Tag Archives: Massachusetts

Club Drosselmeyer Invites You to a Wedding!

Posted on by
Reply

There are all sorts of immersive puzzly experiences available these days. Crossword tournaments, treasure hunts, escape rooms, puzzles by mail, puzzles by email, puzzles on your phone…

But nothing mixes music, art, showmanship, and puzzles quite like a Club Drosselmeyer event.

Although they’re best known for their holiday puzzle events set in the early 1940s during World War II, they’ve recently begun branching out with other themes. Last year, they hosted a Cthulhu-inspired luau event.

And this year, they’ve invited us all to the wedding of Jack and Norah:

It seems our good friends, Jack and Norah, are finally getting married. You know Jack and Norah, right? Of course you do, EVERYBODY knows Jack and Norah! They both work at Harmonics Inc. (Not the game studio, the global telecom services company founded by the Lane family. Right, that one.) Their reception will be at the W Boston Hotel downtown. They’re thrilled that you’re coming and we’re absolutely certain it will be an entirely normal wedding with absolutely no surprises at all.

…

The Wedding Party will have all of the Drossely, Luau-ey craziness that you love but set in 2026 — and with dinner! This wedding will have it all: wonderful food, champagne and custom cocktails, decorations, a charming bridal party, spies, puzzles, intrigue… all the best things of a totally regular normal-person wedding.

Unlike traditional Drosselmeyer shows, which are often limited to a few select weekends, The Wedding Party will run from May 1st through June 14th! You’ll have tons of chances to nab tickets for a singularly lovely puzzly event. And you can play with a group of up to six people.

It will be hosted at the W Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts in collaboration with Toronto’s Secret City Productions, and you can click here for tickets and all the details!

I cannot say enough good things about the Club Drosselmeyer team. They’re not just great puzzle designers, they put so much into the aesthetics of the event, adding music and performances and a thousand little trappings that bring their fictional world to life for guests.

A few years ago I participated in their virtual Club Drosselmeyer Interactive Radio Broadcast of 1943, and it remains one of my all-time favorite puzzle experiences.

I have no doubt The Wedding Party will be another success for this amazing team. Give them a chance, you won’t be disappointed.

Amazing Maize Mazes!

Posted on by
1

It’s October! October means falling leaves, Halloween delights, and a particular brand of puzzle that can only be enjoyed outdoors: the corn maze.

The corn maze is a seasonal hall of mirrors, a mental challenge that envelops you like few puzzles ever will.

Whether it’s a simple series of twists and turns designed for kids, or an elaborate design for adults whose true complexity can only be appreciated from above, corn mazes are a terrific puzzly experience for the whole family, and October is prime corn maze season.

Friend of the blog Cathy Quinn passed along an article from the Boston Globe featuring bits of trivia on numerous New England corn mazes, covering such curiosities as the machetes wielded by the Hanson’s Farm crew and the precautions taken by Marini Farm’s maze masters, including phone number to call and GPS assistance available for lost maze-goers.

But for someone looking for a puzzle with a bit more bite, worry not! Some truly devious corn maze designers cook up extra challenges for the brave of heart and sharp of wit.

[Do you see a dinosaur?]

The corn maze found at Pennsylvania’s Cherry Crest Farm, for instance, has three levels of difficulty, each demanding more puzzle skill and problem-solving acumen than the one before.

Their easy version is a basic run-through the maze (indicated with yellow trail markers), while their intermediate one features orange clues to unravel that guide you through a more complicated path. And their most difficult run? Well, that one requires you to collect every piece of a scattered map and every Kernel of Knowledge along way, tackling the mental obstacles that accompany every red clue.

Some clued corn mazes feature additional prizes or access to exclusive parts of the maze. (The Billingsgate Farm corn maze in Plympton, Massachusetts, features a pirate theme, and only the most intrepid solvers and explorers will find their way to the treasure chest at the center of the maze.)

It’s been a while since I’ve found myself tackling a corn maze, so I don’t have any anecdotes to add, but Cathy shared a terrific tidbit about the corn maze at Flint Farm she and her family frequent every year:

The article doesn’t mention it, but when you go in, they hand you a list of 10 trivia questions. As you wander the maze, you can come across up to 20 signs giving possible answers, so you have to figure out which answers are correct.

If you get them all right, you are entered into a raffle for free ice cream at their farm stand/ice cream stand. (We never get them all right, alas.)

Are there any great corn mazes near you, fellow puzzlers? Let me know! Share pictures! I’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!