Tag Archives: Geeking Out

PuzzleNation App Review: Shuttle Shuffle

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Welcome to the another edition of PuzzleNation App Reviews! Today we continue our quest to explore the world of puzzly games and apps for your tablet or smartphone!

Our resident app player and puzzle fiend Sherri has a new game for us today, so let’s get down to business and dive into her review of Shuttle Shuffle for iPhone and Android!

Shuttle Shuffle is a game where the goal is to return stranded aliens to their spaceships, so they can go home.

Hello, humans, your goal is to help the aliens get back to their ships! They need to leave the planet at once. Won’t you please guide them?

This is really cute twist on a clear-the-board type game. Your goal is to clear the aliens from the board by matching them to spaceships of the same color as the aliens. To move them, simply touch an alien and move up, down, left, or right.

However, it isn’t quite that simple, as a column of aliens will move up or down together, and a row of aliens will move left or right together. This can make earning the medals and stars tricky.

There is also a social aspect to the game. When you earn medals, you have a choice of earning a tickets to challenge another player or a ticket to make your own board with which to challenge another player. This adds a nice twist to the game.

This is a really enjoyable game. For fans of this type of game, it is highly recommended. This will keep you puzzling for ages.

Ratings for Shuttle Shuffle:

  • Enjoyability: 3/5 — This is really fun and quite challenging! Trying to earn the medals and stars really takes thought.
  • Puzzle incorporation: 3/5 — In each level, you have to puzzle out how to get the aliens to their ships, each level with its own layout of aliens, which often provides a chain-solving challenge.
  • Graphics: 4/5 — Except for the blinking eyeball, the graphics are static, but they are very bright and colorful. You move the aliens along a standard grid, and the background of the first world, Terra, features clouds and spaceships launching.
  • Gameplay: 4/5 — This is a really cute twist on a clear-the-board game. The aliens are adorable, and the levels get increasingly more difficult, so you really have to think to earn the medals and stars. Plus, the social aspect of designing your own levels adds an extra dimension to the game.

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!

Music strikes a chord with puzzlers?

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Are you baffled by a brain teaser, confused by a crossword clue, or positively puzzled by a ridiculous riddle? Maybe take a break and listen to some music!

For years now, parents have heard about — and been touting — the benefits playing classical music has on children from a very early age, even the womb. Heck, there’s an entire industry built around creating “little Einsteins” with music and other supposedly cognitive toys and products.

Now, the idea that making your babies listen to classical music in the womb will turn them into tiny prodigies has been pretty thoroughly debunked. There is no magic one-way ticket to Genius Town.

But there is verifiable data on the favorable effects music can elicit from an early age. Only it usually has more to do with playing music than listening to it. Children who are given music lessons often achieve greater heights in other subjects, including math and sports.

[Picture courtesy of Boston.com and Thinkspace.]

But, as it turns out, both adults and children have performed better on tests, puzzles, and problem-solving exercises when music is involved.

A study was conducted in 1993, wherein people were given one of three possible options to listen to: ten minutes of Mozart, a relaxation tape, or silence. Then each group was asked to complete a visualization exercise known as the Paper-Folding and Cutting task.

They had to imagine a piece of paper was folded several times and then cut along certain corners. Then they had to correct identify the jagged shape the paper would make once unfolded. (As Zoe Cormier of Guerilla Science puts it, “a bit like making paper snowflakes.”)

As you might expect, the people who listened to Mozart did better than the other two groups. This positive influence was dubbed “the Mozart effect.”

But guess what? More recent studies have determined that those benefits aren’t exclusive to Mozart, or even classical music. You can get the same positive uptick in results with any kind of music, as long as it’s music your test subjects enjoy.

Now this is a far cry from the idea that listening to music as a child will guarantee you become a master puzzle solver in the future. But there’s clearly something here, perhaps simply a curious crossroads of music and puzzling where one benefits the other, no matter how old you are.

So, next time you’re stumped by a puzzle, listen to some music and take another crack at it. You may be surprised by the results.

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!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Tournament 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 today, I’d like to return to the subject of crossword tournaments!

This has been a great year for crossword tournaments so far. The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament featured a new solving record — under 2 minutes for Puzzle #1! — as well as a nailbiter of a finale between Dan Feyer and Tyler Hinman.

Not only that, but the first Indie 500 tournament has now come and gone, and I’ve heard nothing but good things from competitors and organizers alike. (I’m looking forward to tackling the competition puzzles myself this weekend and seeing how I do!)

And constructor and friend of the blog George Barany informed me that another tournament looms quite close!

