[Note: I received a free copy of these puzzles in exchange for a fair, unbiased review.]
Forgive these somewhat shorter reviews, but it’s really hard to talk about brainteasers and puzzle boxes without accidentally spoiling them for users. So you get a two-for-one review today!
The perfect puzzle gift box needs to walk a difficult tightrope. It has to be challenging enough to justify the cost, intuitive enough that a person understands the basic idea without instructions, and yet not difficult enough to ruin the holiday or event by causing frustration.
(Cue a vivid Christmas memory of my sister shaking a puzzle box so hard she accidentally solved it and sent a gift card flying across the room.)
The Roman Lock Box walks that tightrope deftly. It manages to combine classic puzzle box elements (symbol clues, moving elements requiring careful positioning, parts that look seamless but aren’t) and combines them nicely with a sliding-block puzzle that offers a far different challenge than the usual puzzle box tricks.
Factor in the clean design, the well-made pieces, and the delightful slot in the side (allowing non-solvers to place their gift inside without actually having to solve the puzzle themselves!), and you have a suitably challenging way to keep your giftee busy for a bit.
[The Roman Lock Box is for ages 8 and up, and it’s available from Project Genius and participating websites, starting at $17.99.]
Our second brain teaser is a total 180 from the previous one. The Roman Lock Box has a number of moving parts and things to fiddle with and try out, offering a plethora of options to a solver.
Archimedes’ Gear, on the other hand, is mind-scramblingly rigid. Brutally challenging in its simplicity. Twist and turn it, flip it, rearrange it, hold it at all angles, and it seems to give you nothing. I don’t know that I’ve ever been left so baffled at the start of a solve like I was with Archimedes’ Gear.
Naturally, that’s part of its genius. It really feels like a piece of ancient technology that fell into your hands, and you’re missing some valuable bit of insight that would help you operate it.
That initial bafflement does give you ample time to admire this absolutely beautiful puzzle, though. The color choices, the materials, the feel of the puzzle as you examine it from all sides. There’s even a lovely auditory quality to it, hinting at what awaits the solver inside if its secrets are uncovered.
This puzzle is ranked a 4 out of 5 in difficulty, and I think that’s very fair. I’ve solved a number of brain teasers and puzzles from Project Genius, and Archimedes’ Gear felt a step beyond most of them.
Of course, that only makes it more satisfying when you finally realize what’s going on here. Not a puzzle for the faint of heart (or those lacking in patience and determination), but still one definitely worth your time.
[Archimedes’ Gear is for ages 14 and up, and it’s available from Project Genius and participating websites, starting at $29.99.]
Puzzles bring joy to so many of us. They’re an escape, a challenge, a satisfying little test of our wits, our dedication, our creativity, and our flexibility of thought.
In uncertain times, in times of trouble, people often turn to puzzles. Puzzles were a refuge for many during lockdown when COVID hung over our heads. And now, when so much seems uncertain, if not downright unstable, people will no doubt turn to puzzles again.
That’s not to say that puzzle solving is a mere flight of fancy, a desperate bit of escapism, a Hail Mary avoidance of difficult circumstances, hard questions, and treacherous times to come. Quite the opposite, in fact.
If you turn to puzzles now, you’ll see a road map that proves things can get better.
Because, like it or not, misogyny once dominated the world of puzzles. It was baked into crosswords from the very beginning.
Yes, Arthur Wynne created the template for crosswords. Simon & Schuster are credited with publishing the first crossword puzzle book, as well as all the bestselling puzzle books that followed, serving as the foundation that helped build their brand.
But it was women who made crosswords into something more.
Women like Richard Simon’s aunt Wixie. She insisted Simon look into publishing a limited release crossword book. (UPDATE: I originally wrote that none of the stories mentioned her name, but I later found some that included her nickname, Wixie. I later discovered her actual name is Hedwig Simon.)
Women like Margaret Farrar. While serving as “an unofficial editor of the crossword-puzzle section,” she prevented errors and helped establish some of the baselines that still stand in crosswords today.
Women like Ruth Hale. Ruth was the founding president of the Amateur Cross Word Puzzle League of America, an organization that set crossword standards like limiting black squares and symmetrical grids, building off of Farrar’s work.
