging: they’re mazes designed from the first person perspective. You must imagine yourself walking through this maze, selecting each turn and hoping it will lead you to the promised land.

It’s a marvelous concept, offered in a variety of difficulty levels according to the size of the maze:

  • Easy is a grid of 5 rooms by 5 rooms.
  • Normal is a grid of 7×7.
  • Moderate is 9×9, Challenging is 12×12, and Intense is 15×15.

As you make your choices, you’ll flip to different pages in the book, just as you would in a Choose Your Own Adventure-style story, maneuvering your way to either a dead-end (forcing you to turn back) or your desired exit.

But those are the only decisions you’ll make. There are no monsters to slay or traps to navigate, as there are in labyrinths in Dungeons & Dragons. There are no moral conundrums to unravel, as in Choose Your Own Adventure books. There is simply The Maze… and you. This is bare bones storytelling designed as both a pure puzzle-solving experience and as a blank skeleton upon which you can built your own story.

There are no tricks or endless loops to wander into. This is a fair challenge meant to be unraveled by crafty minds with excellent spacial skills.

Although The Maze lacks the frills of many other labyrinth-style puzzles, it does a marvelous job of portraying the sort of blindness and trepidation that comes with actually residing within a maze, knowing that each choice is more crucial the farther you venture forth.

The Maze (in various sizes) is available from Amazon and other online retailers.

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!

Hashtag Game Fun with Puzzly Women!

Posted on by
Reply

Oh yes, it’s that time again! It’s time to unleash our puzzly and punny imaginations and engage in a bit of sparkling wordplay!

You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie, hashtag games on Twitter, or @midnight’s Hashtag Wars segment on Comedy Central.

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 #PennyDellPuzzleWomen, mashing up Penny Dell puzzles with famous women both real and fictional!

Examples include: Lana Tossing and Turner, Adele Sunday Crosswords, and Madeleine Albright of Way.

So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny Dell Puzzles came up with!

Selma Diamond Rings

Fill-Ins Diller

Katie Kakuroic

Mary Kay Places, Please

Cher-a-Letter

Priscyllacrostic Presley

The Maddow

Tie-Indira Gandhi

Midler’s Frame

Victoria’s Secret Words

In Black and Betty White

Gennifer Flowers Power

Stepping Sharon Stones

Classified Cheryl L-Adds

Marcia Crossroads

Ariana Grande Tour

Esther Rolle of the Dice

Tori Spellingdown

Sigourney Weaver Words

Maggie Wheelers

Debra Messing Vowels

Emily Observation Post

Tina Turnerabout

Diamond Ringrid Bergman

Word-a-Matilda

Kate In The Middleton

Evan Rachel Word Seek

Right of Fay Wray

Sylvia Plathboxes

Carly Simon Says

Shirley Temple Blackout

Chess-ica Simpson

Senator Barbara Mathboxer

Jenny “From the Blockletters” Lopez

Jigsaw Squares Eyre

Anne Bowl Gamelyn

Miss Piggybacks

Paris Hilton in Rhyme

Louisa May All Frame

Zsa Zsa Gaborderline

Twiggybacks

Marla Marbles

Mariah Carey-Overs

Kathleen Battleships

Dora the Exploraword

Mrs. Double-take-fire

Glinda the Group Values Witch

Diamond Li’l Rings

Major Margaret “Hot Blips” Houlihan

At Sixes and Seven of Nine

Elphababet Soup

Queen Ellery Elizabeth of Penny Dell

Mary-Kate and Ashley Double Trouble

There was also a submission that deserve its own section, as one of our intrepid puzzlers went above and beyond.

To the Cartoonist: Draw the Lynda Carter character Around the Block from the Double Trouble. We’ll Roll the Diana Prince into Wonder Woman and the Amazing Quote Amazon will take them down Brick by Brick.

And members of the PuzzleNation readership also got in on the fun!

On Facebook, Sandra Halbrook submitted the delightful entry Marcia Cross Sums!

Have you come up with any Penny Dell Puzzle Women entries of your own? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

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!

Board Games: A Good Reason to Gather

Posted on by
Reply

Are board games the cure for what ails ya?

According to Quartz writer Annaliese Griffin, they just might be.

She suggests that board games provide a “temporary respite from the problems of 21st-century life.”

By bringing people together — something often lacking from today’s increasingly isolated lifestyles where people interact more through social media than face-to-face engagement — board games become a community builder, a catalyst for socialization.

From the article:

A good board game builds in enough chance so that any reasonably skilled player can win. Even in chess, famously associated with warfare and military strategy, the emphasis is not on who ultimately wins, but on the ingenuity that players display in the process.

In all of these ways, board games release players — however temporarily — from the maxim that life is divided into clear, consistent categories of winners and losers, and that there is a moral logic as to who falls into which category. As film and media studies professor Mary Flanagan tells The Atlantic, board games prompt us to reflect on “turn-taking and rules and fairness.”

[Image courtesy of Catan Shop.]

What’s interesting to me about the article is that she mentions Euro-style games like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne — which are two of the industry leaders, no doubt — but still games that pit players against each other.

