This year’s contenders for the National Toy Hall of Fame Class of 2025 have been whittled down to 12 finalists, and the competition is fierce.
You’ve got classic toys from across the decades (Furby, spirograph, Star Wars lightsaber, Tickle Me Elmo), representatives from more physical activities (scooter, cornhole), board games (Battleship, Catan, Connect Four, and Trivial Pursuit), and even materials kids play with (slime, snow).
The idea of “play” is represented in so many different ways across these 12 finalists, and it really encompasses just how vast and varied play is, how much imagination and expression and creativity are reflected in all sorts of different childhood experiences.
Personally, I’m rooting for the lightsaber, Trivial Pursuit, and snow to make the cut. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was 2. Trivial Pursuit was the first trivia game I can remember playing (even if it was an edition intended for players way older than I was at the time). And snow is so fundamental to winter play — sledding, snowmen, snowball fights, DAYS OFF FROM SCHOOL TO PLAY — that it’s surprising it hasn’t already been inducted.
(Though I suspect Catan, Connect Four, and Tickle Me Elmo will make the cut instead of some of my faves.)
Yes, while the final determinations are made by the National Toy Hall of Fame’s National Selection Advisory Committee — ooh, so formal! — the three toys that receive the most public votes will be submitted for consideration alongside the top three submissions from the Selection Committee.
Which of these twelve contenders would you like to see join such playtime luminaries as Lite-Brite, My Little Pony, the stick, the Atari 2600, and the Rubik’s Cube? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.
And while you’re at it, tell me what toys you think should be in the National Toy Hall of Fame!
One of my favorite go-to trivia games is Overlaps. Basically, the answer to the trivia question is a combination of two titles. You can use movies, celebrity names, anything really.
And I thought I’d share one of my Overlaps games with you today, fellow puzzler.
Here’s an example to get you started:
A hardworking midwestern mom is mistaken for an 11 year old orphan girl and goes to Avonlea.
And the answer is: Roseanne of Green Gables
Can you unravel these descriptions that overlap a TV show title and a book title?
Let’s find out!
A look at the day-to-day work lives of Thought Police working for Big Apple Brother.
A love quadrangle and an amateur play performance cross paths with a popular shape-named game show involving getting a partner to say the right word.
A talking horse says one thing and means his mother in this curious tale of trying to avoid fate.
Firemen, police, and EMTs in Los Angeles find themselves in a mental institution under the thumb of a tyrannical nurse.
Time and relative dimensions in space are bent by a curious visitor to a disfunctional middle-aged couple’s home after a university faculty party.
456 players compete for a grand prize as the political climate of Westeros changes forever.
With a sword and chakram in hand, a former marauder shares her story of balancing life in high school and her new royal duties.
Wacky hijinks ensue as a man shares the story of courting a famous author of fairy tales and nursery rhymes.
A high schooler with grand ambitions and a habit of stopping time to talk to the camera endures struggles with mental health after her aspiring post-college writing career fails to materialize.
Piloting giant mechanical battle suits to battle angels, the Pevensie children liberate a magical land from the White Witch.
A programming startup company deals with funding issues and a dependence on drugs to navigate turbulent personal and professional relationships in New York City after World War II.
A video diary to a newborn baby from her older sibling serves as the golden ticket to a peculiar candymaker’s legacy.
The misadventures of a young man and his scuffling siblings in a fictional Midlands town in the 1800s as issues of women’s rights, marriage, and political reform are explored.
Two secret service agents seek dangerous magical artifacts while listening to audio tapes recorded by a young woman who committed suicide.
Travel to a curious locale where dreams can come true, particularly for the one woman who lives there, waiting for her people to return for her.
A sharp-tongued and satirical look at the news is presented by a two-inch boy who looks just like a mouse.
How many did you unravel? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
You’ve heard of Logic Art, but let me ask you, fellow puzzler… have you heard of Word Seek Art?
Please allow me to introduce you to the world of LexaPics.
LexaPics are the creation of Vasiliki Papadopoulou, who designs specially curated word seek grids and sorted word lists to create works of art when solved!
The grid is divided into different cells, and you get a word list for each cell, with different parts of the word list organized by color.
And as you find your words, the work of art slowly emerges line by line.
As you can see, Vasiliki has created grids inspired by Vermeer and Magritte, as well as grids inspired by iconic celebrities like Marilyn Monroe.
Lexa comes from Greek word Lexis λέξη (since i am from Greece) that means word and Pics as pictures, but also a playful nod to “pixels” — the building blocks of modern digital art.
