Tag Archives: David Steinberg

PuzzleNation 2014 Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide: Grab Bag!

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Welcome to the PuzzleNation Blog 2014 Holiday Gift Guide!

We’re overjoyed to have so many tremendously fun and puzzly products to share with you this year. We just might be your one-stop shop for all things puzzly!

This guide is a grab bag of all sorts of puzzle games, card games, puzzle books, party games, and board games, the perfect random assortment for any puzzle fan you need ideas for! We’re sure you’ll find the right gift for any puzzler on your list!

Naturally, you’ll forgive us for starting off with a link for some familiar puzzle apps!

Click these links for all the details on the Penny Dell Crossword App for iOS devices, Classic Word Search for Android and Kindle Fire, our Sudoku App and more!

And we’ll follow up with some puzzle books before we get into the grab bag of games, puzzles, and other terrific holiday treats!

   

Our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles have put together some outstanding holiday collections with puzzles galore to be solved!

Whether it’s their Sudoku Spectacular, the Only Yesterday Word Seek looking back across the decades, the Crossword Extravaganza collecting some of the best puzzles around, or their Home for the Holidays Signature Puzzle gift bundles — with an all Word Seek collection (pictured above), an all Crossword, an all Fill-In, and many more options — Penny/Dell has you covered.

And right now, they’re offering 15% off their Selected Puzzles and Dell Collector’s Series books with the offer code “SNOW15″!

And for more specialized puzzle books, some high-level constructors have books of their own for your perusal! With New York Times and Los Angeles Times crosswords to their credit, you’re sure to find some puzzlers within these pages!

–Ian Livengood’s Sit & Solve® Sports Crosswords

–Rich Norris’s A-to-Z Crosswords

–Doug Peterson’s Easy ABC Crosswords

–Jeff Chen’s puzzles for Bridge enthusiasts

–Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Sit & Solve® Marching Bands

–Patrick Blindauer’s Quick-As-A-Wink Crosswords and Wide-Screen Crosswords

Many top constructors and organizations market their puzzles directly to solvers, so between by-mail offers and downloadable puzzle bundles, you’ve got plenty of quality choices!

–The Uptown Puzzle Club (puzzle bundles by mail)

–The Crosswords Club (puzzle bundles by mail)

–Patrick Blindauer PuzzleFests (puzzle bundles by email)

–David Steinberg’s Chromatics (color-themed puzzles)

–The American Values Crossword (subscription and daily puzzles)

–Matt Gaffney’s Weekly Crossword Contest

And here is our grab bag of puzzle games and apps galore!

Bananagrams Wild Tiles (Bananagrams, board game)

The board game that requires no board, Bananagrams Wild Tiles is the latest variation on the beloved tile game, and with the introduction of new Wild Tiles that can stand in for any letter, Bananagrams is only getting faster to play and more accessible to solvers of all ages! ($14.99)

[Check out our full review of Bananagrams Wild Tiles by clicking here!]

Holiday Fluxx (Looney Labs, card game)

The folks at Looney Labs are all about games where the rules can change in an instant. They’ve broadened their library of Fluxx card decks with a marvelous Holiday version that puts a festive twist on the rapid-fire rule changes and ever-shifting objectives of the usual Fluxx fun! ($15.99)

[Check out our full product review of Holiday Fluxx here!]

The Stars Are Right (Steve Jackson Games, card game)

Build an army of followers and change the stars themselves in The Stars Are Right, a thoroughly enjoyable card game where the goal is summoning an elder god and destroying the world. As you do. ($27.95)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Word Winder (David L. Hoyt)

Word Winder (also available in app, puzzle book, and GIANT versions!) is a game of finding chains of hidden words in an ever-changeable grid! Put your strategy and spelling skills to the test! ($19.95)

Pairs (Hip Pocket Games, card game)

A simple card game with a lot of strategy behind it, Pairs is about NOT scoring points and avoiding pairing your cards at all costs. With numerous variant games available (depending on which deck you buy), Pairs is a perfect group card game you can pick up quickly. ($9.95)

Rudenko’s Disk (Brainwright, puzzle game)

Brainwright has a solid color-based brain teaser here to test your wits! The post-sliding and strategy-demanding Rudenko’s Disk offers you a single goal — move all of the colored pegs to one side or the other — and any number of ways to do it! ($9.99)

[Check out the full product review of Rudenko’s Disk by clicking here!]

