Now can you dig that?

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There are a lot of great puzzle games out there, but only a few have characters to go along with the puzzle solving.

Several PuzzleNation games have characters that drive or contribute to the actual solve of the puzzle — Crossword Raiders and Tanglewords among them — but my favorite is easily Diggin’ Words, our timed anagram game, because of the Diggin’ Dogs.

In the game, the dogs dig up seven letters, and it’s up to the solver to assemble as many words as they can (from 3 to 7 letters) from those seven in the time allotted.

It’s up to the Diggin’ Dogs to dig up those letters and cheer you on as you shuffle and noodle over the numerous possibilities.

But other than a friendly demeanor and a penchant for amateur paleontology, what does the average solver know about the Diggin’ Dogs?

Precious little.

So, it’s my distinct pleasure to introduce the seven lovable pooches who make Diggin’ Words possible.

From left to right: Stormy, Barkley, Copernicus, Sam, Veronica, Lorenzo, and Kana.

Stormy

The elder statesman of the pack (Stormy’s 3 months older than Lorenzo, the next oldest), Stormy assembled this elite team of expert hole-diggers from a wide range of friends, colleagues, and confidantes he’d made over the years. He’s wise beyond his years and proud of his fellow Diggin’ Dogs.

Barkley

The troublemaker of the group, Barkley is mischievous and playful, always ready with a joke or a squeaky-toy prank to lighten the mood. He also participates in a howling barber shop quartet every Saturday night around midnight behind the farmers’ market.

Copernicus

Alert, attentive, and all around excitable, Copernicus (Nicky for short) is enthusiastic enough for a dozen Diggin’ Dogs. Of course, if letter-inscribed bones rocketed out of the ground in your owner’s backyard, you’d probably be the excitable type too.

Sam

You may recognize him from the famous Dogs Playing Poker painting. Sam has since retired from the professional circuit and now spends his time panting expectantly while players try to anagram on the fly under his watchful gaze. He also enjoys barking at passing cars, birds, and sometimes, nothing at all.

Veronica

Veronica is a former Iditarod champion who stepped down after four consecutive victories. Now enjoying a peaceful lull before her next adventure, Veronica joined the Diggin’ Dogs for some much-needed R & R. Digging up these bones and shuffling the letters around is the perfect way to stay in fighting trim.

Lorenzo

With his love of quoting Shakespeare and coloring suggestive of the Phantom of the Opera, Lorenzo is the mysterious one. No one quite knows what breed or mix he is, and he’s happy to keep them guessing.

Kana

The sweetheart of the group, Kana is the affectionate one in the pack, with everyone’s best interest at heart. She keeps bowls of water offscreen for any of the dogs that start panting too heavily, and makes sure everyone sits far enough back that the bones won’t hurt anybody. You can also thank her for the lack of visible drool.

Without these adorable pups, Diggin’ Words wouldn’t be nearly as fun to solve. Thanks, guys and gals. There’ll be an extra MilkBone for each of you tonight.

And thanks for reading. As always, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you next time.

Top Ten List

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Over in the UK, the Guardian’s Crossword Blog comes up with its top works of fiction to feature crossword puzzles.

Political anagrams

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The PuzzleNation blog is officially apolitical, but that doesn’t mean we can resist amazing election-themed wordplay.

Via Neville Fogarty: Romney dominates debate = destroyed eminent Obama

Via Dharam Khalsa: A liberal, moderate, and conservative go into a bar = Cool bartender, as above arrived: “Alone again, Mitt?”

So, you like crosswords, do you?

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There are many reasons to love the Internet, but a key reason for puzzle lovers is this: The many talented crossword constructors who put free puzzles on their Web sites. Once upon a time, there were one or two of them, but now there are enough to keep even the most die-hard puzzle lover busy. If you were not aware of this, then get ready to add a whole lot of Web sites to your bookmarks list…

A-Frame Games – the Web site of Patrick Berry. It doesn’t get updated nearly often enough (HINT, HINT, PATRICK), but when it does, the puzzles are amazing. A site for variety crossword lovers.

Patrick Blindauer – a new puzzle every month.

Peter Broda – Crossword “reviews, musings, and epiphanies,” and a free puzzle every Tuesday.

Neville Fogarty – a new puzzle each week.

Matt Gaffney – a weekly crossword contest: Solve the puzzle, and then try to find the hidden answer. Late-in-the-month puzzles are for experts only.

Matt Gaffney – what, again? Yes. Matt’s one of the busier constructors out there. He also presents a daily crossword at this other Web site.

Todd McClary – “The Autofill Project” is a a fun blog for word lovers, as Todd discusses interesting new words as he adds them to his crossword database. Page through the archives and you’ll come across his excellent “Unthemely” puzzles.

Pete Muller – a monthly contest crossword with a music theme.

Squaresville Puzzles – periodic puzzling from Jeffrey Harris.

Triple Play Puzzles – An emphasis on variety crosswords, from puzzlemaster Trip Payne. Updated periodically.

Brendan Emmett Quigley – boundary-pushing crosswords, twice a week.

The Wall Street Journal – The Friday crosswords and (even better) the Saturday variety puzzles are all available for free from this blog.

Whew. I think you’re gonna need a fresh pencil sharpener.

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:

Time Out

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Are you reading this? Then clearly you have not had your brain crushed to powder by Twelve O, a sleek, original online puzzle game by Ozzie Mercado. Like the best games, Twelve O is simple to understand: All you have to do is get all the clocks to point to high noon. And like the best puzzle games, “simple to understand” does not necessarily mean “simple to do.”

You move a clock’s minute hand by clicking on it and twirling it around. Easy enough. The slight problem is, when you move the minute hand on one clock, you also move the minute hand of every clock connected to it. (The hour hands are locked on noon — you don’t have to deal with them at all, thank goodness.) Getting everything to sync up, therefore, becomes an exercise in switching back and forth between the clocks, making slight adjustments, until you finally see how to get them all to show the same time. Or, quite possibly, stumble blindly across the solution, as I did several times.

The twelve basic levels are reasonably solvable. The real brain crushing comes in later levels: In some, certain clocks run in the opposite direction, so you’ll have to think both backward and forward to get everything in sync. And in the final six levels, different size clocks run at different speeds — at that point, it becomes quite tricky to predict what will happen when you move a given clock hand. While you’re sweating through those final levels, keep telling yourself: At least I don’t have to sync up both hands. Maybe that’s coming in the next version.