The Fourth Annual Minnesota Crossword Tournament is next weekend in St. Paul, Minnesota, and while the competition is open mostly to locals, there is a downloadable puzzle pack for stay-at-home solvers to enjoy!

Local tournaments like the Minnesota Crossword Tournament are not only great ways to meet fellow solvers and test your puzzle mettle, but they often also serve as fundraisers for good causes. For instance, proceeds from the Minnesota tournament will benefit The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library.

I’ll try to keep you apprised of any and all tournaments,  my fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers, so you can participate, enjoy the company of other solvers, and contribute to the greater puzzle community as a whole. So be sure to let me know if a tournament is taking place near you! (And whether you’re competing!)

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!

5 Questions with Puzzler/Artist Hayley Gold!

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Welcome to another edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, board game creators, writers, filmmakers, musicians, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole. (Click here to check out previous editions of 5 Questions!)

And I’m excited to have Hayley Gold as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

An enthusiastic puzzle solver as well as an accomplished artist, Hayley combines her interests with Across and Down, a weekly webcomic devoted to The New York Times crossword.

She combines humor and the keen eye of a long-time solver to not only entertain, but offer worthwhile insight into crosswords as a whole and individual puzzles in particular. Whether she’s punning on themed entries or proving her pop culture savvy with references galore, each Across and Down comic brings something unique to the table.

Hayley 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 Hayley Gold

1. Which came first for you: puzzles or art? How did you discover puzzles?

Well, I think art is rather intuitive. As soon as a child gets hold of a crayon their artistic career begins. A lot of people are miffed when artists comment that they’ve been drawing all their life, but I actually did more drawing in my youth than in my maturity, when pressure became attached to it.

That being said, I find doing puzzles much more relaxing and more natural for me. So, though one may have preceded the other doesn’t mean that it’s the dominant hobby.

2. When did you launch Across and Down, and has it evolved from your original vision?

I started the site in January 2014 as a project for my web comics class. The whole operation was rather hasty. We were told we needed to come up with a comic that’s updated weekly, the teacher said the content was completely up to us, though her web comic followed a linear narrative, as did the comics of most of the other students.

I needed something I could do without too much time lost, as the class was only an elective and I had other comics to complete, and something that focused on writing more than visuals as that has always been my strong suit. And of course I wanted it to be fun, and something that I cared about.

I never imagined it would become what it has. Okay, let me rephrase that. I have wild fantasies about it being much MORE than it is, what I never imagined is how much I would NEED it. I experience withdrawal if I go too long without making one.

[Strategy, a wonderful crayon-and-pencil piece, as featured on her portfolio site.]

3. Your comics offer a wonderful mix of humor, tongue-in-cheek wordplay, and savvy commentary from a clearly experienced solver. How have the constructors reacted to your comics? Do you think couching your critiques in this format allows you to say more than a straightforward review or blog post?

In general, I get a good response from constructors. I certainly never got any flak from anyone. Many have reached out to thank me actually, which is a very rewarding gesture. And I’ve never attempting real blogging to compare the reactions side by side, but I would guess that giving everything a lighthearted air does assuage some of the severity of critique.

But, at the same time, I am rarely totally critical and try to be balanced. And though I often address the constructor directly, I try not to make any serious personal attacks if I thoroughly rip something apart, though, by and large, I don’t do comics on puzzles that are completely horrendous. Partly because I don’t wish to be horribly cruel to anyone, and partly because I don’t think it’s very entertaining. At least in a comic, I think nitpicking about the usual crossword faux pas gets repetitive.

[A sample of one of her most recent webcomics.]

4. What’s next for Hayley Gold?

I’m working on a graphic novel, but no ETA on that. And for anyone who’s a fan of my site, I’ll warn you that it’s totally different, both graphically and narratively, so no guarantees that you’ll like it. I also need a job. Hey, anyone out there, hire me! Would love to do some custom crossword comics!

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

Er, I’m not really good with this. God knows, my life is a mess. But let’s try to narrow it down a bit. How about advice pertaining to webcomics? Make it about something you’re passionate about. Most of my peers quit their webcomic after the class finished. Now, my stick-to-it-iveness may be due to my uptight nature, but also because it really meant something to me.

Also, keep at it even if you think no one is reading. I hope to get more eyeballs as I go along, though my site still reaches relatively few readers. People may look over it once and then never come back instead of subscribing, or just never come across it even though they are ardent puzzle solvers.

