Tag Archives: crossword

The Week in Puzzles and Games (November 2nd)

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There’s a lot going on in the intertwined worlds of puzzles and games, so let’s skip the intro and get to it.

The End of The Independent Crossword

Despite the outcry of support and messages and kind words about The Independent‘s daily cryptic crossword, there is no sign that The Independent will be reversing their decision. Which sadly means that the 31st was the final crossword.

It’s a loss for solvers, setters, and the puzzle community in general, but there have been some lovely posts and tributes in honor of The Independent crossword’s legacy, so I want to share a few here.

I think bluesky user Jalata covered everyone’s feelings with this post.

Setter Methuselah shared this cryptic in honor of the setters of The Independent.

Setter Phi posted about the intertwined history of The Independent and his puzzles. You should absolutely make time to read this piece.

And setter Bard shared this terrific picture from the York Sloggers & Betters event this year, featuring two dozen setters! What a lovely way to send off this influential outlet.

Farewell, Independent‘s daily cryptic crossword. You will be missed.

David Kwong’s The Puzzle Room Returns for Season 2!

If you enjoy interactive puzzle-solving and magic tricks, The Puzzle Room on Netflix is right up your alley.

David Kwong — crossword constructor, magician, and all-around expert in baffling people with both words and visuals — has already dazzled audiences with 26 episodes of this show, and it turns out they’re already filming Season 2!

David shared some of his thoughts and a bit of behind the scenes detail on his mailing list. Here’s a snippet:

Every episode is a real labor of love. Leading up to each shoot day, the producers and I research our guests and build out the interviews. Producer (and resident genius) Dave Shukan, whom I call the Puzzle Wizard Behind the Curtain, oversees the puzzles and games.

For me, though, the most challenging part of the show is the weekly magic trick. John Stessel, Chris Chelko, and I set out to create original, TV-friendly magic: effects that haven’t been done before and that hold up on camera (and, ideally, against exposure online, though nothing is truly safe anymore). Coming up with new magic on such a tight turnaround keeps me on my toes, and you’ll often find me testing tricks on unsuspecting folks at my local cafe or at the Magic Castle.

I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen so far from The Puzzle Room, so congratulations to them on the upcoming season 2!

Puzzmo’s Jubilee Continues!

What a celebration it has been so far! Four new games have been launched: (not) solitaire, Draw 2 Solitaire, FlipFlop Solitaire, and FreeCell.

Plus they’ve made an All Games page (so all their puzzle game options are available) and a customizable Playlist feature so you can make sure only your favorite puzzles are waiting for you daily, no scrolling or sifting required.

The Puzzmonauts have plenty to celebrate and keep themselves busy with, and I suspect the team at Puzzmo isn’t done with the surprises yet before the year is out.

No Westwords Tournament in 2027

There’s loads of exciting crossword tournament news for 2027, including the debut of two new tournaments, the Rain City Crossword Tournament and the Canadian Crossword Open.

But sadly, yesterday it was announced that the team behind the Westwords tournament will not be hosting a Westwords event in 2027.

Although this is disappointing news, we wish all the best to the incredible team that has shepherded Westwords for the last three years, and we hope 2027 is kind to all of them.

The team also shared one of the best resources for tournament solvers, this awesome spreadsheet, for those looking to engage in some tournament solving fun next year.

Two Puzzle Game Sites to Try Out!

One of the coolest things about running PuzzCulture is getting to learn about new puzzles and creators in the puzzle space. Several enterprising constructors have reached out to me recently, and I’m pleased to help spread the word about their puzzly endeavors.

The first is Word Burger from Joyella Studios.

Word Burger is a daily vocabulary challenge where you come up with as many words that start with one particular letter and end with another particular letter. Those letters are the buns, and you need to fill the burger with words!

For example, the top bun could be U and the bottom bun E, and you need to type everything from UPDATE to UNITE.

There’s a 60-second version and a Slow Cook version if you want to take your time.

You can try it out on the Word Burger website, and it’s also available for iPhone and Android!

My other recommendation for you today is Movie Horse.

In this movie trivia game, everyone starts with the same movie, and you have to name an actor from that movie. The game then picks another movie featuring that actor, and you name another actor.

On and on it goes, until you’ve either completed ten links or you’ve exhausted your five misses (either through clicking pass or guessing wrong) and you’ve spelled MOVIE (like spelling HORSE in basketball).

