Detective Days in Connecticut All Throughout September!

Posted on August 2, 2019 by gmdirect

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I have to say, Connecticut has been crushing it this year when it comes to hosting puzzly events to interest and engage solvers of all ages.

In addition to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament every year in Stamford, we’ve discussed the Find the Wine corn maze event happening this month in Gales Ferry. Heck, the world’s first animal-centric Live-Action Roleplaying event was held in Redding just a month or so ago, and Goat LARP was widely praised as a successful and exciting puzzle endeavor for all involved!

And CT isn’t done yet. No, four different cities in September will be offering full, puzzly murder mysteries to be solved!

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Yes, the team at CluedUpp, a British game company that specializes in outdoor city-spanning mysteries similar to the film Clue, will be running their latest event, Sneaky Finders, in Stamford and Bridgeport on September 14th and then in Hartford and New Haven on September 21st.

Participating teams will scramble around town, hunting down witnesses, unearthing clues, and trying to unravel the mystery, all through an interactive downloadable app and their own investigative efforts!

According to the event page for the Stamford edition of the game, you’ll need the following to play:

A team of detectives (at least 2 but up to 6 players per team)
Access to a Smartphone (Android or iOS)
A clever team name
Awesome Sneaky Finders / 1920’s inspired fancy dress (dressing up is optional but good fun!)

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You only need to purchase 1 ticket per team of 6 adults. Children under 16 can play as an extra for free. Team Tickets are normally $60, but if you act now, you can nab Earlybird Team Tickets for just $46!

And even if you don’t crack the mystery, prizes will be awarded in such categories as:

Fastest team
Best fancy dress (Sneaky Finders / 1920’s inspired)
Best team picture
Best team name
Best little detective (kids prize)
Best K-9 detective (dogs prize)

This sounds like an absolute blast, and I suspect the turnout for each event will be terrific. You can click here for details on all things CluedUpp, and their full schedule of upcoming events in the United States can be found here.

Will you be attending one of the four Sneaky Finders events, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you!

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Beer + Puzzles = Viral Marketing Hijinks

Posted on August 1, 2019 by gmdirect

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[Image courtesy of Busch]

We recently discussed the art of viral marketing in our post about an upcoming Cartoon Network show. This year alone, we’ve seen some very clever viral marketing techniques — the Game of Thrones promotion that had people scouring the globe for replicas of the Iron Throne comes to mind — and last week, the folks at Busch Beer got in on the puzzly fun.

The concept was simple: launch a pop-up shop (a short-term retail venue where the location and the brief duration are selling points for the store) in a secret location and leave clues for interested customers to follow in order to find it.

News stories like this one hyping the Busch Pop Up “Schop” began appearing all over the Internet on July 15th and 16th.

The promises were intriguing. Limited-edition merchandise. Free beer. The commitment to plant a hundred trees in a national forest for every visitor who makes it to the Schop. Plus, a random drawing where one lucky visitor wins Busch Beer for life.

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[Image courtesy of Busch.]

After the launch video, additional clips with clues were posted once or twice a day from the 17th to the 19th.

On the 17th, solvers received this clue: Kansas to the left of me / Illinois to the right / here I am stuck in ____ with you. Can you guess what state I’m in?

On the 18th, they received this clue: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m actually in the forest. Can you guess which one?

Later the day, another clue appeared: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Which is why I can tell you I’m in an area with a lot of vertical wooden objects.

On the 19th, they offered a final clue: First syllable: Abel’s brother. Second syllable: Rhymes with duck. Can you guess where the trailhead starts?

Later that day, they made things less opaque: Ok, final clue. If you were hypothetically hiking to the Busch Pop Up Schop, you might hypothetically start at the Kaintuck Hollow Trailhead. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

So, from the clue on the 17th, we got the state: Missouri. By the 18th, we knew it was the Mark Twain National Forest. And the day before the event, we even knew where to start hiking: Kaintuck Hollow Trailhead.

On the day of, the Busch Twitter account shared the following advice:

-No need to hurry, you do not have to be first to arrive to win, it will be a random draw after we close
-We’re open 10AM-5PM
-Bring your hiking boots
-Stay hydrated, it’s going to be a hot one

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[Image courtesy of Ryan James Hausmann.]