Tsuro: The Game of the Path (Calliope Games, board game)

A path-laying game with tons of style and historical spirit, Tsuro casts up to eight players as flying dragons, and tasks you with laying out your path with special tiles. Your goal is to avoid meeting another dragon or flying off the board. It’s a simple mechanic with plenty of replay value, and perfect for quick games with large groups. ($29.99)

ROFL! (Cryptozoic, party game)

Challenge your friends to decode famous movie lines, catchphrases, and song lyrics in Cryptozoic’s game ROFL!!, created by Dork Tower‘s John Kovalic! Put your texting and abbreviation skills to the test in this laugh-out-loud party treat! ($35)

[Check out our full product review here!]

  

Baffledazzle (jigsaw puzzles)

Baffledazzle offers absolutely gorgeous jigsaw puzzles-with-a-twist, allowing the solver to learn about different cultures and uncover deeper mysteries as you place each piece. Whether you’re rediscovering ancient board games with Cirkusu, exploring the animal kingdom with Ozuzu, or running in circles with Code Breakers, you’ll find that these high-quality puzzles are more than meets the eye. (Prices range from $25 to $125)

Castellan (Steve Jackson Games)

Build a castle and then occupy it in Castellan, a game of strategy and opportunity. With great modeled pieces that really add to the aesthetic, Castellan has style and substance. ($34.95)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Schmovie (Galactic Sneeze, party game)

Are you the funniest, punniest one in your group of friends? Find out by playing Schmovie, the party game that pushes you to scribble down the best name for an imaginary movie created on the spot! ($29.95)

[Check out our full product review of Schmovie here!]

 

Walk-By Scrabble Board, Lexicographer’s Extended Scrabble, and Drawing Room Scrabble (Hammacher Schlemmer, board games)

Hammacher Schlemmer has several Scrabble variants available, including the Lexicographer’s Extended Scrabble for those with mega-syllabic ambitions ($39.95) and Drawing Room Scrabble for those with swankier taste ($199.95) — not to mention the mindboggling World’s Largest Scrabble Game for $12,000! — but few are as clever or as convenient as the Walk-By Scrabble Board! Designed as a family game for people on the go, it’s a perfect way to bring back Board Game Night for busy families! ($29.95)

[Check out our full product review of the Walk-By Scrabble Board here!]

Laser Maze (ThinkFun, puzzle game)

ThinkFun brings us a logic game with an actual laser in Laser Maze, a game of light, mirrors, strategy, and skill! ($26.95)

[Check out our full product review of Laser Maze by clicking here!]

Loonacy (Looney Labs, card game)

If you’re looking for a fast-play combination of Memory and Slapjack with a lot more options, then Loonacy is for you! It’s a manic pattern-matching good time for groups of all sizes! ($14.99)

[Check out our full product review of Loonacy here!]

Tic Tac Tome by Willy Yonkers (puzzle book)

And if you’re looking for a one-on-one solving experience, pit your mind against the Tic Tac Tome and see if you can beat the book at Tic Tac Toe. ($11)

[Click here to read our full book review!]

Robot Turtles (ThinkFun, puzzle game)

Teach your kids the basics of programming with this fun and deceptively simple board game! Robot Turtles uses board game rules and easy-to-learn card commands to show kids how to navigate their turtles past obstacles and to the jewel! ($29.99)

[Check out our full product review of Robot Turtles by clicking here!]

