Tag Archives: Holidays

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Hashtag Game 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 International TableTop Day!

You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie, hashtag games on Twitter, or @midnight’s Hashtag Wars segment on Comedy Central. Well, I decided to host our own wordplay game in honor of TableTop Day.

Our hook was: Penny/Dell Puzzle Movies!

Examples could be “Starspell Wars” or “Legends of the Quotefalls” or “Live and Let Die-agramless.”

I received over 100 responses from PuzzleNation and Penny/Dell employees, and I simply had to compile a complete list and share it with you! (I’ve included links for as many puzzles as I could find!)

So, without further ado, please enjoy our feature presentation.

Sudo-Cujo

One Flew Over the (Sudo)ku-koo’s Nest

Two for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The “Ken-Ken”tucky Fried Movie

A Scarlet Letterbox

Last Tangleword in Paris

Tanglewords and Cash

Django Un-Chain Words

What’s Left Pussycat?

Easy Crossword Midnight Express OR Midnight Express Easy Crosswords

The Good – the Bad, and the Ugly – Time Crosswords

Revenge of the Words

When Flower Met Power

The Flower Power and the Glory

Anagram Gables

The Trum-Anagram Show

(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless) Mind Boggler

The Domino Theory of Everything

Domino (Conspiracy) Theory

Lord of the Ringers

(The Lord of the) Ringers: (The) Two-Step (Towers)

Lord of the Changeling

Lord of the Ring-master

Lord of the Diamond Rings

Diamond Rings are Forever

Nine of Diamonds Are Forever

Diamond Mines are a Girl’s Best Friend – (Starring Maria Monroe)

The Fantastic Four Corners

Four (Children of the) Corners

Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stepping Stones

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret Words

The Wizard Words of Oz

Desperately Wordseek-ing Susan

Star Trek 3: The Word Search For Spock

The Secret Message of NIMH

Patchword Adams

A Patchwords of Blue

Nightmare on Garfield’s Word Seek

Around the Bend It Like Beckham

Here and There Will be Blood

How to Train Your Zigzag-on

Heads and Tails from the Crypt

Tales from the Crypt-O-Grams

Crypto-Riddles of the Sphinx

(X-Men: First) Classified Ads

(Dead and) Buried Treasure

Split (Second) Personalities

A Framework Orange

Fiddler’s Frame on the Roof

Charlie’s ANGLEWORDS

Trading Places, Please

Places, Please in the Heart

Fill-In Minnesota

To Fill-In a Mockingbird

Rapid (Fire) Reader

Puzzle (Down and) Derby

THE WHOLE TRUTH About Cats & Dogs

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Match-Ups

(One Hour) Photo Finish

(500 Days of) Sum(mer) Triangles

Gold-Figgerits

Dial-a-Grams for Murder

Place Your Murder by Numbers

The LETTER COUNT of Monte Cristo

Mad Maxi-Point

Add One Fine Day

Scramble Across Five Aprils

Piece by Pieces of April

12 Mon-Keywords

SQUARE NINES From Outer Space

Anacrostics Karenina OR Anna Karenina–crostics

Raiders of the Crostics Ark

Raiders of the List-A-Crostic

The Seventh Syllacrostic

Schindler’s List-a-Crostic

Schindler’s Missing List

First and Last Action Hero

Meet Joe BLACK MAGIC

Full Metal JACKPOT

Gone with the Window Boxes

Rear Window Boxes

Doctor DoLotto

The Da Vinci Codeword

An American in Pairs

Double Trouble Indemnity

Face to Face/Off

(The World’s) End of the Line

There were even a few TV shows offered — Dora The Exploraword and ACROSS AND DOWNton Abbey — as well as a theater show: The Bookworms of Mormon.

And now, I open the hashtag game up to you, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers! Can you come up with a Penny/Dell Puzzle Movie we missed? Message us on Facebook or Twitter! 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!

TableTop Day: PuzzleNation Style!

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The third annual International TableTop Day was last Saturday, and according to reports across the Internet, it was the most successful and joyous TableTop Day yet! Games were donated by some of the top companies (our friends at Looney Labs and Steve Jackson Games among them) as well as by the folks at Geek & Sundry, and the puzzle game community came together once again to prove how amazing and warm puzzlers and gamers can be.

For the second year in a row, we at PuzzleNation had our own little TableTop Day event with our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles, and it was great fun! Games were played, an insane amount of sugary treats were prepared, snacks were consumed, and fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers were introduced to some terrific games.

I raided my personal puzzle and game collection to provide some choice offerings for my fellow puzzlers, and readers of the blog will no doubt recognize several items from previous product reviews!

Here’s the full rundown of games we had:

(Sadly, a lot of personal favorites had to be excluded because they would take more than 30 minutes to play, like some of the offerings from Cheapass Games and other great companies, and it was a work day. I promise, this is a fraction of my full puzzle and game collection.)

Timeline proved to be one of the biggest hits of the day, because it’s so simple to play and offers endless replay value. (Especially with seven different editions of the game to choose from!)

I also managed to win my first game of Jenga in what seems like a decade!

There was plenty of switching between games as well. Here, a game of Just Desserts immediately followed a round of Bananagrams Wild Tiles!

But that wasn’t all! To include fellow puzzlers who couldn’t attend the event in person, we had our own Hashtag Game running in-house all day. Inspired by both @midnight hashtag games and our friends at Schmovie, we had a contest to create “Penny/Dell Puzzle Movies.”

I’ll be posting ALL of the entries on Friday, but here are a few favorites:

  • The Scarlet Letterboxes
  • Schindler’s List-A-Crostic
  • Double Trouble Indemnity

All in all, it was an awesome time. Hope everyone enjoyed!

