Tag Archives: constructing

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Lollapuzzoola 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.

August 13 marked the ninth annual Lollapuzzoola event, hosted in New York City by Brian Cimmet and Patrick Blindauer, and subtitled “It’s Hip to be Squared.”

While I couldn’t attend the tournament, I did download the tournament set and tackle the six puzzles prepared for the event. And today, after waiting a few weeks out of respect for the constructors and solvers-from-home to avoid spoilers, I thought I’d offer my thoughts on those puzzles, for any interested PuzzleNationers who might be considering participating in the future.

WARM-UP: Twinlets by Brian Cimmet

Before the tournament proper started, solvers tackled a pair of identical 9×9 grids, having to figure out which of the two clues given for each Across and Down coordinate applied to which grid. Intended as a tribute to the tournament’s ninth year, this was a strong, fun opener that used the dual grids to the fullest.

Several clues were repeated, allowing for some clever wordplay. For instance, both 5 Down clues were “Sweet”, cluing DELICIOUS and SCHMALTZY respectively.

Interesting grid entries included ZZ TOP, KANYE, and USER ID, and my favorite clue was either “Catcher behind a plate?” for BIB or “You’ve got two on your head and four in your head” for LOBES.

[Image courtesy of The King of Babylon on Tumblr.]

Puzzle 1: Celebrity Chefs by Mike Nothnagel

The tournament kicked off with this enjoyable 15×15 grid where food phrases that featured a last name used the first name instead (so you had CHICKEN A LA LARRY instead of CHICKEN A LA KING, for instance).

Nothnagel’s cluing was topnotch — I circled more favorite clues on this puzzle than any other in the tournament — reinvigorating some tired old standard entries with unexpected spins.

Interesting grid entries included THINKPAD, DRY EYE, TB TEST, and X-AXES, and my favorite clues (I’m limiting myself to two) were “Hefty alternative” for GLAD and “House-monitoring network?” for C-SPAN.

[Tournament directors and constructors
Brian Cimmet and Patrick Blindauer]

Puzzle 2: Flipping Out by Patrick Blindauer

The next puzzle split a 16×15 grid down the middle into two 8×15 grids, each on its own page. The curious construction definitely slowed me down, even if the cluing and grid entries (including four different entries clued “FLIP OUT”) weren’t all that difficult.

This was easily the weirdest solve of the tournament. Amazing how one little change in presentation can throw you off.

Interesting grid entries included GI JOE, NO SIR, AMADEUS, and NADAL, and my favorite clues were “Writer Rice whose characters suck” for ANNE and the surprisingly intimate “Irish singer who my wife can’t stand” for ENYA.

[Image courtesy of The Odyssey Online.]

Puzzle 3: What Happened? by Doug Peterson

The difficulty of each puzzle’s theme began to ramp up here, as we had common words or phrases where the letter H had been replaced with either a T or a Y, and this was revealed with the highlighted entry HISTORY (literally spelling out “H IS T OR Y”).

Doug is a cleverboots, to be sure, and this 21×21 grid was a great test of wordplay and puzzly knowhow.

Interesting grid entries included HOLY GRAIL, ASIAGO, YUGI-OH, and ADORBS, and my favorite clues were “Leader of Ancient Troy?” for TAU and “Co. for surfers” for ISP.

[Image courtesy of Domestiphobia.net.]

Puzzle 4: Down in Front! by Evan Birnholz

We’re halfway through the tournament puzzles now, and the toughest puzzle in the set shows up, completing a one-two punch of really solid construction and crafty cluing. Six entries in this puzzle were missing letters, creating real words that were shorter than the actual words clued. (For instance, the clue “Person conjuring up spirits?” points to BARTENDER, but BENDER is all that fits into the grid. So each entry lost two or three letters after the first letter.)

This one had me skunked for a bit, I must admit, so it was immensely satisfying to crack the theme and complete the puzzle. Nicely done, Evan.

Interesting grid entries included HOBART, CARPS AT, ECOCAR, and CASSIO, and my favorite clues were “Places to see plays?” for ARENAS and “Delivery recipients” for PARENTS.

Puzzle 5: Quote Boxes by Francis Heaney

Heaney has five 2×2 boxes shaded with different shapes, and each of the four cells in those 2×2 boxes contains a word from a famous four-word movie quote.