What’s interesting to me about an article that’s meant to be about how board games can make you “a nicer person with better relationships” is that the author focuses exclusively on competitive games. I am a huge fan of a smaller subsection of board games — cooperative games — which invite the players to team up against the game itself. You collaborate, strategize, and work together to overcome challenges, succeeding or failing as a group.

In cooperative games, the glow of your successes are heightened because you get to share them with your teammates. And the failures don’t sting as much for the same reason.

[Image courtesy of Analog Games.]

Co-op games like SpaceTeam, Castle Panic!, Forbidden Island, The Oregon Trail card game, and Pandemic — not to mention many roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons — reinforce the positive, social qualities of all board games. I highly recommend checking them out.

And with the rise of board game cafes like The Uncommons in New York and Snakes and Lattes in Toronto, plus play areas at conventions like Gen Con and events at your Friendly Local Game Shop, there are more opportunities than ever to engage in some dice rolling camaraderie.

You can even make it a regular thing. Every Wednesday, we play a game at lunch time, and it quickly became one of the highlights of the week. (This week, we celebrated winning Forbidden Desert on our Instagram account! I always intend to post something every Game Wednesday, but I often forget because I’m so focused on playing the game.)

Take the time out to enjoy puzzles and games. You won’t regret it.

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!

PuzzleNation Product Review: //CODE: On the Brink

Posted on by
6

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

There has been a tidal shift over the last few decades from the analog realm to digital. So much happens in cyberspace, by email, and in the liminal spaces between smartphones and computers, that it feels like we’re leaving behind physical media entirely. In the next decade, knowledge of programming will become an essential skill.

And it’s never too early to begin laying the foundation for that future. The folks at ThinkFun have been ahead of the curve there for a long time — their game Robot Turtles is a prime example — and they continue to push forward with their new //CODE Programming Game Series, a line of puzzly products designed to teach the basics of programming to young solvers.

The first game in the series, On the Brink, serves as an excellent primer. The game is based around a simple concept: navigating a robot along a particular path. This path can twist, turn, and even cross itself. But it’s up to the solver to figure out how to use the available programming cards to control and determine the robot’s path.

There are two sets of programming cards, one simpler deck designed for the first 20 challenges and one larger deck designed for the more difficult challenges that follow. Just as you learn simpler commands before you learn finer, more detail-oriented, and more complex ones, you must master the basic commands in On the Brink before moving forward.

Whereas Robot Turtles required players to be supervised by a Turtle Master who governed the setup, difficulty, and execution of commands, On the Brink can be played alone, as the solver tackles each puzzle in the challenge booklet, complete with starting cards, a given path to replicate, and colored boxes on the board that align with the three sections of the control panel.

I was impressed by the amount of variety to be found in a relatively small deck of commands. A cagey programmer can navigate the robot through some unexpectedly thorny paths, reminding me a bit of the step-by-step deductive reasoning that made Lunar Landing such a delightful challenge.

One way that On the Brink improves upon Robot Turtles is with the concept of commands that continue to run once activated. In On the Brink, your robot will follow a command for as long as the programming cards and colored spaces on the challenge booklet page dictate. Just as a command in programming requires parameters in order to know when to stop, your robot needs similar commands. Otherwise, it’s liable to pass right over the finish square instead of landing there perfectly.

On the Brink invites players as young as 8 to tackle the various challenges in the booklet, either alone or in groups, and the steady ratcheting-up of difficulty teaches the young programmer as they advance, putting new wrinkles and obstacles in the player’s path.

It’s the sort of patient, clever gameplay we’ve come to expect from ThinkFun, and they do not disappoint here. Figuring out how to utilize the available commands and complete the path given makes for an excellent puzzly challenge — especially the later scenarios! — but it never feels inaccessible or overwhelming.

You’re always in good hands with ThinkFun, and they’ve proven it again here with On the Brink.

On the Brink is available from ThinkFun and participating brick-and-mortar and online retailers for $14.99.

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!

The September Deluxe Puzzle Set has arrived!

Posted on by
Reply

September is here, Labor Day is around the corner, school is back in session, and we’re celebrating the way we know best: by launching a new puzzle set for the Penny Dell Crosswords App!

Our September Deluxe puzzle set just launched for both iOS and Android users, and it offers the quality solving experience you’ve come to expect from PuzzleNation!

Add some puzzly fun to your long weekend by indulging in this marvelous puzzle bundle, designed for any skill level!

Offering 30 easy, medium, and hard puzzles, plus 5 September-themed bonus puzzles to delight solvers of all skill levels, the September Deluxe puzzle set is the perfect activity for a quiet moment, now that the kids are back in school, or a relaxing few minutes on the porch!

But that’s not all!

That’s right, double down on puzzle goodness with the September Deluxe Combo! That’s 70 puzzles, including September-themed bonus crosswords for your puzzly pleasure!

But maybe you need more! Maybe, just maybe, you’re hungry for more puzzles. And if you want the most bang for your buck, we’ve got you covered with the September Deluxe Bundle! That’s 105 puzzles, three times the crafty clues and cagey crosswords, ready for you to solve!