Unfortunately, the “No need to hurry” line looked quite bad in retrospect.

It seems that Busch severely underestimated the number of people who would be attending. (The expected number seemed to be between 75 and a few hundred people.) Though the event was scheduled to run from 10 AM to 5 PM, they reportedly closed off the Pop Up Schop by 10:30 AM because they’d already reached capacity. (Some online reports said they closed the shop by 9:30 AM, before the event had even officially started.)

Naturally, since these are anecdotal reports, details are contradictory, but the vast majority claim that the merch was gone quickly, attendees either got a warm beer or no beer at all, and the only consolation rested in the fact that you could still sign up for the free beer for life contest before being turned away.

According to one attendee on Twitter:

We walked there and were told we couldn’t go up the trail because they were at capacity and out of beer and merchandise. We got to enter for the drawing, hike back to the car and attempt to turn around on a one lane road.

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[Image courtesy of Nick Schmidt.]

A few later reports suggest the Pop Up Schop was restocked at some point, given that there are stories of attendees arriving between 1:30 and 3:30 and getting drinks. Perhaps they were simply overwhelmed by the early morning onslaught… or maybe the promotional team was doing damage control and seeding a few positive reports in with the negative feedback. It’s hard to say given the general lack of coverage for the event. (Despite the many reports hyping the event, as far as I can tell, none followed up with the results of the promotion.)

Either way, a viral marketing campaign with great traction and excellent turnout had a lackluster result. Hopefully those who made the journey had fun and the marketing team learned something from all this.

And, in their defense, it does seem that many people enjoyed the adventure, even if the end result didn’t exactly meet their expectations. The staff was routinely praised for their professionalism and grace under tough conditions (especially in 100 degree weather).

There’s always next time. I mean, a summer day, a nice hike, a puzzle, and free beer? That sounds like a recipe for major turnout to me.

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Alex Trebek Wraps Up His 35th Season of Jeopardy! with a Surprise!

Posted on July 30, 2019 by gmdirect

It’s hard to believe that less than two months ago, Jeopardy! was on everyone’s mind as James Holzhauer embarked on his thrilling streak of money-making trivia performances, shattering records and raking in an impressive amount of dough.

Things are a bit quieter now. The show recently wrapped up its 35th season, a landmark few television shows ever reach. And integral to the show’s success is Alex Trebek, who has served as the show’s host since 1984.

Trebek is a certifiable pop culture icon these days. Not only is he a member of that elite pantheon of game show hosts that are instantly recognizable to virtually everyone, but he actually holds the Guinness World Record for hosting the most episodes of a game show. He was awarded with the honor on June 13, 2014, having hosted 6,829 episodes (up to that point).

[Image courtesy of IMDb.]

My personal favorite Trebek moment is when he showed up unexpectedly in an episode of The X-Files, playing one of the mysterious Men in Black. It’s unclear if he was playing himself, though. As Agent Scully states, “Mulder didn’t say it was Alex Trebek, it was just someone who looked incredibly like him.”

Although he received devastating medical news earlier this year — a diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer — he has said in recent interviews that he’s responding exceptionally well to treatment, giving his many fans and well-wishers hope that he will not only see out the end of his contract (currently set to end in 2022), but many more years of health and happiness.

It’s in that spirit that we write today’s blog post, as Season 35 concluded with one last surprise for Mr. Trebek, courtesy of the Jeopardy! All-Stars (Ken Jennings, Austin Rogers, Brad Rutter, and others):

It’s a wonderful gift to a television icon that millions have been welcoming into their homes for decades now. When it comes to figures in the world of puzzles and games, there are few as iconic as Alex Trebek.

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A Different Sort of Checkered Flag…

Posted on July 26, 2019 by gmdirect

As you know, from time to time we host puzzly contests. Oftentimes, those contests involve not only our in-house personnel (as well as our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles), but the marvelous PuzzleNation community as well.