For instance, in the upper left corner, there’s a shaded circle filling in a 2×2 box, and each of those four cells contains one of the words “snap,” “out,” “of,” and “it,’ which are incorporated into the across and down entries intersecting those individual boxes. (SNAP is part of OH SNAP and UNSNAP, OUT is part of STOUT and OUTRO, OF is part of POOF and OFFER, and IT is part of IT’S PAT and iTUNES. And SNAP OUT OF IT reads out on the line beside a shaded circle at the bottom of the page.)

This was a super-impressive grid that jammed a lot of entries into an 18×18 grid but never felt oversaturated, and it all flows nicely. This was the puzzle of the night for me.

Interesting grid entries included DELANO, ROBERT E LEE, HERE’S HOW, and HAVE-NOT, and my favorite clues were “Hillary’s claim to fame” for EVEREST and “Ball girl?” for DEB. (Though I must mention one more, simply for the confidence it betrays: “Garment a well-dressed man always wears and slovenly cretins do not (I may be biased here)” for TIE.)

[Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org.]

Puzzle 6: Finals by Samuel A. Donaldson

This was the capper to a strong night of solving, and after Puzzle 5, it had a tough act to follow. There were two sets of clues: the Local for newcomers and the Express for established tournament puzzlers, and both had their stumbling blocks. Tight grid construction and some unexpected entries made for a pretty tough wrap-up puzzle, but one that challenged the solver rather than frustrating.

Interesting grid entries included MANSPLAIN, PUSS N BOOTS, SCAR-JO, TOOTSIES, and TESSERA, and my favorite clues from the Local set were “It covers all the bases” for TARP and “Present day visitor in France?” for PERE NOEL. My favorite clues from the Express set were “Sporty colleague” for POSH and “It can come between two friends” for OF A.

Overall, I thought this year’s Lollapuzzoola puzzles were very clever, and although some of the themes were tough to suss out, they provided a worthy challenge to solvers and plenty of outside-the-box thinking in both themes and cluing to keep your mind engaged.

There were so many great clues and all the personality and panache I’ve come to expect from the event and its constructors. Nine years in, and they’re only getting better.

I look forward to its return, and hopefully some of you will join me in accepting the Lollapuzzoola challenge. (Also, I really hope I can attend next year, or Patti might kill me for missing the tournament AGAIN. *laughs*)

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It’s Follow-Up Friday: Murder Mystery 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’d like to follow up on last week’s murder mystery post.

In the previous post, I gave you some of the backstory and logistics of our in-office murder-mystery event, and today, I wanted to discuss the event itself.

Our murder happened Monday night — the fictional J. Augustus Milverton Puzzlenationo would breathe his last breath near the photocopier — so Tuesday morning marked the official start of the game.

And since we’re an office full of puzzlers, the morning began with something of a logic puzzle, as the players were given a list of passcodes used to enter the building, but they needed to figure out who had used them and at what time.

You see, someone’s passcode being used at a certain time didn’t necessary mean that person was actually entering the building at that time. Someone could’ve used another player’s code. (Information involving times and identities was scattered throughout emails to all 10 participants, so it would take a fair amount of cooperation to unravel this.)

But since all of the players were suspicious of each other — which was wise, given that several “solvers” were actually following my orders throughout the event to fulfill certain tasks — the first day didn’t involve as much cooperative solving as I’d hoped. (That would come the next day out of necessity, as alliances began to form and more information was shared.)

As I fielded questions from players asking for further details — and several clues were discovered and analyzed — the first of several complications for the players was revealed: a fellow player was “killed.”

This not only upped the stakes for the players, but led to one of my favorite moments in the game. You see, when a fellow player stumbled upon the body, he wasn’t sad that his coworker was dead…he was sad because he couldn’t ask him any questions. (Though, intrepid solver that he was, he asked if a Ouija board was out of the question.)

For the rest of the day, I was fielding all sorts of instant messages and emails from players, asking for information, cashing in Holmes Tickets, clarifying things, and trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle into place. Early theories emerged. Some were wild guesses, and some were surprisingly close to the truth.

Our event played out in real time, so the players were aware that things could happen outside the workday that would impact the game. People seemed reluctant to leave, just in case they missed a clue.