I’ve mentioned playing something similar to this with friends for years now, but I love seeing it gameified like this. You can test your skills against friends, and even see some of the most obscure connections made by other players through the Movie Horse Instagram.

It’s cool to see how many different pathways to success players can take, based on their movie and actor choices.

Click here to try it out for yourself!

To close out today’s post, let’s enjoy something puzzly and seasonal with Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, California.

Launched in 2003, the Cool Patch Pumpkins corn maze revitalized the Cooley brothers pumpkin business, attracting loads of new eyes.

They’ve even been honored twice by the Guinness Book of World Records, including in 2007 for “World’s Largest Temporary Corn Maze.” (Gotta love the specificity there.)

It supposedly takes between 90 minutes and 2 hours to complete the maze, which spans dozens of acres!

Check out their website here for more details.

Did I miss any puzzly news or fun board game stories from the last few weeks? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.

A Bonus Edgar Allan Poe-st (Puzzle to Solve!)

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This grid, sadly, was too ambitious for my puzzly skills...

Our traditional Halloween Punny Costume Game went up yesterday, but for the crossword aficionados, I have cooked up a little something in honor of the spookiest day of the year.

I’m not much of an artist, but I did try to do a puzzle grid pixel art rendition of one of the classic eerie authors in today’s grid.

In addition to the theme entries, I also placed the title of one of his puzzliest works in the left side of the grid reading down, and a word we all associate with him in the right side of the grid reading down.

I hope you enjoy today’s puzzle. It’s to die for! (In a sinister and ironic way, of course.)

[Click here to download a PDF of the puzzle!]

Happy puzzling, everyone! And Happy Halloween!

The Week in Puzzles and Games (October 26th)

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There’s a lot going on in the intertwined worlds of puzzles and games, so let’s skip the intro and get to it!

Conversations with the New York Times Games Team!

There are two events coming up for fans of NYT puzzles and games.

First, the 92Y is hosting a New York Times Games Night tomorrow night to celebrate the launch of the new Connections book.

Wyna Liu, Joel Fagliano, Sam Ezersky, and Tracy Bennett will be in attendance to talk shop and engage in some live gameplay with attendees.

Click here for ticket info and here to check out the new Connections book.

But that’s not all.

On Friday, October 30th, the Wordle Review comments section will be hosting a Q&A at 1 PM Eastern with Josh Katz and Tom Giratikanon, the designers behind Wordle Bot and Connections Bot!

Learn more about how the bots work, why they’re so sassy, and meet the team who makes the Bots go.

Cryptic Crossword Updates (and The Independent)

Speaking of crosswords, there has sadly been no sign that The Independent’s managing editor will reverse course on cancelling their daily cryptic crossword.

But even with that dark cloud hanging over the puzzle community, there is plenty going on in cryptic crossword chatter for solvers and setters alike to enjoy.

Chameleon posted a terrific article on MyCrossword about an interesting variation on the hidden-style clue. For example, a traditional hidden clue would have “Scottish snack offered in disco nearby” cluing SCONE, since it’s hidden in “diSCO NEarby.” But Chameleon’s version is slightly more difficult. (Personally, I love it!)

Setter Paul Henderson (known to Independent solvers as Phi) has announced he’ll be continuing his Phidays tradition on his website.

Duncan over at fifteensquared has shared the puzzles being distributed at this year’s York Sloggers and Betters 2026 gathering, so get solving. Feedback is welcome!

And if there’s more news in the cryptic world I’ve missed, please let me know!

Bonmo.app Releases Their 1,000th Puzzle!

We talked about Puzzmo celebrating 1,000 days back in July, but it turns out they’re not the only puzzle app crossing the millennium mark this year.

Bonmo.app just released their 1,000th puzzle, a delightful grid from constructor Carina da Rosa. If you’re an Apple user, check them out!

Reminder: Cultura Connector and the GRIT Ukraine Program Still Seeking Funds

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a charity effort to inspire Ukrainian youths through LARPing.

And the team at Cultura Connector have announced that they’re 60% of the way to unlocking a $20,000 match for the charity!

They are raising funds for their first GRIT Ukraine program, enabling Ukrainian facilitators to lead a 12-week LARP program with Ukrainian young people living in Poland to strengthen resilience, communication, emotional awareness, problem-solving, and connection with Ukrainian youths.