This time around, we switched things up a bit and hosted a visual contest rather than a wordy one. The challenge? To create flag designs for either Penny/Dell Puzzles or PuzzleNation, and we thought we’d collect them here for everyone’s enjoyment!

Shall we see what visual delights our fellow puzzlers cooked up for us? Let’s do!

[A twist on the “Don’t tread on me” flag, with a potential second caption of “Don’t Bother Me: I’m Solving Puzzles.” Colors TBD. This flag is suitable for flying outside a tree house or she-shed, as need arises. It could be turned into an icon for use on-line, similar to the “away” icons on IM-type situations.]

The same designer submitted a second creation, and I feel the description captures the idea nicely:

[Three simple illustrations on a white banner. As Ina Garten prefers white dishes for food to stand out, a white background allows simple illustrations to stand out. Proportions of illustrations will be similar to the Canadian maple-leaf flag. From left to right: a penny, an index finger touching a big red button with cartoon-style puffs of air indicating motion of finger pressing down, and a puzzle-book page. This flag is more for flying at public events, company gatherings, and such.

It should go without saying that text for both flags shall be in Helvetica, the finest and most readable typeface in all the land.]

Now, back to the visual goodness:

[Here is a simple design based on the classic clown icon that decorated Penny Press books for many years.]

[This flag celebrates some of the most crucial pieces of the Penny Press company puzzle.]

[This flag combines the traditional Penny Press banner with a crossword grid and a tongue-in-cheek new company slogan.]

[This flag not only highlights some of the flagship Penny Press puzzles, but puts a nice puzzly twist on the vintage skull and crossbones imagery of pirate flags.]

[Here we have two variations on a theme, one in black and white, one in checkerboard red and black. Each features gleeful Vanna White-esque pencils with eraser hard hats.]

[PuzzleNation wasn’t ignored in the contest, though, as we received this fun design placing our logo smack dab in the middle of a crossword, right where we belong.]

[We also received this interesting entry, where some of our most popular puzzle apps are represented in an array of icons similar to the stars on the Australian or New Zealand flag. Those icons offset the simple, warm backdrop of our blog site’s background.]

What do you think of the designs, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Do you have a favorite? Or a suggestion for another flag idea?

Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you!

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And… Repeat

Posted on July 25, 2019 by gmdirect

repetition

[Image courtesy of Pinterest.]

I’ve had repetition on the brain lately. Repeatedly. How apropos.

I was talking about plagiarism with a friend of mine recently — a teacher who has dealt with her fair share of plagiarized essays from students — and I quickly summarized the USA Today/Universal Uclick crossword plagiarism scandal from 2016 for her.

She was understandably surprised that plagiarism was a thing in the crossword world — a thankfully rare one — and it got me thinking about intentional repetition vs. unintentional repetition.

When it comes to the Uclick scandal, it was pretty obviously intentional repetition.

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But unintentional repetition happens more often than you’d think. The very rules for creating a traditional themed crossword lend themselves toward duplication, unintentional and otherwise.

Grid layouts, for instance, get reused all the time. When I started constructing, I actually assembled a stack of different grid patterns for 13x and 15x puzzles that I could use, organized by how the theme entries were arranged on the page: 9-13-9, 11-15-11, etc.

Despite the virtually infinite number of ways you could build a 15x grid, you see, when it comes to theme entries — particularly grids with diagonal symmetry and theme entries of matching length — there’s a finite number of ways to build a functioning grid.

So, we know that grids can easily be similar, but what about themes?

There are all sorts of ways that wordplay can inspire crossword themes — anagrams, sound-alike puns, entries reading backwards or being mixed up in a grid, portmanteaus, letters being removed from common phrases (and sometimes placed elsewhere in the grid), etc. — and if more than one constructor comes up with the same idea, you could have repeated entries with no malice or plagiarism involved.

Let’s say multiple constructors are working on puzzles with a similar theme, as they would for some of the tournaments hosted throughout the year, like Lollapuzzoola or the Indie 500. If the tournament had a time theme, it’s reasonable that more than one constructor could come up with a hook like “Time Flies” and look for entries that combine travel and time, coming up with NONSTOPWATCH or LAYOVERDUE.