Day Two opened with another red herring — punny threats sent to three of the players, delivered in envelopes that pointed to another player (a gambit by the killer to put the spotlight on someone else) — and a few secrets had already come out.

Players openly offered information to each other in a group email, which helped resolve some red herrings and put other pieces into place. More clues were uncovered, but the murder weapon remained elusive.

Lunchtime was orchestrated to be a tipping point. Not only would another murder occur, but other plans and clues would come together. I gave one of my collaborators two missions to accomplish while the players were away from their desks. Hopefully, she’d be able to accomplish both, but at the very least, she had to accomplish one of the tasks.

There were a few of these open-ended narrative moments written into the story where the players had the chance to surprise me with what happened and what didn’t. Not only did those moments make the game more fun for me to run, but it gave other players chances to really inhabit their characters and get into the performance side of the gameplay.

Lunchtime allowed for more group theorizing — something that the workday hampered, as you might expect — but the real fireworks awaited players upon their return.

A trap was sprung, and another player died unexpectedly. Although some chaos did ensue, most of the players realized this latest death was the work of another party, and several of the players solved it quickly before returning their attention to the first two murders.

In the midst of all this, two real-world complications arose on Day Two.

The first involved a player dropping out due to a mix of time constraints (she felt the game was distracting her too much from work) and general frustration with the format of the game (which, for someone unfamiliar with immersive storytelling like this, is totally understandable). I was sad to see her go, and adjusted the story accordingly, recovering a clue from her and redistributing it to an active player.

The second involved the pace of the game itself. I’d hoped to run it over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday and have it wrapped up that second day. But between the elaborate unfolding plot and the difficulty in balancing gameplay with, you know, actually getting our work done, things were progressing more slowly than expected.

That darn workday. Such a nuisance.

So the game rolled into Day Three, and players could sense the end was near. Most of the puzzle pieces were there for the taking, and several compelling theories emerged. (Honestly, one of them was better than the story I’d actually written, which was both funny and a little humbling.)

To add a bit of drama, I set a deadline of mid-afternoon. If the murders hadn’t been solved by then, the killer would escape scot-free.

Things finally steamrolled to their conclusion when the murder weapon was revealed — in the hands of a thief who had been woven into the plot — and one of the players came close enough to cracking all three murders that I declared the mystery solved. (And our ace detective did so before the deadline, so no escape for our dastardly murderer.)

It was different from any murder-mystery event I’d run before, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. There were certainly flaws in execution, as there are in any first attempt, but I learned some valuable lessons in this play-through that will make other such events in the future smoother, more satisfying, and more engaging.

Although…I hadn’t considered the potential consequences of the event on workdays going forward; everyone seems a bit more wary of each other. (And there are a few vengeful “spirits” lurking about, hoping to avenge themselves in future games.)

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Interactive Puzzling is Murder on a Work Day!

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[Image courtesy of Carriageway.com.]

It all started with a board game at lunchtime.

TableTop Day is a popular annual event here at PuzzleNation, and several of my fellow puzzlers enjoyed it so much that they wanted it every week. Well, we couldn’t swing that — deadlines and all — so we play games every Wednesday during lunch.

During a particularly spirited round of 10 Minutes to Kill — a game where every player controls a hitman trying to take out three targets without being identified by the other players or the police — the subject of murder mysteries came up, and I let slip that I’d helped write and run several murder mystery dinners in the past.

[Image courtesy of Vancouver Presents.com.]

So, naturally, the idea of running a murder mystery at work became a recurring topic of discussion.

As a huge fan of interactive storytelling — be it tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, improv theater, LARPing, or other group activities — the idea appealed to me.

Of course, I had one huge hurdle to overcome: the work day.

You see, murder mystery dinners thrive on the theatricality of the event. Attendees can overhear arguments, catch snippets of banter and exposition as they walk around, and engage characters in conversation to learn more. The more you interact with the story, the better chance you have of solving the mystery, but even passive players will get the big picture.

But in a normal workday, I can’t stage big elaborate sequences, like a failed marriage proposal or someone tossing wine in another’s face. I’d have to find another way to deliver information, mysteries, and drama.

