Tag Archives: Announcements

Well, that escalated quickly.

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I talk a lot in this blog about the role puzzles have played in history, in our culture, and as touchstones for particular individuals. But it’s far more rare for me to talk about one puzzle in particular that changed someone’s life.

Today, I have the privilege of doing precisely that, because a puzzle crafted by our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles has changed two lives for the better.

One day, a gentleman named Bryan reached out to Penny Dell Puzzles with an audacious proposition: his girlfriend is a big fan of their puzzles and he wanted their help in crafting a special puzzly proposal of marriage!

He supplied ideas for clues and entry words, and a topnotch editor accepted the challenge of crafting a page of Escalators puzzles specially tailored for the occasion.

(For the uninitiated, an Escalators puzzle involves clued entries where a 6-letter word loses a letter and anagrams into a 5-letter word, then loses another letter and is anagrammed into a 4-letter word. Those lost letters end up spelling out words and phrases reading down when each grid is complete.)

So this singular puzzle featured his girlfriend’s name, then his name, and then the fateful question: will you marry me?

And to really cap off the presentation, the puzzle was inserted into an actual puzzle magazine (in a special limited run at the printers), so that our hero could deftly guide her toward the puzzle with her being none the wiser.

It’s an absolutely awesome idea, a testament to puzzly ingenuity, and honestly, just about the cutest proposal story I’ve ever heard.

I’ll let Bryan take it from here, in an email to his fellow collaborators at Penny Dell Puzzles:

I wanted to let you know that I proposed to Erin today with the puzzle and she said yes! It went perfectly. The puzzle looked great in the book and Erin thought nothing of it, thinking it was just another Escalators puzzle.

Once we got about halfway through the puzzle and she saw my name, it became kind of obvious, and once I knew that she knew, I got down on one knee and popped the question.

She was so surprised and blown away she even forgot to say yes and was just asking how I made it happen! She did eventually say yes after a lot of hugging, kissing, and tears, and then we continued to solve the puzzle before making calls to the rest of our family and friends.

Congratulations to Bryan and Erin! I wish them nothing but the best on their journeys to come.

And kudos to our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles for truly going the extra mile for puzzle fans and romantics alike.

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It’s Follow-Up Friday: Puzzlesaurus Kickstarterus edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And in today’s post, I’m returning to the subject of puzzly crowdfunding campaigns!

I’ve covered various campaigns for board games, card games, and puzzle projects across the Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding platforms over the years, and today I’d like to share a few more that deserve your attention.

These are some of the cards for Scrimish, a card game so simple and elegant that I cannot believe I haven’t seen this game mechanic before.

Essentially, it’s a chess match with cards. You set up your five piles of cards face down in front of you, hiding a crown card in one of your piles. Then, you play cards against your opponent’s piles in the hopes of revealing his crown card. So strategy, rather than luck, is the name of the game here.

There’s only a day or two left in this campaign, and it’s already blown past its initial goal, so if you donate, at the very least, you’re guaranteed a copy or two of the game. (Sometimes, this is one of the advantages of jumping onto a Kickstarter bandwagon at the eleventh hour.)

Did you know that more dinosaur skeletons were discovered by just two scientists — Cope and Marsh — than by anyone else in history? And did you know that they got so competitive with one another that they actually began damaging dig sites and blowing up fossils in order to sabotage each other?

This ridiculous and amazing period in history is the source material for The Great Dinosaur Rush, a game where you attempt to build a complete dinosaur skeleton while stealthily (and sometimes, not-so-stealthily) combating your opponents’ efforts to do the same.

I’ve been waiting months for this Kickstarter to launch, ever since I first heard about the game, and now it’s well on its way to being funded. Why not take history into your own hands and mess with your friends and fellow scientists while you’re at it?

There are so many more I could cover, all with varying degrees of puzzliness. There’s the card game Master Thief (where you compete with fellow players to rob a museum), the magnetic jigsaw-style Enigma Orbs, a Cards Against Humanity-inspired bounty hunting card game called Skiptrace, and Covalence, a board game where you race to figure out molecular structures!

Heck, there’s even a collection of drinking glasses that link together (called, appropriately enough, Cupzzle)!

I highly recommend taking a little time to surf the puzzle and game pages of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, because you never know what terrific and unexpected products you might help bring to life.

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!

Collection 9 now available for the Penny Dell Crosswords App!

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Hello puzzlers and PuzzleNationers! Happy Monday!

That’s right, you get a special bonus blog post today because we’ve got some exciting news!

Our latest puzzle set for the Penny Dell Crosswords App just launched in the Apple Store, and it’s one of our best yet!

Say hello to Collection 9!

Collection 9 offers 150 puzzles for your solving pleasure!