When I go to comics events, so many people come up to me to tell me what a “great idea” my site is — but they personally don’t do the puzzle so it’s not for them. I’ve experienced a very small overlap in the fanbases. The way comics are promoted, as one big giant blob of content, is rather weird — as if readers would be attracted to all of it simply because of the medium, rather than it being placed into subcategories — but I digress.

Choose something you like, stick with it.

Many thanks to Hayley for her time. Check out AcrossandDown.net for her comics and links to her other works, and to keep up on all things Hayley, follow her Across and Down Facebook page, her Twitter (@HayleyRabbit), and her Etsy page! I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next.

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!

Puzzles in Pop Culture: The Big Bang Theory

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Puzzles in Pop Culture is all about chronicling those moments in TV, film, literature, art, and elsewhere in which puzzles play a key role. In previous installments, we’ve tackled everything from The West Wing, The Simpsons, and M*A*S*H, to MacGyver, Gilmore Girls, and various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes.

And in today’s edition, we’re delving into the world of The Big Bang Theory, CBS’s runaway hit about four nerdy scientists — Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj — bumbling their way through social interactions of all sorts.

Although the show covers all sorts of activities often deemed “nerdy” — roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, The Lord of the Rings, comic books, cosplay, conventions, obsessive fandom, etc. — they rarely play puzzles. Usually, the closest they get are board games and card games, whether real ones like 3-D chess or fictional ones like Mystic Warlords of Ka’a.

But in episode 3 of season 7, The Scavenger Vortex, the boys and their girlfriends embarked on one of my favorite puzzly pursuits: the scavenger hunt.

Here, hunt organizer Raj lays down the rules with plenty of style:

The teams end up being the odd couples of Leonard and Bernadette (Howard’s girlfriend), Sheldon and Penny (Leonard’s girlfriend), and Howard and Amy (Sheldon’s girlfriend), allowing some new pairings for the writers to have fun with.

For instance, we’re treated to this exchange between Howard and Amy, where Amy references her unpopularity growing up:

Howard Wolowitz: Wow, you’re really good at puzzles.
Amy Farrah Fowler: I did them all the time as a kid. As my mom used to say: when you’re doing a puzzle, it’s like having a thousand friends. She was full of fun lies like that.

The game starts with a jigsaw puzzle, which quickly reveals the location of the next clue: the comic book store. (Although Sheldon forces Penny to wait while he completes the entire puzzle.)

When the competitors arrive at the comic book store, a cardboard cutout of the Riddler holds their next clue.

Riddle me this:
Arrah, Arrah, and gather ’round,
this hero is legion-bound,
He multiplies N by the number of He,
and in this room the thing you’ll see.

Sheldon instantly solves the riddle, followed by Howard and Amy, then finally by Bernadette and Leonard, highlighting how well the three teams are working together. (Either Sheldon or Penny takes the lead, depending on the task, while Howard and Amy collaborate well, and overcompetitive Bernadette basically yells at Leonard the entire time.)

Arriving at the geology lab at the university, Penny and Sheldon reveal the next puzzle: To continue on your quest, leave no stone unturned.

While they turn over various rock samples in the lab, Sheldon explains how he solved the riddle.

Arrah pointed to Jan Arrah, a member of the DC Comics superhero team The Legion of Super-Heroes, who goes by the name Element Lad. This pointed Sheldon to the Periodic Table of Elements, where he multiplied the atomic number of N, Nitrogen (7) by the atomic number of He, Helium (2), getting 14, the atomic number of Silica, which pointed him to either the geology lab or the chemistry lab.

And the final line of the riddle — “and in this room, the thing you’ll see” — pointed toward the Marvel superhero The Thing, who is made entirely of rock.

As Sheldon is showing off his impressive riddle-cracking skills, underdog Penny actually solves the current puzzle, realizing that “no stone unturned” didn’t mean the samples in the lab. It meant the Rolling Stones poster hung on the door, which she lifts to reveal map coordinates.

This sends them to a bowling alley, and then to the disused elevator shaft in Leonard, Sheldon, and Penny’s apartment building. A montage mentions further puzzles at the planetarium and the tar pits (and plans to attend a Neil Diamond concert for new chums Howard and Amy), before ending up in the laundry room at Leonard, Sheldon, and Penny’s apartment building.

Three bags of laundry await the players, and they quickly realize each bag contains only pants, except for a single shirt of Sheldon’s. A shirt with a spot on it.

Fans of the show, of course, know where their final destination — and the coin — awaits them. But when they tear apart the couch, there’s no coin.