Thankfully, as a puzzler, I’m accustomed to writing clues. Cluing is simply delivering information in unexpected ways. Whether it’s through deceptive wordplay, puns, or connections with other entries, crosswords and logic problems are excellent training for being creative and stealthy while presenting important information.

So, I mapped out the murder and the characters I’d need to pull it off, and cast those characters from a group of fellow puzzlers. At the same time, I gauged interest from other coworkers to see who’d be interested in trying to crack the case, and began devising ways to weave them into the narrative. (This was more intimate than writing your usual murder mystery dinner for random attendees, since the latter is more about creating scenes than tailoring it to specific people and circumstances.)

[Can’t have a murder mystery without an animal for someone to pet fiendishly.
In this case, my trusty armadillo in a cowboy hat, Armando.]

My goal was to get everyone prepped to play on Monday, and then actually run the mystery on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the murder having occurred overnight.

Which led to another big hurdle. I couldn’t exactly stage an elaborate murder scene in a way that was unobtrusive to the workday, so I’d have to describe the scene to the players and let them ask questions about it.

But how do I leave clues for the players that are readily identifiable as clues and not just the ephemera of a working office? After all, any good murder investigation needs some convenient clues to uncover that will help unravel the mystery.

I opted to mark any clue (which were most often color pictures of actual items, like a stashed wallet or a threatening letter) with the symbol below, to remove any doubt that this item was involved someway in the murder mystery:

Okay, that takes care of the clues. But what about the actual interaction, where players ask questions of characters and gain the valuable knowledge needed to solve the crime?

Sure, a lot of that can be done through group emails and instant messenger programs, encouraging the investigators to share what they’ve learned, so there wouldn’t be random gaggles of investigators creating a distraction as they ponder the latest clue found or deduction made.

As a storyteller, whether you’re running an RPG or a murder mystery, you not only need to know the details of your story backwards and forwards, but you need to anticipate what questions the audience will ask.

And no matter how prepared you are, I assure you, the players will ALWAYS find a way to monkey-wrench your plans, whether they approach the problem from an unexpected direction or they ask for information you hadn’t prepared in advance. There had to be a simple way to reflect this in the actual gameplay.

To deal with this, I borrowed an idea from Lollapuzzoola and created Holmes Tickets, which were catch-all requests for deeper insight or information than had been provided. Basically, anything that would require outside intervention or skills beyond that of the casual investigator could be revealed by spending a Holmes Ticket.

Dusting for fingerprints, getting ahold of a coroner’s report, uncovering information on a missing check…all of these and more were results of investigators cashing in their Holmes Tickets at various points in the investigation.

So, how did the actual murder mystery go? Well, I’d love to tell you, but it’s not finished yet! The work day proved more intrusive than expected — damn those pesky deadlines and responsibilities! — so we’re rolling into a third day of passive gameplay.

By hook or by crook, the story will be wrapped up today, and I’ll be able to fill you in more on the actual story, clues, and progression of each investigation. For now, I’ll just let you know that there are currently three bodies to account for (our killer has been busy since Monday night), and a host of theories, but no firm accusations yet.

We shall see if justice is served or if our crafty killer gets away.

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A proposal most puzzly!

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Tuesday’s post was all about the chaos and unpleasantness ensuing from a puzzly misunderstanding, so let’s make today’s post about puzzles bringing people together.

Oh yes, my fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers, we’ve got a puzzle-fueled engagement on our hands!

Our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles were contacted by a fellow named Bryan who wanted their assistance in crafting a puzzly proposal for his girlfriend.

Bryan provided information and ideas for the folks at Penny to utilize, and a special Simon Says puzzle was constructed for the proposal and slipped into a short run of magazines during production. That way, the proposal would be concealed amidst many other puzzles, and his girlfriend wouldn’t suspect a thing! Diabolical!

(For the uninitiated, Simon Says is an instruction puzzle where you start with a phrase, follow various instructions on how to manipulate and change the letters in the phrase, and you end up with a completely new phrase, usually a pun or a play on the starting phrase.)

In this case, the puzzle started with an affectionate HEY BOO BOO, and 19 steps later, you end up with the fateful question WILL YOU MARRY ME MIA?

So… how did it go, you ask?

Success!