Get the Value bundle, including all 150 puzzles at a special low price, or choose from 5 30-puzzle packs — Penny Press Easy, Penny Press Medium, Penny Press Hard, Dell Easy, and Dell Medium!

Five flavors of crosswords in one package! How can you go wrong?

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!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Labor Day Puzzles edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

So let’s return to one of my favorite subjects: the Penny Dell Crosswords app!

In addition to offering a free daily puzzle, we’re constantly pushing to provide you with fresh puzzle content and the best crosswords on the mobile market today.

And just in time for your long weekend, we’ve got a brand-new puzzle set for you! It’s our September Deluxe Set!

That’s right, Labor Day weekend is upon us, and our September Deluxe set offers 35 terrific puzzles.

Not only do you get 30 easy, medium, and hard puzzles, but there are 5 themed bonus puzzles you can unlock as you solve! And it’s available for in-app purchase right now!

It’s the perfect puzzly treat for a three-day weekend!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

Goodbye, Merl.

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[Picture courtesy of crosswordfiend.com.]

The puzzle world was stunned this weekend by the sudden passing of a true crossword legend: Merl Reagle.

Merl has been one of the biggest names in puzzles for a long time now, one of the few crossword constructors who was successful and prolific enough to work on puzzles full-time.

Between his appearance in the Wordplay documentary and a cameo on The Simpsons alongside New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, he proudly represented both the love of puzzles so many solvers share AND stood as a standard-bearer for crossword construction and quality puzzling.

Merl sold his first crossword to the New York Times at age 16 — ten years after he started constructing puzzles, amazingly enough! In a career spanning five decades, his contributions to the world of puzzles were myriad. Nearly every year, one of his puzzles appears at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The crossword he constructed for the 100th Anniversary of the Crossword was turned into a Google Doodle, and, based on my research, is the most solved crossword puzzle in history.

A craftsman with humor and heart (and no small amount of anagram skill), Merl was truly one of a kind.

[Picture courtesy of tucson.com.]

I had the privilege of meeting him at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this year. It was only for a few minutes while the tournament participants were tackling one of the early puzzles and the vendor’s floor was pretty empty. (Otherwise, there were always puzzlers crowded around Merl’s table between tournament puzzles. He was the center of gravity around which many fellow puzzle fans orbited, a master of ceremonies wherever he went.)

He was friendly and gracious, one of those people who can strike an instant rapport with virtually anyone. He put me at ease immediately as I checked out his latest puzzly offerings and we briefly chatted about the tournament itself. (I didn’t get the chance to challenge his legendary anagramming talents, sadly.)

Fellow puzzler and friend of the blog Keith Yarbrough was kind enough to share one of this experiences with Merl:

Merl gave me his philosophy of puzzle construction at the ACPT one year. His goal, he said, was to make the solver smile. Coming up with a funny theme was the main thing. His test when he came up with an idea was to run it past his wife, who is not a puzzler. If it made her smile, it was a keeper.

He wasn’t out to frustrate the solver with obscurities or unnecessary crosswordese, so he used common entries as much as possible. His mantra was that the fill should not be overly difficult.

[Picture courtesy of cltampa.com.]

The dozens of tributes I’ve seen online are a testament to how many friends and admirers Merl earned over the years. There are too many to link to here, but I want to highlight a few from fellow puzzlers Brendan Emmett Quigley, Deb Amlen, and David Steinberg.

Merl, you will be missed. Thank you, for the laughs, for the tough crossings, the trickiest-of-tricky clues, and the many unexpected delights you managed to spring on so many solvers.

You can check out Merl’s work on his Sunday Crosswords website as well as some of his collections on Amazon. Click the links. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

A brand-new puzzle set for the Penny Dell Crosswords app!

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It has been a busy summer here at PuzzleNation, especially with regards to the Penny Dell Crosswords App.

We launched several new puzzle sets for the app, including our June and July Deluxe puzzle sets, as well as Collection Eight, our 150-puzzle pack we mentioned a few weeks ago.

We also debuted our free daily puzzle feature for all app users!

And in case you’re not following us on Twitter or Facebook, we’re also doing a Crossword Clue Challenge every weekday at 3 PM, testing your familiarity with classic crossword clues as well as trickier fare!

But that’s not all! We’re excited to announce our newest downloadable content for the Penny Dell Crosswords app, the Back to School Deluxe set, is now available through the App Store!

That’s right, it’s almost Back to School time, and our August Deluxe set offers 35 terrific themed puzzles. Not only do you get 30 easy, medium, and hard puzzles, but there are 5 bonus puzzles you can unlock as you solve!

We are committed to providing you with the best puzzle games on the market today, and with this deluxe set of puzzles, we’ve continued that proud tradition. Terrific crosswords right in your pocket! What more could you ask for?

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!