In the end, we discover the final clue was a red herring, and Raj had slipped gold coins into everyone’s pockets earlier in the day. (Which is some pretty impressive sleight-of-hand, I must say.)

And although Raj’s big lesson — it’s getting together and playing that’s important, not the prize at the end — is lost on his fellow castmates, it really does encapsulate the best in group puzzling and gaming… the experience.

Maybe The Big Bang Theory gets puzzles after all.

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!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Sing It 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 today, I’d like to return to the subject of hashtag games!

You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie, hashtag games on Twitter, or @midnight’s Hashtag Wars segment on Comedy Central.

Last month, a hashtag game was part of our International TableTop Day festivities. The hook was Penny/Dell Puzzle Movies, and it was great fun.

Well, we’ve decided to make it a monthly game, and this month’s hook was Penny/Dell Puzzle Songs!

Examples might be “Lucy in the Sky with Nine of Diamonds” or “Man in the Mirror Image” or “Dream Weaver Words.”

So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny/Dell Puzzles came up with!

Penny’s from Heaven

We are Crypto-Families

Piggybacks in the U.S.S.R.

Say Say Say That Again

Do You Want To Know A Secret Word

Jenny From The Block Letters

You’re the First and Last, My Everything

Double Trouble No More

Double Crosswords Trouble

Battleships of Fools

Stoplines (In the Name of Love)

More than Codewords

Hip to be Jigsaw Squares

Hip To Be Anagram Magic Square

Anagram Magic Carpet Ride

Crackerjacks and Diane

Jack & Diagramless

Halftime After Time

Too Much Rhyme Time on My Hands

Rhyme Time and Time Again

Give and Take It to the Limit

Give & Take a Chance on Me

We’re Not Gonna Take It from There

Frame By Framework

Freeze Frameworks

Across and Downbound Train

Lay Across and Down Sally

Flower Power of Love

Where Have All the Flower Powers Gone?

Places, Please Please Me

Friends in Low Places, Please

Letterboxes To Me

Love Letterboxes in the Sand

Thick As A Brick By Brick

Brick by Brick to Heaven

Goodbye Brick by Brick Road

Another Brick by Brick in the Wall

Wish You Were Here & There

Pinball Wizard Words

Zigzag Stardust

Mystery State of Love and Trust

A Hard Rains A-Gonna Quotefall

Take Me Out to the Bowl Game

The Itsy Bitsy Spider’s Web

Bull’s-Eye Spiral of the Tiger

Candle in the Windowboxes

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad Ties

Shadowbox Dancing

Under the Scoreboardwalk

Free Your Mind Tickler

Runaround the Block Sue

Ringmaster of Fire

Old Time Rock and Roll of the Dice

Walk Like an Encryption

A Boy Named Su-Doku

Pencil Pusherman

Girls Just Wanna Have Bible Fun

Text Message in a Bottle

Out on the Missing Tiles

The Bookworms of Love

50 Ways to Leave Your Logic Lover

Guess Who Can It Be Now?

Make the Rainbow Connection

Matching Circles in the Sand

Power of Two for One

What’s Left? Of Center

Add One Is the Loneliest Number

Will the Circle Search Be Unbroken?

Alphabet Soup John B

Triangle Sum Kind of Wonderful

Everybody Wants You Know the Odds

The Shadow Knows

I Put A Spellathon You

A View To A Skill-O-Gram

Trans-Europe Crossword Express

Anagrams-a Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Cryptogram-ma Got Run Over By A Reindeer

One fellow puzzler even went so far as to create new puzzly lyrics for some of these songs!

  • Brand New Keyword – Deanna Carter

I’ve got a brand new pair of Cryptograms, you’ve got a brand new Keyword

  • You Don’t Bring Me Flower Powers – Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand

B: You don’t bring me Flower Powers. You don’t give me Codewords.
N: You hardly talk to me anymore, when you solve on that floor at the end of the day

  • Quotefalls – TLC

Don’t go chasing Quotefalls
Please stick to the Fill-Ins and the Takeouts you’re used to

  • Crossword Traffic – Jimi Hendrix

Ninety words per hour, baby, that’s the speed I solve.

All in all, the game was great fun!

Plus, we received some submissions from solvers on Twitter! Friend of the blog Robin Stears submitted Runaround Sudoku, The Old Rugged Crostic, and Do You Believe in Magic Squares?, while @Francespuzzles submitted a boatload of good ones, like Blowin’ in the Windowboxes; That’s All Right Angles, and Crimson and Lucky Clover!

Have you come up with any Penny/Dell Puzzle Songs of your own? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

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!