Not only does he have a Kickstarter campaign for LexaPics launching soon, but he’s actually created an Instructables page for anyone who would like to make their own LexaPic!
I love seeing the creative ways people put new spins on classic puzzles, and this is both beautiful and so cleverly accessible.
No, sorry, we’re not doing a post about Superman’s dog.
Instead, today we’re discussing how the solution to one of the great unsolved cryptographic mysteries of our time is going up for auction in October.
For the uninitiated, Kryptos is a flowing sculpture made of petrified wood and copper plating, sitting over a small pool of water. It was revealed to the world in 1990, coded by former chairman of the CIA’s Cryptographic Center Edward Scheidt, and designed by artist Jim Sanborn. Designed to both challenge and honor the Central Intelligence Agency, for decades Kryptos has proven to be a top-flight brain teaser for codebreakers both professional and amateur.
There are four distinct sections, utilizing different forms of encryption. And amazingly, the fourth section continues to elude codecrackers to this very day.
It took nearly a decade before anyone announced a solution to the first three encryptions. A computer scientist named Jim Gillogly announced in 1999 that he had cracked passages 1, 2, and 3 with computer assistance.
The CIA, not to be one-upped, then revealed that one of their own employees, an analyst named David Stein, had solved those same three passages the year before, using only pencil, paper, and lunchtime man-hours.
But a 2013 Freedom of Information Act request into records of the National Security Agency revealed that an NSA team actually cracked those same three passages back in 1993 as part of a friendly rivalry between the NSA and CIA, provoked by former NSA director and then-deputy CIA director William O. Studeman.
Passage 1 employs a Vigenère cipher, a letter-shifting cipher that has been used for centuries, also known as a periodic polyalphabetic substitution cipher, if you want to get fancy with it.
The message, penned by Sanborn himself, reads Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion. [Iqlusion is an intentional misspelling of “illusion.”]
Passage 2 also employs a Vigenère cipher, but utilizes a different keyword than Passage 1. The message, also composed by Sanborn, points toward something hidden nearby:
It was totally invisible. How’s that possible? They used the earth’s magnetic field. x The information was gathered and transmitted undergruund to an unknown location. x Does Langley know about this? They should: it’s buried out there somewhere. x Who knows the exact location? Only WW. This was his last message. x Thirty eight degrees fifty seven minutes six point five seconds north, seventy seven degrees eight minutes forty four seconds west. x Layer two. [Again, there’s an intentional misspelling here with “undergruund.”]
Passage 3 uses a transposition cipher, which relies on the positioning of given letters in order to properly spell out a message. The message is inspired by the words of Howard Carter, the archaeologist who opened King Tut’s tomb:
Slowly, desparatly slowly, the remains of passage debris that encumbered the lower part of the doorway was removed. With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner. And then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in. The hot air escaping from the chamber caused the flame to flicker, but presently details of the room within emerged from the mist. x Can you see anything? q [Again, there’s an intentional misspelling with “desparatly.”]
Although some codebreakers believe the misspellings of “iqlusion,” “undergruund,” and “desparatly” are simply Sanborn’s crafty attempts at misdirection, others believe they are clues hinting at how to crack Passage 4, which is only 97 characters long.
Sanborn has even offered hints to help frustrated solvers in their efforts to unravel the mystery of Passage 4. In 2006, he revealed that letters 64 through 69 in the passage, NYPVTT, decrypt to “Berlin.”
And in 2014, Sanborn revealed that letters 70 through 74, MZFPK, decrypt to “clock.” So the message has something to do with the Berlin Clock, although Sanborn has stated “there are several really interesting clocks in Berlin.”
Finally, in 2020, Sanborn revealed that letters 26 through 34, QQPRNGKSS, decrypt to “northeast.”
And yet, despite all these hints and several decades, K4 remains unsolved. (And to those hoping that AI will prove smarter than humans in this instance, that hasn’t been the case. Sanborn revealed to The New York Times that he has received solutions devised by ChatGPT and described them as “nothing short of fairly silly.”
So, if you win the auction, what do you get?
the handwritten K4 code, complete with a signed typed letter by Ed Scheidt, the CIA employee and cryptographer behind all four Kryptos codes
the copper model submitted to the CIA as a sample of the final piece
photographs relating to the creation of Kryptos
the original dedication pamphlet signed by late CIA director William Webster
copies of the coding charts used to encode Kryptos
And apparently, being the secretkeeper for Kryptos can be profitable. Sanborn grew weary of fielding dairy requests and queries for solutions, clues, and other data, and actually started charging a $50 fee for replies. He claims this fee has earned him $40,000 a year!