And with a week left to go, your help could make a huge difference.

Please share the link and donate if you can. It would be so amazing to reach out to young people halfway around the world and show them the magic of storytelling while helping build them up.

You can also click here for more details on Cultura Connector and the GRIT program.

The BackerKit Holiday Market Launches Soon!

Crowdfunding is a cornerstone of the puzzles and games industry these days, especially for smaller and independent creators, so I’m stoked to hear that the BackerKit Holiday Market is returning for a second year.

Hosted between November 18th and December 1st, numerous puzzle and games companies (among others!) will be participating.

Unlike most crowdfunding efforts, there’s no funding goal and products will be ready-to-ship immediately.

Some of my favorite shops like Scarlet Envelope and Morgan’s Escapes will be participating, so be sure to check it out!

What Puzzle Words Sent American Solvers to Google?

I love digging into data. It’s fascinating to see what you can learn from sifting through carefully cultivated information.

And I’m not alone in that. The team at UnscrambleX also love data, and they’ve shared some of their findings.

UnscrambleX is a free word scrambler, anagram solver, and Scrabble word finder all in one, and they’ve been crunching solver data for the last year.

And it turns out, between June 2025 and October 2026, the words that baffled or eluded solvers weren’t small, obscure ones, overly long entries, or crosswordese.

As Adrian Talvik, spokesperson for UnscrambleX told me, “The words that stop people aren’t the long ones. They’re words people have seen on a menu or a perfume label but never had to spell.”

NEROLI topped the list with 65,684 US searches on May 28, 2026, twice the next word (POMELO, 31,911 on May 18). Three of the five hardest came from the fruit bowl or the perfume counter, hard days come in themes (BÉCHAMEL, TERIYAKI and TZATZIKI on July 2)…

You can check out their full article here, including how they gathered and analyzed their data.

And we’ll have more interesting puzzle-data tidbits from UnscrambleX in the coming weeks!

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to test out any new puzzle apps or sites this week, but I promise that feature will return next Monday.

Did I miss any puzzly news or fun board game stories from the last few weeks? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.

Darmok: Another Crossword-Solving Program Claims a Tournament Win!

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Image courtesy of World of Weird Things.

In 2021, Matt Ginsberg’s crossword-solving program Dr.Fill won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The top prize still went to a flesh-and-blood solver, but the program solved most of the tournament puzzles in under a minute and only made three mistakes the entire tournament, recording the top score for puzzles 1 through 7.

Of course, Dr.Fill had been “competing” for years at the ACPT before this victory. I believe in its first competition, it placed 141st.

As it turns out, Dr.Fill is not alone. The world of cryptic crosswords has its own Dr.Fill in the form of Dr. Siddhartha Chatterjee’s AI program, Darmok.

At last year’s Times Crossword Championship, Darmok solved two of three semifinal puzzles in seven minutes, but gave up on the last puzzle with one clue unsolved. (That tournament was won by champion solver Mark Goodliffe, who notched his FOURTEENTH win at the tournament.)

But this year was different.

Not only because Goodliffe’s potential 15th title was instead claimed by 29-year-old solver Liam Hughes — marking the first new name on the championship in a quarter century — but because this year, Darmok outperformed every human competitor at the tournament.

The final puzzle tripped up Goodliffe, third place finisher Peter Steggle, and Chloe Hutton, who actually finished the puzzle first, but with the same critical error made by Goodliffe and Steggle.

Hughes got it right in ten minutes.

Darmok got it right too, and faster.

And I do have to say, this is a more impressive result than Dr.Fill’s because cryptic crosswords involve a different level of wordplay in its cluing than American-style crosswords. Answer words can hide in other phrases, in anagrams, in initialisms, in pairs of definitions, in soundalike words, in rebus-style assemblies of words and letters.

So for an AI program to parse all that linguistic trickery… that’s quite something.

So what was the clue that stumped much of the field, save for our human and AI champions?

2-Down: Wolf trap missing its lowest crosspiece? (5)

I’ll leave the explanation at the bottom of the post. Good luck!

Star Trek fans and meme enthusiasts will no doubt recognize the inspiration for the name of Dr. Chatterjee’s creation. “Darmok” is an iconic episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Captain Picard struggles to communicate with an alien species that communicates through metaphor and allusion.

