Is Burger King Coming for the Wendy’s RPG Crown?

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Timing is a fascinating thing. You never know what will suddenly become relevant again, or how something from the past will reemerge with new context and impact later.

Last month I wrote about Feast of Legends, the Wendy’s roleplaying game released back in 2019, because I had fast food and RPGs on the brain.

Now, Feast of Legends made a big splash in 2019, but it’s fair to say that six years later, it’s not as relevant in RPG circles as it once was.

However, it’s funny that I wrote about it just a few weeks ago, and now it seems like Burger King is suddenly getting in on the roleplaying game scene!

Yes, Burger King’s Quest is a playable supplement for Dungeons & Dragons, featuring the Burger King Kingdom as its setting, and resurrecting several characters from Burger King’s promotional efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to counter McDonalds’ McDonaldland and its characters.

You definitely know the Burger King, but do you remember Sir Shake-A-Lot, the Duke of Doubt, or The Wizard of Fries? I sure don’t! (Who knew that The Home of the Whopper was a real place, not just a slogan?!)

Well they’re getting new life in this RPG supplement, which was unveiled at Lucca Comics & Games as part of Milan Games Week.

Right now, the game is only in Italian, so we’re not sure if English-speaking roleplayers will get their own version in the future. But thankfully the hardworking crew at the Burger King WIKI have some details on the game for non-Italian readers.

I don’t speak Italian, but I did download the game’s PDF, naturally. The art is beautiful, and clearly a lot of work went into this promotional stunt.

But you can already see a rivalry brewing with the Feast of Legends loyalists in the RPG community. (After all, I only found out about Burger King’s Quest BECAUSE of the Feast of Legends subreddit!)

I reached out to the Burger King Public Relations team to try to learn more about the promotion and any plans for it to expand beyond Italy, but I haven’t heard back yet.

So, for now at least, this remains a roleplaying curiosity. But who knows what the future holds. Wendy’s, Arby’s, and now Burger King. The fast food/roleplaying crossover space is certainly heating up!

Happy gaming (and eating), everyone!

The 2025 GCHQ Christmas Challenge Launches Tomorrow!

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One government agency in England celebrates Christmas a little bit differently than most.

The GCHQ — or Government Communications Headquarters — provides security and intelligence services for the British government. Back when they were known as GC&CS — Government Code and Cypher School — they were responsible for funding Bletchley Park and its successes cracking the German “Enigma” code during World War II.

And now, they provide one of the coolest and puzzliest challenges of the year, designed for solvers aged eleven to eighteen to test their skills, hoping to inspire the next generation of puzzle solvers.

Yes, it’s time once again for the GCHQ Christmas card.

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A look at 2021’s GCHQ Christmas Card.

We provided detailed breakdowns of their Christmas cards in 2016 and 2021, and if you’d like a sample of the GCHQ Christmas Challenge, they have an archive of puzzles from three previous years ready for you to solve!

The 2025 edition of the GCHQ Christmas Challenge launches tomorrow, Wednesday December 10th for the general public. (Schools were able to register for early access to the puzzles, complete with lesson-planning materials, which is very cool.)

Here’s what the GCHQ has to say about the event:

At GCHQ, we love creating puzzles and breaking codes. That’s why every year we create the GCHQ Christmas Challenge, a series of fiendish brainteasers and puzzles, designed by our very own team of codebreakers. It encourages children aged 11-18 to think laterally and work as a team, as well as showcasing some of the skills they might need to become a spy.

The puzzles are not designed to be solved alone, and each student will bring something different to the challenge. At GCHQ, we believe the right mix of minds enables us to solve seemingly impossible problems.

I’ve always been impressed with what festive puzzly efforts GCHQ brings each year, and I can’t wait to see what the 2025 edition has in store for solvers.

So, fellow puzzlers, do you accept this year’s Christmas Challenge? Let us know in the comments section below!

Crossword News Roundup: ACPT and Puzzmo’s Open Submission Week

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We’ve got two quick updates for you today from the world of crosswords. And both of them involve opportunities for you to get out there and show off your cruciverbalist talents!

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The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is moving in 2027!

On Monday night’s Boswords broadcast, Will Shortz joined Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb to announce some changes for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

In 2026, the ACPT will be held at the Stamford Marriott, possibly for the last time.

No, worry not, the ACPT is still going strong. So strong, in fact, that it will be moving to Philadelphia for the 2027 tournament! The new space will be able to accommodate up to 1,250 solvers.

It’s a sad moment for Stamford, but not entirely unexpected. Attendance has been pushing the Marriott’s limits for years, and registration for this year’s tournament closed more than a month early because of high demand.

It’s also not the first time Stamford has said goodbye to the tournament. From 2008 until its return in 2015, the ACPT was held outside Stamford.

You can check out the full announcement here:

Overall, I think this is a great move for the tournament. There’s greater opportunity to attend the tournament, plus a ballroom space fit for voracious solvers of all ages.

I can’t wait to see what 2016 and 2017 bring for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

Remember that registration opens on January 1st for former contestants and on January 8th for rookies!

Reminder: Puzzmo Open Submission Week is Fast Approaching!

From the mecca of in-person crossword solving to one of its most ambitious and welcoming online platforms, we move from one impactful puzzly institution to another that has very quickly made its mark on the world of puzzles.