Sadly, Sanborn feels that he no longer has “the physical, mental or financial resources” to maintain his role as the keeper of K4’s secret, and wishes to hand that responsibility to another, which would allow him time to focus on other artistic endeavors.
And given that he’ll be turning 80 around the same time that the auction should be wrapping up, it’s fair to say he has more than earned this retirement from Kryptos.
The online auction of Kryptos by RR Auction begins on October 17 and closes on November 20 at 7 p.m. ET.
Will you be bidding, fellow puzzler? I fear my budget of — *checks wallet* — $29 is not going to get it done.
I had a chance to sit down and test my puzzly mettle with this year’s puzzles from the Boswords Summer Crossword Tournament. I look forward to Boswords every year, so I had high expectations going in.
But, of course, they knocked it out of the park.
Let’s put those puzzles under the PuzzCulture microscope and see what Boswords had in store for solvers this year!
Warmup Puzzle: Boswords, Inc.by John Lieb
Starting off with a smaller grid is a great idea for a warmup to a long day of puzzling, and this 12×9 symmetrical grid delivered a clever apt pair (as the Puzzmo crew would call it) with GREEN MONSTER and MIKE WAZOWSKI, but also tied in some bonus Boston trivia with the cluing.
It was super-accessible and the perfect intro for the tournament. I very much enjoyed!
The tournament proper kicked off with this 15x puzzle featuring a quartet of phrases with letters from the word YARN jumbled up inside (luNARYear, for instance). The revealer SPIN A YARN completed the set nicely.
A tight grid and fun theme made for a quick solve and a solid opener to the tournament.
Interesting grid entries included BASE JUMPS, CINCY, GOMEZ, and HYDRA, and my favorite clues were “Those disdaining bottles with screwcaps, maybe” for WINE SNOBS and “Great Caesar’s ghost!” for EGAD.
Puzzle #2: Life’s Little Ups and Downsby Ross Trudeau
We get a nice example of horizontal symmetry in puzzle #2, offering some lovely left-to-right flow and subconsciously pushing solvers in the right direction to unravel the puzzle’s actual hook.
There were rising geographical features like DOME and HILL hidden among the across entries (where one letter was above the others, using a black square to visually create a hill inside the circles in the grid).
But Trudeau didn’t stop there, as each geographical feature was contained inside a longer entry combining two across entries in that row, using that geographical feature to “climb” over the black square in the middle! (For example, 24A was LING and clued as such, but 22A was SPINECHI, but using HILL to connect them, you get the actual word clued as 22A, SPINECHILLING).
This was diabolical construction and my favorite puzzle of the tournament.
Interesting grid entries included YUPPIES, TRUE THAT, KINKSHAME, and THE SMURF, and my favorite clues were “4% of an Olympic 10k” for ONE LAP and “Apt way to get to a wine tasting?” for CAB.
Puzzle #3: The Sty’s the Limitby Quiara Vasquez
Quiara Vasquez never disappoints, and puzzle #3 was another terrific example. This puzzle had tons of clever cluing, all built around an interesting hook with animal answers in the grid that had to be inserted into the starred to turn them into more common phrases. (For example, when PIG is added into PASSENGEREONS, you get PASSENGER PIGEONS.)
And given that all of the animals were PIG, HOG, SOW, and BOAR, the center revealer BRING HOME THE BACON tied the whole puzzle together with style. The cluing, which was conversational and treated all the animals like escapees, was a delight.
This was the toughest puzzle so far, and probably the toughest puzzle of the tournament, save for the championship themeless.
Interesting grid entries included EXHIBIT A, MORPH, and AMAZON ECHO, and my favorite clues (hard to narrow this list down!) were “‘Carmen’ or ‘Elektra'” for OPERA, “Word before ‘Madre’ or ‘Leone’… or ‘Tango'” for SIERRA, and “Skirt length that hides your skinned knee but shows off your gladiator sandals” for MIDI.
Puzzle #4: Let’s Go Togetherby Chandi Deitmer
Chandi pulled double-duty on this 15x offering, loading almost all of the across entries with pairs of overlapping answers (like SLIM/MET overlapping at the M), and all of these overlaps spelled out vehicles or modes of transportation in the corresponding DOWN entries.