Chrononauts (Looney Labs, card game)

Time travel can be tough, but when other time travelers are changing history, it can be downright weird. In Chrononauts, you’ll bend the rules of time and space in the hopes of completing your mission and going home. And who hasn’t wanted to make history once or twice? ($20)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Get Lucky (Cheapass Games, card game)

Everyone wants to kill Dr. Lucky, but as his name suggests, that’s no easy task. Get Lucky challenges you and your friends to a strategy game to see who will be the first to beat the odds and take down Dr. Lucky! (And there’s a secret puzzle lurking within this game that no one has solved yet!) Will you be the first to solve the puzzle OR kill Dr. Lucky? ($16.95)

Collide-O-Cube (Brainwright, puzzle game)

It’s where pattern-matching precision meets magnetic randomness! Collide-O-Cube challenges you to recreate various colored patterns with these eight blocks, which sounds simple until you realize some blocks repel each other! Can you make the blocks mesh and solve the mystery of each pattern? ($19.99)

[Check out the full product review of Collide-o-Cube by clicking here!]

Fluxx: The Board Game (Looney Labs, board game)

Take a board game, and make the cards, goals, and board changeable, and you’ve got Fluxx: The Board Game. It’s the ultimate think-on-your-feet experience, and like nothing you’ve played before. ($30)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Gravity Maze (ThinkFun, puzzle game)

Can you bend gravity to your will? Gravity Maze pits the solver against increasingly difficult puzzles where the goal is to place the towers so that a dropped marble will end up in the red goal square. Can you unravel each maze without losing your marbles? ($24.99)

[Check out our full product review of Gravity Maze by clicking here!]

 

Tavern Puzzles (jigsaw puzzles)

These hand-forged beauties are ready to challenge your dexterity and cleverness, as you accept the Tavern Puzzles challenge. Whether you’re trying to free your heart from the tangled pieces of Heart’s Desire or remove the ring from the Iron Maiden, you’re sure to put your skills to the test. ($22)

Pink Hijinks (Looney Labs, puzzle game)

Part of Looney Labs’ multi-colored Pyramids series, Pink Hijinks is a quick-to-play strategy game for two players! Roll the dice, make your move, and try to race your opponent to the finish in this easily transported game of tactics! ($12)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Qwirkle (MindWare, board game)

A wonderful mix of Uno and Mexican Train Dominoes, Qwirkle is all about placing your tiles to maximize points and minimize helping your opponents. With six bright colors and six different shapes to match up, Qwirkle is endless fun that’s so easy to jump right into! ($34.99)

Timeline (Asmodee Games, card game)

Timeline pits your knowledge of history against a growing timeline of important events, inventions, and historical moments. You don’t have to know exact dates; you just need to know if something happened before OR after something else. Was the toothbrush invented before or after the syringe? Which came first, language or agriculture? Timeline is a fast, fun way of learning (or relearning history)! ($14.99)

Thank you to all of the constructors, designers, and companies taking part in our holiday gift guide!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! And remember to check out our Facebook Giveaway for the chance to win a free puzzle app download!

A puzzler, by any other name…

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Fake names, stage names, noms de plume… they’re more common than you might think. Authors, musicians, actors, and performers of all sorts can take on new identities, either to make themselves more marketable, to build a brand, or simply to create a public persona in order to keep their private lives separate.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, crossword constructors in the UK (known as setters) also employ pseudonyms, literally making a name for themselves as they create challenging cryptic crosswords for their solving audience.

Evocative names like Araucaria, Gordius, Crucible, Otterden, Anax, Charybdis, Tramp, Morph, Paul, Enigmatist, Hypnos, Phi, Nutmeg, Shed, Arachne, and Qaos grace the puzzles in England’s The Guardian newspaper.

That made me wonder… if American constructors were given the same opportunity, what UK-style names would they choose?

So, I reached out to some of my fellow puzzlers, and as I compiled their replies, some curious patterns emerged. I thought I’d share their responses with the PuzzleNation readership.

Whereas several UK setters have employed the names of former members of the Inquisition and other nasty sorts — like Torquemada, Ximenes, and Azed (which is Deza backwards) — to highlight the torturous challenges solvers could expect, some of their American counterparts prefer to highlight the playful, tricky aspect of constructing.