Although the alien captain sadly perished in his attempt to bridge the communication gulf between himself and Picard, the Darmok AI’s victory required less bloodshed.

And yet, there was a loss.

AI programs have taught themselves to solve Rubik’s Cubes, Deep Blue bested Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and IBM’s supercomputer Watson defeated previous Jeopardy! champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings to nab a million-dollar prize.

An AI program called DeepMind taught itself to play several Atari games with superhuman proficiency, and AlphaGo, an AI developed by Google based on DeepMind, twice defeated Ke Jie, the 19-year-old Go tournament champion ranked number one in the world.

Dr.Fill claimed crosswords, and now Darmok has claimed cryptic crosswords.

robo-machine---puzzler-robot---crossword-p-image-262284-grande

Did you solve that cryptic clue yet?

Here’s a hint: other answers would’ve given you the crossings S_A_F.

So, yes, the robots have arrived, and they know their wordplay.

The question now becomes: how long before they’re creating crosswords and cryptics that rival the creativity and cleverness of humans?

It’s a good question, one that has already been pondered by setter Amoeba in the aftermath of Darmok’s achievement.

And I think Amoeba’s conclusion is as heartening as it is accurate:

As a solver, I love the feeling of going head to head with a setter (even an anonymous one), and unravelling and admiring the clues they’ve written. As a setter, that’s what I hope people who solve my puzzles enjoy. This human part of crossword-setting is not, I believe, something that technology will one day supersede; it is an essential part of why we do them.

I’ve solved computer-generated crosswords. I’ve seen AI-created art.

And I’ve found both lacking.

Just as American solvers know the constructors who challenge them and tickle their brains with sparkling wordplay, cryptic setters have built wonderful reputations for themselves as cunning, playful, and surprising.

We look for these names. We accept their challenges. And we celebrate the joy of solving together, the symbiosis of creation and solution, tying linguistic knots and unraveling devious wordplay.

Community in puzzling, that’s the missing bit AI can’t match. A constructor/setter and a solver, meeting across the grid, through the clues.

That’s magic.

And speaking of, here’s the solution to the cryptic clue that tripped up so many.

Wolf trap missing its lowest crosspiece? (5)

“Wolf” is the definition. Both SCARF and SNARF could fit that clue, as all mean to devour or eat.

But the rest of the clue eliminates one of those options.

“Trap” points to the word SNARE, and reading down the grid, a trap missing its lowest crosspiece would be a SNARE with the bottom part of the E cut off.

SNARE becomes SNARF.

Did you get it?

What do you think of Darmok’s cryptic-solving success story, fellow puzzler? Let me know in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you!

The Week in Puzzles and Games

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There’s a lot going on in the intertwined worlds of puzzles and games, so let’s skip the intro and get to the good stuff!

Another Round of Jeopardy!: YouTube Edition Premieres October 22nd!

In addition to the flagship show we all know (and yell at our screens during), there is a YouTube-exclusive version of Celebrity Jeopardy! that focuses on celebs that are better known in the online space.

Back in March, the first episode debuted with musician and content creator Rebecca Black (of “Friday” infamy and many other actually GOOD songs), comedian and professional dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan, and drag queen icon and force of nature Monét X Change, all playing for charity.

A new edition comes out this week featuring comedian and performer Angela Giarratana of Team Starkid and SMOSH, content creator and Challenge Accepted host Michelle Khare, and content creator and Mythical Chef Josh Scherer.

I’m definitely curious to see how this new trio performs under the bright Jeopardy! lights.

Some Digital Freebies for Gloom Enthusiasts!

As anyone who read my Halloween Horror Game Countdown last year surely recalls, Gloom is one of my favorite spooky board games.

If you’re looking for a darkly fun game with shades of The Addams Family or Edward Gorey, then Gloom is the game for you.

In Gloom, each player is the head of a spooky family, and it’s your job to make them miserable in hilariously ghastly ways before they croak. And as you do so, you regale your fellow players with the ongoing tragic tale of their fates. The gameplay is accentuated by the beautiful clear playing cards, which allow you to stack different events and effects on your family characters and still be able to see what’s going on!

And the team at Atlas Games has put together some downloadable freebies for Gloom fans. There are desktop and mobile wallpaper images, a printable bookmark, a guide to throwing a Gloom-themed party, and the true highlight of the promotion, templates for making your own character cards.