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[Image courtesy of DnD Beyond.]

Constructor Matt Gaffney actually wrote about a case of unintentional theme repetition for Slate years ago, discussing how he and Mike Shenk independently came up with puzzles where the word RAVEN was hidden in longer entries, and four of the five theme entries in the puzzles were the same AND placed similarly in the grid.

It’s a fascinating read that reveals a lot about grid construction, theme design, and puzzle mechanics. It’s the ultimate puzzly example of “great minds think alike.”

So, how do you avoid repeating a theme? Well, a little due diligence can go a long way. Sites like Xwordinfo and Crossword Fiend are great resources for searching theme answers to see if they’ve been done before.

Constructor Patrick Blindauer also offered some advice for coming up with new themes: solve more puzzles. He said, “Solving other puzzles is a good source of theme ideas for me. I try to guess the theme early, sometimes based only on the title; if I turn out to be wrong, I’ve got a new idea to play with.”

In this case, he avoids repetition through imagination. It’s a cool idea, one that will no doubt lead to some terrific new puzzles.

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The Human Limit of Speed-Puzzling?

Posted on July 23, 2019 by gmdirect

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When you think about achieving the impossible, what comes to mind? For runners, there’s beating the 4-minute mile. For the 100-meter sprint, it’s topping 10 seconds.

What do you suppose the puzzle equivalent would be? Solving puzzle #1 at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in under 2 minutes? We’ve seen Dan Feyer do that, and it was seriously impressive.

For Rubik’s Cube enthusiasts — especially the competitors known as speed-solvers or speed-cubers — that benchmark is a sub-3 second solve.

The current verified world record for speed-solving a Rubik’s Cube stands at 3.4 seconds, which shattered the previous record by almost a second.

(That record is for a single solve. Many Rubik’s Cube competitions involve an average time across five solved cubes, and the speed record for that hovers somewhere around 5 seconds.)

A lot goes into achieving a 3.4 second solve. There are specially designed cubes that allow for easier, quicker, smoother twisting and turning, so you can solve faster. I’m sure anyone who has solved a classic Rubik’s Cube found it at least a little bit clunky.

There’s also technique. Top solvers not only memorize solving patterns known as algorithms, but they have preferred combinations of moves.

It has been mathematically proven that no matter how complicated a scramble gets, you’re never more than 20 moves away from the solve. Now, of course a computer can analyze a cube and figure out those 20 moves. The human mind doesn’t work that way, so even top speed-solvers would require many more moves to solve the cube, even if they’re still lightning fast.

Which brings us to the next aspect of speed-solving: efficiency. Sometimes the fewest number of moves isn’t the fastest solve. For instance, if you have to rotate the cube in order to execute a turn, you’re wasting time you could otherwise spend twisting and turning toward the solution. So some solvers will avoid a slower rotational move by doing two turns instead, which ends up being faster overall. The trade-off of speed vs. efficiency is another way speed-solvers are whittling down time and approaching that 3-second threshold.

Top solvers can execute ten turns or moves per second. Based on the idea that no Rubik’s Cube is more than 20 moves away from being solved, that mathematically implies that a 2-second solve should be possible, if not probable.

In fairness, we’ve seen a solve take less than a second, but that involved a computer program and a robot solver.

So where do we currently stand? Well, there’s the 3.4 second official record, but former champion Feliks Zemdegs claims that, in training, he has achieved a 3.01 second solve.

Another speed-solver, Patrick Ponce, claims that he has solved a 3×3 cube in 2.99 seconds, but again, this is an unofficial time.

That being said, it certainly seems like the 3-second threshold, like the 4-minute mile before it, will eventually fall.

How fast is the human limit? Only time will tell.

[Sources: Rubik’s WCA World Championship, World Cube Association, Wired.]

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PuzzCulture

All about puzzles & games

Detective Days in Connecticut All Throughout September!

Beer + Puzzles = Viral Marketing Hijinks

Alex Trebek Wraps Up His 35th Season of Jeopardy! with a Surprise!

A Different Sort of Checkered Flag…

And… Repeat

The Human Limit of Speed-Puzzling?

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