Constructor Robin Stears would publish under the name Loki or Anansi (citing two famous mythological tricksters), while meta-puzzle master Matt Gaffney would ply his craft under the name Puck. (He actually played Puck in sixth grade in a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

[Loki, as played by Tom Hiddleston in the
Marvel cinematic universe, seems to approve…]

Other constructors embraced wordplay involving their names, like Brendan Emmett Quigley who chose Beck (his initials pronounced phonetically) or Penny Press variety editor Cathy Quinn, who chose the nom de plume Sequin (for C. Quinn).

Still others revealed their feelings about those curious words that are only found in crosswords. Variety editor Paula Curry opted for the name Ese-Averse to show her disdain for crosswordese, while puzzle historian and constructor David Steinberg selected Osier, both for its crosswordese appeal and its homophone pronunciation (OCR, representing the Orange County Register, for whom David has served as crossword editor for years).

[This crossword features several infamous crosswordese
clues as entries. Do you recognize them all?

Naturally, my fellow puzzlers at Penny Press had some of my favorite puzzly stage names. Will Shortz’s WordPlay editor Leandro Galban sets himself firmly against the heroic solver by choosing Grendel, while variety editor Andrew Haynes opted for either Bob the Settler or The Flying Penguin. (He feels that “the” adds a certain arrogance to the pseudonym, and Bob has that delightfully bland palindromic quality.)

Editor Ariane Lewis would be known simply as Dub, leaving interpretation up to the solvers, while editor Maria Peavy offered a plethora of possible pennames, including Pushkin, Excelsior, Kutuzov (in the spirit of Torquemada), Sphinx (another famous riddler) or Grail.

Or you could adopt a full false moniker like variety editor Keith Yarbrough did, and go by Rufus T. Firefly.

As for me, I haven’t decided if I want something esoteric like Syzygy (alluding to the rare alignment of both planets and quality crossword grids), something obscure and wordnerdy like Snurp or Timmynoggy or Interrobang, or something meaningless but fun to say aloud, like Skylark or Guava.

So watch out, UK setters, because one of these days, you might see names like Sequin or Osier or The Flying Penguin baffling your solvers with cryptic crossword cleverness.

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!

The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is almost here!

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The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is less than two weeks away — Friday, March 7, through Sunday, March 9! — and the entire crossword community is gearing up for one of the year’s biggest puzzle events.

Every year, constructors and crossword fans alike converge on Brooklyn, New York — the tournament’s home since 2008, after years in Stamford, CT — to test their puzzly mettle against time and pencil-point-stressing nerves as they solve topnotch puzzles as quickly and accurately as possible.

It’s a weekend dedicated to puzzle goodness of all kinds, and the social events and extracurriculars are nearly as popular as the tournament itself. In the past, there have been talent shows, puzzle challenges, displays of live puzzle creation, team solving games, scavenger hunts, crossword songs, film viewings (including the Wordplay documentary), and performances of puzzle magic by David Kwong.

[Here’s a solvable puzzle mosaic of tournament organizer
Will Shortz, created in 2003 by Ken Knowlton.]

It’s the 37th year of the tournament, and the turnout will undoubtedly be high. (Several friends of the blog, including constructor Ian Livengood, Penny Press variety editor Keith Yarbrough, and Uptown Puzzle Club editor Patti Varol, will be in attendance.)

And, of course, the best and brightest in puzzle-solving will be looking to etch their name in tournament history. Dan Feyer has won four years in a row. Will he match Tyler Hinman’s five-year winning streak, and close the gap between him and Jon Delfin’s record of seven tournament wins?

Either way, it’s sure to be a great time.

You can sign up to compete or attend by clicking here, or you can participate online or by mail!

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, cruise our boards on Pinterest, check out our Tumblr, download our puzzle apps and iBooks, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

PuzzleNation Book Review: The Centenary of the Crossword

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Welcome to the eighth installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews!

All of the books discussed and/or reviewed in PNBR articles are either directly or indirectly related to the world of puzzling, and hopefully you’ll find something to tickle your literary fancy in this entry or the entries to come.

Let’s get started!