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!

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!

Delving into the BosWords puzzles!

Posted on by
1

I finally had a chance to sit down and try my hands at the puzzles from the BosWords Crossword Tournament earlier this month. Given the talent involved, I had high expectations, and I was not disappointed.

So let’s put them under the microscope and see what’s what!

Homeroom: Circles of Friends by John Lieb

The unscored opening puzzle in this year’s tournament was a warm-up to get everyone in the mood to solve. Its theme was simple and accessible: The circled letters in each long answer — the first two letters and the last two letters — spelled a synonym for “friend” (DU and DE in DUAL ACTION BLADE).

Interesting grid entries included OLD ELI, TREVOR NOAH, LEMUR, and PONY UP, and my favorite clues were “One taken for a ride” for SAP and “Luke Skywalker saw two from Tatooine” for SUNS.

Puzzle 1: Summer Vacation by Laura Braunstein

A very smooth, very fair solving experience, Puzzle 1 is exactly what the first scored puzzle of a tournament should be. It sets the tone, the difficulty, and whets your appetite for more. The clever use of SCHOOL’S OUT as a revealer for the game — phrases where SCHOOL has been swapped for OUT, as in SECONDARY OUT — even has the pleasant side effect of getting the song stuck in your head.

Interesting grid entries included TROTSKY, CAT SCAN, and X FACTOR, and my favorite clues were “‘Ghostbusters’ vehicle, before it was Ecto-1″ for HEARSE and “They might get smashed at parties” for PINATA.

I have no notes for Puzzle 2, because it wasn’t included in my Solve at Home packet. The puzzle, constructed by Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb, was used in the tournament with Will Shortz’s permission (as it was already earmarked for The New York Times).

The puzzle was published on Wednesday, August 16, if you’re interested.

Puzzle 3: Trade Schools by Brendan Emmett Quigley

It appears that Puzzle 3 will be BosWords’s version of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament’s infamous Puzzle 5, as this was the toughest themed puzzle in the set. However, as you’d expect from a Quigley puzzle, there was lots of intriguing fill, and a diabolical theme: long phrases that included the name of a college, but the college was swapped with the name of another college in another themed entry.

For instance, the answer THIN WHITE RICE would normally read THIN WHITE DUKE, but Duke was transferred to another line, where instead of BROWN-EYED GIRL, the answer was DUKE-EYED GIRL. All four theme entries had the name of a different college substituted in for the college that would normally appear in that phrase.

I confess, it took me a while to unravel just how this theme worked. Factor in the longer fill entries crossing those themed entries, and you’ve got a tough, topnotch puzzle.

Interesting grid entries included MALFOYS, DAME EDNA, CASSINI, DEEP FRYER, and EPONYM, and my favorite clues were “Egg foo yung, essentially” for OMELET and “It may be used by Colonel Mustard” for ROPE.

Puzzle 4: Why You Failed English by Joon Pahk

This puzzle, which played on those books we were all required to read in school, was lighter than Puzzle 3, but still kept solvers on their toes with engaging fill. (Likening “Of Mice and Men” to “Stuart Little” is hilariously audacious.)

Interesting grid entries included MONSANTO, FAN MAIL, BANFF, and HOHOS, and my favorite clues were “Paper tigers, perhaps” for ORIGAMI and “Long line at a wedding reception?” for CONGA.

Tiebreaker by Andrew Kingsley

This themeless puzzle — intended to settle any ties going into the final — had some impressively long entries crossing at the corners, making for a great solve overall.

Interesting grid entries included CRAPSHOOT, RECHERCHE, PLOT TWIST, EVANESCE, POKEMON, and ARIGATO, and my favorite clues were “Paris was too much for him” for ACHILLES and “Set back?” for SCENERY.

Championship: Final Exam by David Quarfoot

A themeless challenging enough to rival Quigley’s themed Puzzle 3, this tournament closer was well constructed and engaging, really testing solvers’ creativity, wordplay, and vocabulary. I don’t think I would have completed it in the time allotted, let alone fast enough to do well against fellow solvers.

Interesting grid entries included BINGE WATCH, IN LALALAND, DADBOD, TRUMP U, and TEA CADDY, and my favorite clues were “Eventful activities?” for DECATHLONS, “Common note designee” for SELF, and “Floral drawing?” for NECTAR.

There was also a fun, themed bonus puzzle, You’ll Have to Be There by John Lieb, included for At Home solvers, which serves as either a nice closer to the day’s solving or a second warm-up puzzle.

Overall, I was fairly impressed by the puzzles offered at BosWords. They weren’t as freewheeling as the ones typically offered at The Indie 500 or Lollapuzzoola. But they were a little bit easier than the offerings at The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which makes this a wonderful intermediate-difficulty event to introduce new solvers to a timed, tournament environment.

It seems like the right mix of challenge and creativity for solvers accustomed to NYT-style solving, and I think the constructors and organizers did one heck of a job putting together the tournament.

Here’s hoping next year’s BosWords is an even greater success.

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!