Women like Nancy Schuster. Schuster (no relation to the aforementioned publisher) not only ran Dell Crosswords but was the first winner of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Women like Helen Haven. In the 1920s, Haven was the organizer of the first competitive crossword-solving contest and served as the puzzle editor for The New York Herald-Tribune.
As pointed out by Anna Shechtman in her book The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle, between 1913 and the 1960s, most crosswords were created by women.
Puzzles were literally women’s work! With all the connotations that phrase invites.
The New York Times called the crossword “a primitive form of mental exercise” and female solvers were blamed for neglecting their families and wifely duties because of their “utterly futile finding of words the letters of which will fit into a prearranged pattern, more or less complex.”
Funny how their opinions changed just in time to profit on crosswords in the 1940s.
Much like the Beatles — who were dismissed as nothing more than a glorified boy band when thousands of women cheered at their shows, only for them to be recognized as a once-in-a-generation group of talents when men started paying attention — crosswords became “respectable” only when men took interest and took over.
The percentage of female constructors published in The New York Times went down during the Will Shortz era, as compared to the Will Weng and Eugene Maleska eras.
And like it or not, but “the average solver” concept — a problem I discussed years ago — is still using a white male yardstick for comparisons, to the detrimental of solving and constructing.
And I realized how lucky I was to NOT have that association. In fact, I don’t think I would be a puzzly guy without the women in my life.
My mother (the first female store manager in A&P history) still solves crosswords and jigsaw puzzles to this day, and encouraged my interest in puzzles in the first place. My oldest sister (a teacher) introduced me to wordplay. My older sister spent hours playing puzzle video games like Dr. Mario with me. My younger sister is not just a master jigsaw puzzle solver, but a fiend at trivia nights and escape rooms, forever challenging me to match her flow.
I was trained in crossword puzzle editing and construction by Penny Press’s crossword guru Eileen Saunders, and still lean on her creativity and wisdom every day (and marvel at her blistering speed and efficiency).
I was shepherded through the world of variety puzzles by Los Angeles Times crossword editor and puzzle badass Patti Varol. (Though it was probably more like dragging my deadweight body through molasses than “shepherding” if I’m being honest.)
And that’s not counting the undeniable and indispensable influence of Amy Roth (a shining light at Penny Press), Chris Begley, and so many other female voices that make Penny Press one of the best outlets for puzzles in the world.
I love puzzles because of those women. I have made a career in puzzles because of those women. I am better at puzzles because of those women.
The puzzle world is better because of women. It will continue to advance and innovate and thrive because of women.
How do I know this? Because women are doing incredible things in puzzles RIGHT NOW.
A small sampling of the women making puzzles better. Wyna Liu, Amanda Rafkin, Soleil Saint-Cyr, Tracy Bennett. Illustrations by Ben Kirchner.
Look at The New York Times. Tracy Bennett, Wyna Liu, and Christina Iverson are delivering great daily puzzles like Connections, Strands, and Mini Crosswords not just consistently, but brilliantly.
The aforementioned Patti Varol is absolutely crushing it at The Los Angeles Times crossword. With Katie Hale and Angela Kinsella Olsen on Patti’s team, every month since mid-April 2022 has had a minimum of 50% women constructors and often exceeds that, all while delivering topnotch puzzles.
The New Yorker, USA Today, The Slate Crossword? Liz Maynes-Aminzade, Amanda Rafkin, Quiara Vasquez. Brooke Husic runs PuzzMo (where Rachel Fabi constructed my favorite puzzle of the year!) and Amy Reynaldo co-edits Crosswords With Friends.
Rebecca Goldstein just won the Orca for constructor of the year. Smarter people than me have called Stella Zawistowski a crossword boss in every sense of the word. Ada Nicolle won the 2024 Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament.
The impact of projects like Women of Letters and The Inkubator weren’t just the tip of the iceberg, they were the tip of the spear. A spear aimed directly at the heart of outdated notions of who makes crosswords and who solves them, dismantling the idea of some mythical “average solver” that has never truly represented the crossword audience.
As constructors, editors, and solvers, women in the past shaped puzzles as we know them. And women in the present are redefining puzzles. Not just in terms of representation (both as grid answers and creators behind the scenes), but in terms of acknowledgment, respect, and appreciation.