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: TableTop Day 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 puzzly holidays!

Saturday, April 11 is the third annual International TableTop Day, a day that has been set aside for family and friends to get together and play games. Board games, card games, role-playing games, puzzles… anything that involves gathering in person and having fun around a table fits the bill!

Although the actual holiday is tomorrow, we’re celebrating early around here! The PuzzleNation Crew is getting together with our friends from Penny/Dell Puzzles for a few hours of TableTop Day fun this afternoon!

[A few of the games we’ll be partaking in today.]

I’ll be posting pics on social media throughout the day, and there will be a full recap in Tuesday’s blog post!

Not only that, but we’ve added two new collections to our library of puzzles for in-app purchase for the Penny Dell Crosswords App! The April 2015 Deluxe Set has 35 puzzles to challenge you, and Collection 5 has a whopping 150 puzzles to choose from! Just in time for TableTop Day!

 

Will you be participating in tomorrow’s festivities, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let me know! I’d love to hear about your plans!

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: ACPT Eve edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

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

And in today’s post, I’m returning to the subject of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament!

The 38th annual tournament kicks off tomorrow, and I’m definitely excited to be attending for the very first time! I’ll be sitting in with my pals at the Penny Press/Dell Magazines booth, offering some great puzzles and meeting topnotch competitors and constructors alike.

How many PuzzleNationers and fellow puzzle fiends are attending? Come by, I’d love to meet you!

Not only that, but Fred, our Director of Game Development, will be on hand to show off the Penny Dell Crosswords App!

This week, the names of the constructors contributing puzzles to the tournament this year were revealed, and it’s a terrific mix of first-class constructors. Some you may know, some you may not!

Merl Reagle (who masterminded Google’s 100th Anniversary of the Crossword puzzle) is contributing, along with prolific puzzlers Lynn Lempel, Joel Fagliano (currently Will Shortz’s assistant at The New York Times), and Jeff Chen (XWordInfo‘s webmaster)!

They’re joined by constructors Tracy Bennett, Paula Gamache, Patrick Berry, and Byron Walden (a Saturday NYT regular known for some seriously tough puzzles)! It’s entirely possible that the diabolical Puzzle #5 at this year’s tournament will be a Walden original.

Not only that, but several friends of the blog will be in attendance, like Penny Press variety editor Keith Yarbrough, constructor Ian Livengood, puzzler and author Eric Berlin, crossword gentleman Doug Peterson, and Uptown Puzzle Club editor Patti Varol!

Tuesday’s blog post will be a recap of the tournament, complete with pictures, but stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook this weekend for bonus posts and previews!

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: Pluto, Pi, and 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.

And today, I’d like to return to the subject of puzzly and otherwise nerdy holidays!

I already mentioned the fast-approaching American Crossword Puzzle Tournament yesterday, but did you know that today is Pluto Planet Day?

Yes, today is a day when all those scarred or upset by Pluto’s demotion from planet to dwarf planet (or plutoid, or Trans-Neptunian Object, or whatever they’re calling it now).

In fact, the residents of the state of New Mexico were so upset by Pluto’s dismissal from the list of planets that they made a law stating Pluto is forever a planet in New Mexico skies. Which is pretty great (and in flagrant defiance of the current scientific literature).

Tomorrow is a holiday as well! It’s Pi Day (March 14th, a.k.a. 3.14)! And, actually, it’s the most mathematically significant Pi Day since 1592!

When you take Saturday’s date — 3/14/15 — you have the first five digits of Pi. When you add a certain time — 3/14/15 at 9:26 — you have the first eight!

(MIT used to email its acceptance letters out at 1:59 on March 14.)

Plus, March 23 is crossword icon Margaret Farrar’s birthday!

Hired as a secretary for The New York World, she soon found herself assisting crossword creator Arthur Wynne with proofreading puzzles, only for her puzzles to surpass his in popularity! She was the first crossword editor for The New York Times, a position she held until 1969 when Will Weng took over the position.

So, fellow puzzlers, will you be celebrating Pi Day or Pluto Planet Day or Farrar’s birthday? Better yet, will you be participating in this year’s ACPT? Let me know!

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 coming!

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The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is just over two weeks away — Friday March 27 through Sunday March 29! — and this year is promising to be something special.

After seven years in Brooklyn, New York, the tournament is returning to Stamford, Connecticut, the tournament’s previous home for many years.

Every year, constructors and crossword fans alike test their puzzly mettle (and pencil points) against time and nerves as they solve topnotch puzzles as quickly and accurately as possible.

Last year, Dan Feyer won his fifth consecutive tournament, tying the record set by fellow competitor Tyler Hinman. Will he go six for six this year and move one step closer to meeting Jon Delfin’s remarkable record of seven tournament wins?

But there’s more going on than just the tournament! It’s a weekend dedicated to puzzle goodness of all kinds.

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.

This is my first year attending the tournament, and I’m excited not only to witness the event firsthand, but to meet many of the names in puzzles I’ve interviewed and gotten to know over the last few years.

And I won’t be the only member of the PuzzleNation Crew at ACPT this year, as Fred, our Director of Game Development, will be there to show off the Penny Dell Crosswords App and talk shop with fellow puzzlers!

Plus, several friends of the blog will be in attendance, like Penny Press variety editor Keith Yarbrough, crossword gentleman Doug Peterson, and Uptown Puzzle Club editor Patti Varol.

For more information or to sign up and test your puzzle skills, click here! (You can participate online or by mail!)

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!