Bryan later told his puzzly cohorts:

The day couldn’t have turned out any better and the fact that she said yes definitely helped. We actually completed around half the book prior to the engagement and she had no clue that page was special. She was completely surprised as well as her parents and it took her until Line 17 to finally figure out what it said. Kudos to you guys for being able to draw it on for that long!

Congratulations to Bryan and Mia! I wish them nothing but the absolute best, and I hope they have many many happy years of love and puzzling ahead of them.

Our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles really outdid themselves on this one. Kudos indeed.

[For the story on the proposal the PDP crew assisted on last year, for another fellow named Bryan, click here!]

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5 Questions with Constructor and Editor Patti Varol!

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Welcome to 5 Questions, our recurring interview series where we reach out to puzzle constructors, game designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life!

It’s all about exploring the vast and intriguing puzzle community by talking to those who make puzzles and those who enjoy them! (Click here to check out previous editions of 5 Questions!)

And I’m excited to welcome Patti Varol as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

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If you’ve solved crosswords anywhere other than the New York Times for the last few years, you’re bound to have encountered Patti Varol’s clever constructing and crafty cluing. A regular of The Washington Post and other outlets, Patti is a topnotch constructor and a crossword pro.

She’s also no stranger to PuzzleNation Blog, as she has previously contributed advice for constructing your own crosswords and shared her victory at Lollapuzzoola two years ago with the PuzzleNation audience.

Patti was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for Patti Varol

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

I solved all kinds of puzzles with my grandparents when I was a kid, and games were a big part of family time when I was growing up. A few years after I finished college, I answered an ad for an editorial job with the crossword/variety department at Penny Press — the puzzle test and the interviews for that position, and then taking that job, well, that changed my life. Suddenly, puzzles and games were something to study from the inside out, to take apart and put back together better, to make from scratch. And that was just as much fun as solving them…and I was getting paid to do it.

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2. You keep awfully busy when it comes to puzzles. Can you fill the PuzzleNation audience in on your various puzzle jobs and how they differ from each other?

I do! I’m Rich Norris’s assistant at the L.A. Times Crossword, which means that I write some of his correspondence (I let constructors know what Rich likes or doesn’t like about the puzzles they’ve sent him), and I pre-edit some of the daily puzzles. I also send out the monthly constructor schedule notices and do some of our testing and fact checking.

I’m also the editor of The Crosswords Club, which is a monthly publication with six Sunday-sized crosswords. The puzzles are made by some of the best constructors in the business, so they are as fun as they are challenging. Each monthly envelope also has an extra word game, and all of the puzzles have explanatory blurbs with some trivia and etymology. It’s a really neat product – there’s really nothing else like it on the market.

And I also do puzzle testing/proofreading for a few other venues, including some crossword tournaments and puzzle magazines. And I’m a puzzle constructor for the CrosSynergy puzzle syndicate; my crosswords appear in The Washington Post roughly once a month. I also construct puzzles for the LA Times and Crosswords Club occasionally, and I mentor new constructors who seek out my help.

Every venue I work for has a different style guide and different target audience, so it’s a job in itself to keep them all straight. All of these different puzzle jobs have made me a strong, confident editor and constructor. I love what I do, and I love being good at what I do. And I’m only good at what I do because I’ve had the privilege to work with and learn from the best.

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[Image courtesy of Wikihow.com.]

3. What, in your estimation, makes for a great puzzle? What do you most enjoy — or most commonly avoid — when constructing your own? What do you think is the most common pitfall of constructors just starting out?

A great puzzle has a spark to it — you know right away that it’s something original, fresh, and special. You learn something new, or you see something familiar from a new angle. It’s that aha! moment, that pop. I’m being maddeningly vague here, I realize, but the elements of a great puzzle are elusive and subjective.

That same pop comes when constructing a puzzle, too. Getting a tough grid to come together cleanly, realizing that the right pieces are finally all there in the right order — that can be even more satisfying than solving someone else’s puzzle.

New constructors always seem to start off with more than they can handle: they try to make a Sunday puzzle (21x) before they’ve mastered the smaller daily format, or they try to do a low-word-count themeless before they’re fully comfortable with the 15x themed format. Or they try to cram too much theme in a grid.

Start small, aim big, and you’ll get better with every grid.