As for women of the future? I, for one, can’t wait to see what they have in store for us.
(And thank you to several of the women mentioned above for making this post far, far better than it started.)
The heart of this blog is celebrating puzzles and wordplay in as many forms as possible, so for today’s blog, here’s a puzzle for you to solve!
I call this puzzle “Within-onyms” and the concept is simple. I’ll give you a combination of letters and blanks. Each blank represents a missing letter. The given letters spell out not only a word, but your clue as well. Because when you fill those blanks with the missing letters, you’ll spell out a larger word that’s a synonym of the given word.
For example, I give you this Within-onym:
G I _ A N T _ _
The given letters spell GIANT, but if you add a G, I, and C, you spell the word GIGANTIC, a synonym of GIANT!
Ready to try it for yourself? Careful, they get tougher as we go!
WITHIN-ONYMS
L A _ _ S T
_ _ N O _ _ B L E
_ _ T _ _ O M B
H _ _ _ I E S
M A _ _ _ L _ _ E
S P _ _ _ _ E D
_ _ S E _ _ E
U _ _ _ G _ _ L Y
_ _ H E _ I _ _ R
_ _ _ T A _ I N _ T _
_ R _ _ _ _ _ _ A _ I _ N
B _ _ _ _ I _ G _ _ _ _ _ _
Happy puzzling!
How many did you get? Let me know in the comment section below!
[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review.]
There’s something immensely satisfying about building a contraption and then setting it into motion. Marble runs, Rube Goldberg devices, clockwork toys, chain reactions… they all involve a meticulous step-by-step creation process that builds anticipation as you go.
And then finally, you get to pull the string, throw the lever, drop the marble… and enjoy the clicky-clacky fruits of your labor.
But I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a game that makes it both as challenging AND as effortless as Gravitrax does.
Allow me to explain.
Gravitrax takes the traditional marble run formula — gravity x (tracks + ramps) = good times — and improves it in every way.
The hexagon matting provides a stable base that not only makes it easy to follow the instructions included for all sorts of designs, but makes the entire design perfectly steady. Every piece fits snugly into the hexagons, so there’s none of the wobbly uncertainty that can ruin a flawless marble run.
Factor in ALL of the pieces provided in the Starter-Set XXL — columns of two different thickness to raise pieces, plates to create entire new levels to build speed, curves and connectors galore, plus specialty pieces to add new tricks and challenges — and you have an amazing launchpad for creating your kinetic designs.
So much thought has been put into all of the pieces included. There’s a triple launcher so you can race multiple marbles along different paths OR set up different chain reactions all at once to dazzle the eye.
There’s even a magnetic accelerator that can launch a ball uphill to add further distance to your track!
The instruction books are another standout part of the package. Like a LEGO manual, they’re completely wordless, and yet, everything is crystal clear. The first book introduces all the pieces and how to use them, while the second (much thicker!) handbook offers all sorts of designs to try out, starting from simple to complicated and challenging ones. There are six difficulty ratings in all.
And the instructions lend themselves to puzzly minds. They show you the finished product first, so if you want to try to puzzle out how to build it yourself, you’re welcome to. If not, just keep reading, and you can follow the step-by-step instructions, complete with piece listings so you know exactly what you need for each step.
I’ve been a sucker for kinetic puzzles and games like this my whole life, and I can only imagine the crazy contraptions and high-speed runs younger me would have spent hours testing and assembling with a kit like this.
So when I say it’s both effortless and challenging, I mean it. This incredibly well-designed set can be picked up by a child immediately, and yet, there’s enough adaptability and opportunity here for new designs, more innovative builds, and limit-pushing attempts at speed and complexity.
I mean, it’s nearly 2 AM as I write this, because I spent two hours trying out a new idea I had instead of writing this review.
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 combine humor and design because they really let your creativity shine through.
Mashup costumes offer ample opportunity to show off (and often require some fun wordplay to figure out), so it’s only appropriate that we celebrate Halloween in the puzzliest way possible — by looking at some punny mashup costumes!
I’ve compiled ten costumes for you to figure out. Let’s see how many you can get!
How many did you get? Have you seen any great mashup costumes I missed? Let me know in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you. And Happy Halloween!
PuzzCulture 