Our book review post this time around features John Halpern’s The Centenary of the Crossword.

With the hundredth anniversary of the Crossword only a few weeks behind us, interest in puzzle is perhaps at an all-time high. With that in mind, constructor John Halpern has put together a tribute to the crossword that’s part history, part solving tool, and part celebration of everyone’s favorite pen-and-paper puzzle.

It’s a wonderful introduction to puzzles for anyone looking to get into solving crosswords. Beyond the timeline of puzzle history and glimpses into the minds of various constructors (or setters, as they’re known in England) and crossword editors (Rich Norris of the Los Angeles Times and Will Shortz of the New York Times included), Halpern offers numerous solving hints, including a terrific breakdown of cryptic cluing for fans of British-style crosswords.

Not only that, but the book is chock full of complete puzzles for the reader to solve, starting (quite appropriately) with Arthur Wynne’s marvelous “Word-Cross” and proceeding straight through to the modern day, featuring constructors from around the world. These puzzles show the depth and variety of crossword grids and cluing, and I think even well-established solvers will get a lot out of tackling the puzzles Halpern has collected.

The book is capped off with interviews with the top solvers from last year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, some terrific clues (including some from PuzzleNation Blog favorites David Steinberg and Doug Peterson), and a delightful collection of crossword-centric anecdotes, weird words, and impressive anagrams.

Essentially a cross-section of modern puzzling and the rich puzzle community, The Centenary of the Crossword is a quick and informative read, peppered with puzzles to engage and challenge you. I’m happy to report that I learned a great deal about crosswords (especially cryptics!) from Halpern’s work, and enjoyed every minute of it. What a treat.

[To check out all of our PuzzleNation Book Review posts, click here!]

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, cruise our boards on Pinterest, check out our Tumblr, download our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions: Alumni Edition

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Undoubtedly one of the most popular features on the blog in 2013 was 5 Questions, our interview series featuring puzzle constructors, authors, filmmakers, game designers, puzzle enthusiasts, and creative people in general whose work and play relates to puzzles.

As 2013 was winding down, I reached out to our 5 Questions alumni to catch up and ask them what they’d been up to since appearing here last. (Or when I’m not pestering them for crossword construction advice or New Year’s Resolutions. *laughs*)

And so many of them were happy to share their latest projects with the PuzzleNation audience!

Author Robin Sloan’s marvelous novel Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is out in paperback, and the prequel story Ajax Penumbra 1969 is available as an eBook. I asked him about what he’s been doing, and his answer was brief and exciting:

Let’s see… I’m hard at work on a new novel!

That’s about it 😀

Can’t wait to see what he’s got in store for us next.

[Click here to check out Robin’s session of 5 Questions, as well as our book review of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore here.]

Great Urban Race Senior Manager Jordan Diehl was also happy to bring us up to speed on what the GUR crew has been up to:

We just finished a successful Championship event in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was our first time outside of the continental US, and the race was really well-received. Like in years past, a total of $10,000 was given out, but this year it was divided among the top 8 teams as opposed to years past where only first place received cash prizes.

The division of prizes will remain as we enter our 2014 season:
First place: $6,000
Second place: $2,000
Third place: $1,000
Fourth – Eighth place: $200 each

And speaking of, we are excited that our 2014 season is just around the corner!

We’ve consolidated our schedule for 2014; our first event is in late January and the last regular-schedule event of the season will be June 7. This leaves us room for another new Championship location in a potentially colder climate that we could not typically do in November/December (the usual dates of our Championship) as we are looking at an August/September Championship date.

Here at Great Urban Race, we’ve decided that 2014 is the “Year of You,” and we are focusing on listening to participant feedback more than ever. We put out a vote for Championship locations as well as several other campaigns like it through our social media pages.

[Be sure to check out the Great Urban Race website for more details, and click here to read Jordan’s session of 5 Questions.]

Kathy Matheson (a.k.a. puzzle blogger Crossword Kathy) had some interesting news to share, not only regarding her puzzle-constructing aspirations, but interacting with the PuzzleNation readership as well!