4. Between the Timothy Parker plagiarism scandal and the recent Slate article about insensitivity and tone-deafness in cluing in the New York Times crossword, accountability has been a major topic this year in the world of puzzles. As a gatekeeper to getting published yourself, what changes would you like to see made in order to bring crosswords into the 21st century?

Change is already underway, and it’s exciting, because crosswords just keep getting better and better. Just as language evolves — words and their meanings can be as fluid as they can be subjective — so, too, do the media and art forms that rely on language.

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[Image courtesy of HomeSchoolSuccess.com.]

The conversations about crosswords, online and offline, illustrate clearly that the crossword community is made up of some of the smartest, most language-sensitive, funniest people you’ll ever meet. We’re in love with our craft, and sometimes we take ourselves and our work too seriously, which is what happens when you’re passionate about what you do. But it’s so important to remember that puzzles are entertainment, a happy diversion, and if we use language incorrectly or insensitively, we’re not providing that diversion. We have to take our fun very seriously!

When we’re polishing a puzzle, crossword editors have a very specific audience in mind — we know our solvers because we listen to them and because we’re solvers ourselves. Because of this larger, ongoing conversation, we know that our solving audience is bigger and more diverse than ever.

This presents an interesting challenge: how do you make every crossword accessible and fun for every solver, regardless of race, gender, or age? Maybe not every clue and every entry will resonate with every single solver, but as long as I’m not actively alienating a solver, and as long as I’m stretching, testing, and entertaining most of my solvers, I’m doing my job.

And there are so many crosswords available now! In addition to the newspaper dailies, there are paper subscription services like The Crosswords Club, plus email/blog subscriptions by so many talented constructors, and more puzzle books and magazines available on newsstands than ever before.

We’ll always have good, old-fashioned puzzles, but now we also have lively, fresh puzzles with more current pop-culture references. This, too, is what happens when you’re passionate about what you do: your art naturally reflects and includes the community it is a part of.

5. If you could give the readers, writers, aspiring constructors, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

Solve all the puzzles. All of them. Even the puzzles that, at first glance, look like the kind you don’t like, solve them. And if you don’t know the answers, look them up. There’s no such thing as cheating at a puzzle — it’s all simply research that makes you better at puzzles.

The more you look up, the more you will learn and remember for the next puzzle you solve. And if you want to learn how to make puzzles, or to get better at making puzzles, nothing will teach you more about how a puzzle works than getting stuck — and then unstuck — while solving one.

A huge thank you to Patti for her time. Be sure to check out The Crosswords Club, and follow her on Twitter for baseball tweets and updates on her latest projects! (Her website is currently under construction.) I cannot wait to see what she has in store for us next!

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Crosswords: Good for Any Apocalypse!

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Crosswords. They’re great to have on hand when you’re bored, when you’re looking for a challenge, when you need a diversion, or when the end is near and doomsday approacheth.

Wait, what was that last one?

Yes, my fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers, as it turns out, crosswords have recently gained attention as a resource for doomsday preppers and other folks with a vested interest in doing their best to prepare for the worst.

[Image courtesy of Trinity International.]

In this article from The Examiner, the many pluses of crosswords are discussed:

Crossword puzzles also help younger family members and older family members to develop or maintain good spelling. Misspelled words in written communications can create confusion during an emergency.

In addition, crossword puzzles can help to instill a “can do” attitude in family members. When first beginning a crossword puzzle, for example, few people will know all or even most of the words needed. As crossword puzzle users progress into the crossword puzzle, however, the “across” words that they know will help them to guess the correct “down” words, and vice versa.

It goes on to discuss crosswords encouraging family interaction, the subgenre of Bible crosswords, the fact that crosswords don’t require batteries or electricity, that they’re affordable, and that they make great “hurry up and wait” time fillers. (Plus, they don’t take up much space in a bug-out bag!)

But what’s most intriguing about this article is that it implies that crosswords have both short-term and long-term value for preppers.

After all, if you’re a doomsday prepper, you need to think long term. We could be talking about a complete breakdown of society here. Since crosswords are not only strong language-building and vocabulary-building tools, but they’re also chronicles of knowledge both general and trivial, they have long-term value to a society in flux or rebuilding itself.

And based on my own stockpile of puzzle books, I’m ready for the next three or four doomsdays.

[The Examiner article was brought to my attention by The Guardian crossword blog.]

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