Puzzmo is holding their next Crossword Open Submission Week from December 29th to January 5th, 2026, with new and established constructors all welcome to submit their puzzly creations.

Themed and themeless puzzles are welcome, as long as they fit Puzzmo’s specs, and the Puzzmo team has created an impressively thorough document to assist aspiring constructors with their efforts. Grid specs, examples of previously published puzzles, and more await anyone hoping to see their work pop up on Puzzmo.

It’s a very cool opportunity to test your puzzly mettle in a creative space known for strong crossword fundamentals as well as playfulness with language and themes (particularly their signature “apt pairs”).

I would highly recommend checking out Puzzmo, whether you’re planning to submit puzzles or not. The minis, midis, and big crosswords are all great fun to solve, and new constructors are bound to learn a thing or two from the terrific names on Puzzmo’s roster of puzzlesmiths.

Will you be attending next year’s ACPT or submitting to this year’s Puzzmo Open Submission Week? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

Happy puzzling!

Problem-Solving Wolves a Problem in British Columbia?

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If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ve no doubt noticed that one of our favorite topics is puzzle-solving animals. In the past, we’ve discussed examples of puzzle solving in cats, dogs, crows, cockatoos, octopuses, bees, pigs, and squirrels.

It’s possible we’ll be adding another mammal to the list today, given reports coming out of British Columbia about wolves interfering with crab traps.

Allow me to explain.

European green crabs are an invasive species in both British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the US, and locals have been setting up baited traps to capture them.

But in one particular area — the Haíɫzaqv Nation of British Columbia — they noticed traps broken into and damaged by a mysterious thief, who had been making off with the bait intended for those crabs. This happened not only to traps closer to the surface, but to deeply submerged traps as well.

This had been going on since 2023, so naturally, they set up remote cameras to finally solve the mystery and identify the culprit.

You can imagine their surprise when the cameras revealed a wolf swimming out of the water with a crab trap in tow!

The wolf then manipulated the trap until it could get the bait from the bait cup. The entire operation took only three minutes! That’s Ocean’s Eleven-style efficiency.

Now, is this just a matter of wolves observing humans and replicating the action?

Did the wolves observe the traps at low tide and come back for them at high tide, remembering their positions even while submerged?

Is this as simple as wolves being like dogs and loving nothing more than yanking on a rope toy and seeing what happens?

Or is this deduction, where a wolf sees a rope connected to a buoy and deduces there is something to be found underwater connected to that rope?

The researchers say there are at least two different wolves they’ve observed puzzling the bait out of these traps. Is this something one wolf taught another, or are all wolves capable of this level of tool use and puzzly thinking?

At the very least, this is a potential sign of the sort of problem-solving thinking we regularly see from crows and octopuses.

So it’s entirely possible that we’ll need to make some room on the puzzle-solving animal podium for these clever canids.

Only time will tell.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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lego-store-lego-november-turkey

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow puzzlers!

Today is a day for family and friends, for celebrating togetherness, for appreciating good fortune, health, and happiness. And we here at PuzzCulture are so so grateful for each and every reader and solver.

Whether you’re a puzzler or a gamer, a casual solver or a diehard devotee of all things puzzly, you can rest assured you are a welcome member of a very eclectic, charming, and downright likable community of puzzly people. =)

And so, in the spirit of giving thanks, I’ve cooked up a puzzle for my fellow puzzlers on this delightful Turkey Day.

I call this What’s Leftovers?

Following the instructions, cross off words in the diagram. When you are finished, the remaining words will form a message reading left to right, line by line. Some words may be eliminated by more than one of the instructions.

  1. Cross off all words that name family members.
  2. Cross off all NFL teams playing Thanksgiving games.
  3. Cross off all words that name parts of Thanksgiving dinner.
  4. Cross off all words that name types of pie.
  5. Cross off all words that rhyme with FORK.
  6. Cross off all words that name ways to cook turkey.
  7. Cross off all words that can follow TURKEY in a common phrase.
  8. Cross off all words that are synonyms for HUNGRY.
  9. Cross off all two-letter words in columns A and B.
  10. Cross off all words that are spelled out in the word SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (like LIDO).

[Click here for a PDF of the puzzle to print and solve.]

Have a marvelous holiday and happy solving!

PuzzCulture’s 2025 Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide!

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Happy Holidays and welcome to the PuzzCulture 2025 Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide!

Each year, we scour the world of puzzles and games for the best, the most engaging, the most creative, and the most enjoyable products we can find, and we think this year’s collection is the best we’ve ever had!

We’ve got three different versions of the Gift Guide for your perusal, each of them absolutely loaded with all sorts of puzzly goodness and designed to make your puzzle and game shopping as easy as possible!

You can scroll to your heart’s content or use our handy quick search links to jump to different sections! The products in this year’s Gift Guide are organized by category, by age group, and by price below!

So, if you’d like to view products sorted by category (puzzle games, board games, puzzle books, etc.), click the wreath!

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If you’d like to view products sorted by age group, click the penguin!

And if you’d like to view products sorted by price from lowest to highest, click the tangram candle!

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A lot of terrific companies and puzzle constructors are taking part in our gift guide this year, and we’re sure you’ll find something for every puzzle lover on your list!

Happy browsing and happy puzzling to you and yours!