After the 5 Questions interview appeared, I was pleasantly surprised to get feedback from a couple of your readers! One is a fellow journalist here in Philly — I recognized his byline but have never met him, and didn’t know he was a puzzler, too. He told me about a local constructor he interviewed a few years ago, when she was 95! Now she’s about to turn 100, and he said she’s still making crosswords. Amazing. I hope to write a story about her myself, somehow tying it in to the just-passed centennial of the crossword.

The other person who contacted me is a constructor I admire who very kindly offered to help with my grid-building dreams. Part of me really wants to take him up on the offer, but part of me is very independent and wants to do it alone.

The truth is that I haven’t spent as much time constructing as I should, so perhaps I should do more of that before asking for help. I did send the L.A. Times one of my puzzles, which was rejected by a very nice note saying that “there’s some good work in your grid, but the theme puns are too stretchy” for their taste. Oh well.

[I have no doubt we’ll be seeing Kathy’s name in a puzzle byline in 2014. Click here to check out her session of 5 Questions!]

Puzzle poet Peter Valentine regularly posts his latest creations on Twitter and Tumblr — I’ve posted his poem “Birthday” for the 100th Anniversary of the crossword above — and has recently added another social media platform to his arsenal.

I’ve started an instagram feed, @peterboothby, which helps to reach many more folks and generate discussion.

[You can check out the full archive of his poems here, as well as his session of 5 Questions here.]

As you might’ve expected, constructor and puzzle historian David Steinberg has kept himself very busy between his own crossword construction and his work on the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, which recently passed the 14,000 puzzle mark!

On December 21, the crossword centennial, I gave a talk at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Center Library on crossword history, the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, and crossword editing, solving, and constructing. Also, I constructed a special centennial puzzle for the Focus page in The Orange County Register.

[Check out The Orange County Register, where David serves as crossword editor, as well as his session of 5 Questions here.]

Prolific constructor Robin Stears has been puzzling up a storm since last we spoke.

The dust has settled from the 100th anniversary celebrations, and of course, the other holidays took up some time, but I’m ready to get back to work. My daughter took pity on me and spent a day fixing my Tumblr blog so that it’s easier to find, sent out messages to all my Tumblr followers, and helped me set up a Tumblr-exclusive giveaway (to make up for my ineptitude). She even tweaked it for the holidays!

I’m starting off the year with a 21×21 StearsWords puzzle entitled “Things to Look Forward to in 2014.” There’s so much to look forward to, it needed a giant-size puzzle.

The Trivia Challenge puzzles seemed to be popular, so there will be more of those. I’ll continue to invite social media fans to send me their ideas and watch them come to life–a Reddit fan suggested “Doctor Who,” a Tumblr fan is responsible for the “Game of Thrones” puzzle, and a Facebook fan challenged me to do a “420” puzzle; clearly, I’m open to just about anything. (Someone asked me to do a cryptogram/crossword, where solvers have to decipher the clues, and then solve the puzzle. It sounds like a lot of work, but also a lot of fun; it also sounds perfect for a contest.)

Naturally, I’ll be keeping a close watch on what’s hot, just in case there’s another “Sharknado”-like event that begs to be immortalized in crossword. And solvers will still find the majority of my work in Penny/Dell puzzle books. They’ve been printing my puzzles for over twenty years, and I’m a huge fan of their puzzle books, as evidenced by the ginormous stack of Good Time Crosswords in my office.

[You can also join Team StearsWords by clicking here, and check out her session of 5 Questions here.]

As you might expect, David L. Hoyt has been busy. The most syndicated man in puzzles continues to produce his signature Jumble puzzles, but he also has a new puzzly product to share.

Just 2 Fun (pictured above) is David’s latest creation and his first app for younger players (ages 9 and up). The app is available for iPad, iPad mini, iPhone 4 and 5 and iPod touch devices. Just 2 Fun is a kids’ version of the enormously successful puzzle app Just 2 Words.

[You can explore all of David’s puzzly creations on his website, and check out his session of 5 Questions here.]