If you’re a Gloom fan, check it out. And if you’re not a Gloom fan, what are you doing? Get on board. =)

A Rhyming Resource for Puzzlers, Writers, and Musicians!

Years ago, I wrote a post featuring some of my favorite resources for puzzlesmithery.

One of them was The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary.

And music theater bookwriter and lyricist Jeremy Desmon reached out to me regarding a free online equivalent to share.

It’s called RhymeHamster, and it’s an easily searchable archive of rhymes for all your lyrical or wordplay needs.

From the website:

Perfect rhymes are checked word by word and grouped by syllable count. Slant rhymes sit on their own adjustable dial, and there’s a Wildcard Rhymes tool for when you know the shape of the word you need but not the word.

I played around with it and was very impressed with the detailed, tiered results I received in my searches. This is definitely going into my helpful links, and I hope it proves useful to you as well!

Transparency in Publishing with Unch Crosswords!

A lot of companies promise transparency with their audiences, but few companies in ANY creator space have put their money where their mouth is like the team at Unch Crosswords.

If you’re not familiar with Unch Crosswords, they publish a quarterly cryptic crossword magazine featuring established names in the setter community. Their books are topnotch, loaded with great puzzles and deviously brilliant cluing.

And they just published the full numbers for their seven months of operation from September 2025 to April 2026.

It’s not just honesty in its purest form, but a valuable insight into what it takes to make a puzzle magazine in today’s climate.

I highly recommend checking it out, I learned so much.

And if you haven’t checked out Unch Crosswords, give them a try. The more outlets for puzzles in general and cryptics in particular, the better!

Two Puzzle Game Sites to Try Out!

One of the coolest things about running PuzzCulture is getting to learn about new puzzles and creators in the puzzle space. Several enterprising constructors have reached out to me recently, and I’m pleased to help spread the word about their puzzly endeavors.

The first is Murat Öncü’s deduction game Daily Skyline.

Each Daily Skyline puzzle is a 5×5 grid, and there are buildings (in a range from one storey to five storeys) in each row and column. The numbers on the outside of the grid tell you how many buildings you can see from that vantage point.

So this is more than a smaller Sudoku variant. It’s a deduction puzzle where you need to put yourself in each row and column and visualize the layout of the buildings to make the numbers make sense.

You can try a sample puzzle on the Daily Skyline website, and the Daily feature is available for iPhone. (The Android version is currently beta-testing!)

The perspective aspect of this puzzle game really appealed to me, hopefully you’ll enjoy as well!

My other recommendation for you today is Wordstick.

In Wordstick, you have a stack of rotating letter cubes, and you need arrange them so that words read downward on all four sides.

You can rotate each cube or the stack itself in order to see the whole puzzle, and although the letters are all provided for you, it feels a bit like Wordle on steroids.

With 5-letter, 7-letter, and an unlockable 9-letter version, Wordstick will put your vocabulary and deduction skills to the test.

Wordstick is playable daily through their website or for iPhone. (Though apparently an Android version is coming!)

Let’s close out today’s post with a bit of levity, shall we?

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is a literary playground where open letters, comedic asides, and intrusive thoughts find their way to the viewing public.

(For instance, check out “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers” by Colin Nissan to get a sense of their comedic energy.)

Well, writer Tyler Gooch put the world of crosswords in his sights with a recent piece, entitled “Crossword Clues Where It’s Clear the Puzzle’s Creator Got Themselves into a Jam Letter-wise.”

Tongue is planted firmly in cheek here, but there’s definitely a hint of truth in there too.

Did I miss any puzzly news or fun board game stories from the last few weeks? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.

Rub-A-E-Dub, A-E-Dub (a puzzle to solve)

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It’s Saturday, and you know what that means.

Yes, today I have a wrestling-inspired crossword for your puzzly enjoyment.

All-Elite Wrestling’s pay-per-view WrestleDream is tonight, so what better day to unleash a power slam-fueled bit of cruciverbalism into the world, I ask you?

This slightly-asymmetrical grid is hoping accessible enough to non-wrestling fans — pro wrestling terms are their own brand of crosswordese — but the gimmick bringing together the wrestling theme entries is pretty universal, I think.

[Click here to download a PDF of the puzzle!]

Happy puzzling, everyone!

(If this isn’t to your taste, no worries. I am working on a Halloween-appropriate crossword that I should have ready before the end of the month.)