Even our latest interviewee, New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, had something to share with us in the few weeks since appearing on the PuzzleNation Blog.

You may recall him mentioning his favorite pastime:

At the moment I’m close to finishing a personal goal — to play table tennis every day this year. As I write this (on Dec. 17), I’ve played every single day since Jan. 1 — 351 days in all.

I’m happy to report that Will did in fact complete his 365 days of table tennis for 2013, even throwing a party to celebrate. (I suspect New Year’s Eve may have also contributed to the festivities.)

[Check out Will’s contributions to NPR’s Weekend Edition here, as well as his session of 5 Questions here. We hope to have more information on his new puzzle magazine Will Shortz’s WordPlay very soon.]

Thank you to all of our 5 Questions alums! They helped make 2013 a banner year for PuzzleNation Blog, and as we head into 2014 with new interviews to come, I promise to keep you posted on everything these brilliant puzzly folks are up to.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, cruise our boards on Pinterest, check out our Tumblr, download our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

New Year’s Resolutions!

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It’s New Year’s Eve, and around this time, people start making resolutions for the new year. Goals, plans, even the occasional scheme, all in the hopes of being a better version of themselves.

And I instantly began wondering if anyone was making puzzly resolutions. So, like all great philosophers, I asked the folks on Twitter.

Right after I posted the question, my friend Candice replied, “Spooky timing. Had just added ‘set aside a few hours every week to do puzzles’ to my list.”

As it turns out, plenty of people had puzzly resolutions for 2014, including a few familiar faces!

Puzzle poet Peter Valentine resolved to “Get up early and finish the poem before anyone else is awake — I wonder how many puzzler parents use this tactic for solving the puzzle?”

[Glenn’s note: Probably more than you suspect, Peter.]

Constructor Patrick Blindauer tweeted, “In 2014, I resolve to solve more, use fewer black squares, and never, ever use TREEN.”

[Glenn’s note: A quick dictionary search reveals that TREEN is anything made of wood, especially cookware or utensils. Diabolical crosswordese!]

Friend of the blog Krud tweeted, “I resolve to embed an anagram into every tweet. Aye, mint tea lovers drown beige meat near vote.”

Crossword blogger Kathy Matheson (a.k.a. Crossword Kathy) declared that “My resolution for the New Year is to construct and submit at least three daily-size crosswords to Will Shortz — so I better get to work!”

Constructor and Puzzle Historian David Steinberg resolved to “finish the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project’s litzing stage and to construct more Sunday crosswords, since I’ve been doing mostly dailies.”

[Glenn’s note: Litzing is the PSPP term for converting print puzzles into an archivable electronic format.]

Friend of the blog (and YouTuber!) BaffleDazzle had a stack of puzzly resolutions:

“1. Exercise brain as much as body (easier, no weights/special clothes required)
2. Make puzzles for friends/family birthday gifts
3. Try new puzzle/puzzly game each month (growing stack of old Springboks + new Looney Labs discoveries!)
4. Make puzzles the new black!”

Constructor Robin Stears also offered a pretty ambitious list of puzzly resolutions:

“Next year, my resolution is to interact more with puzzle fans. I hope to attend some crossword tournaments and trivia nights and spend some time getting to know the contestants and finding out what kinds of puzzles they like. There will be more digital collections this year, more contests, and more freebies for Team StearsWords.”

As for me, I have a few resolutions of the puzzlerific variety. I resolve to:

  • Anagram more. New Years resolution = Now to rerun easy lies.
  • Play more board games. Working on the blog has reignited my love of board games, and I hope to get a regular game night going.
  • Write fewer pop culture-related palindromes, particularly involving Kim Kardashian’s advice to her daughter. “Nori West nods. ‘Moms don’t sew, iron’.”
  • Fight crime, but with puzzles. Probably through the clever use of origami and paper cuts.
  • Take PuzzleNation PuzzleInternational! (Not really sure how to go about this yet. It’ll probably involve some scheming.)

Happy New Year, my fellow puzzlers! May 2014 be as delightful, surprising, and occasionally baffling as you desire!

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