The revealer across the center, RIDESHARE, was the icing on this cleverly constructed cake. Really great cluing here and nice construction overall, especially with the symmetrical vehicle entries. It wasn’t as tough as Puzzle #3, but given the packed grid and very few black squares, it was probably an absolute beast to construct. Color me very impressed.
Interesting grid entries included GROUP DATE, I’M BATMAN, SALIERI, and FARSI, and my favorite clues were “Settler of old?” for DUEL and the very apropos pair at 25A of “Wimbledon champ Swiatek” for IGA right beside “Untouchable delivery by Swiatek” for ACE.
Puzzle #5: A Chorus Lineby John Harrington
After the three-puzzle barrage of Trudeau, Vasquez, and Deitmer’s offerings, Harrington offered a gentler cooldown puzzle with this 15×18 music-themed crossword that was all about the lyrics.
Each themed entry was clued as a type of line — “Assembly line? (Billie Eilish)” for WHAT WAS I MADE FOR, for example — prompting the solver to provide the appropriate song chorus. (I’d be curious to hear what prompted the artists and lyrics he chose. Maybe I should reach out and ask!)
This was a fun straightforward puzzle with really enjoyable grid fill, a marvelous way to conclude the tournament for solvers before the championship.
Interesting grid entries included CHOCOHOLIC, ABS OF STEEL, LINDT, SHANDLING, and PICKACARD, and my favorite clues were “One who’s into some pretty dark stuff?” for CHOCOHOLIC and one of his themed clues, “International date line? (Dean Martin)” for THAT’S AMORE.
Puzzle #6: Championship Themelessby Hemant Mehta
As always, Boswords concluded with a themeless puzzle, and this 15x grid was deftly constructed. The multiple long entries at every corner offered a lot of opportunities for good vocabulary, great fill, and a suitable challenge for solvers at either difficulty. (There were two sets of clues available for the championship themeless, the MILD and SIZZLING sets, depending on your preference.)
The grid flowed nicely, and it felt like the perfect sendoff for the whole event, a great set of hurdles to test the top solvers.
Interesting grid entries included OPEN TABLE, VIP PASS, PSY OP, SPIRO AGNEW, and ARE YOU MAD.
As for favorite clues, here’s a list:
MILD: “Engagement that could lead to an engagement?” for FIRST DATE
MILD: “Maximum athletic intensity, in slang” for BEAST MODE
SIZZLING: “If you’re in it, you’re out of it” for COMA
SIZZLING: “Telenovela plot driver” for AMOR
SIZZLING: “Red cap?” for CORK
SIZZLING: “It’ll likely be brought up in self-defense class” for KNEE
Overall, Boswords continues to impress. Between the summer and winter events, plus their seasonal themeless leagues, Boswords steps up their game every year, and as always, I was impressed by the array of puzzles assembled for this year’s tournament.
There were tricky themes, visual challenges, and even a barnyard escape, all of which made great use of both the cluing and the grids themselves. Every puzzle made an impact, and the tournament puzzles as a whole were challenging and creative in their design without being off-putting or getting too esoteric.
With so many terrific puzzly events on the calendar every year, I still think Boswords is the perfect tournament to introduce solvers to tournament-style puzzling, matching levels of difficulty with accessibility, playfulness, and straight-up solid grid construction.
Once again, I cannot wait to see what they cook up for us next year.
Did you attempt this year’s Boswords summer tournament puzzles, fellow solver? If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!
Czech Games is the home of Codenames, one of the most recognizable board game brands on the market today. It has been licensed dozens of times to include different pop culture properties, and it is the lifeblood of a smaller board game publisher.
And they just crashed into a wave of pro-LGBTQIA+ sentiment after announcing their new release.
Codenames: Back to Hogwarts.
Now, you may wonder what the big deal is. After all, this isn’t even the first Harry Potter-themed Codenames game. One was released years ago.
Well, in case you’re unfamiliar, in the intervening years between the release of that game and the release of this new one, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, has revealed herself to be an anti-trans zealot.
She has been on a campaign for years against the trans community (and LGBTQIA+ people, and virtually anyone else who stands up to her bigotry), and publicly celebrated laws in England that curtail the rights of trans individuals.
Moreover, she has promised that she will continue to use the money she earns from licensing Harry Potter to harm people.
Czech Games experienced a deluge of negative comments and feedback (as well as calls to boycott the company’s products), and has spent the last week or so promising to reassess.
To be honest, most in the board game community expected nothing to come from this. LOTS of companies still cut licensing deals with Harry Potter, like LEGO, and especially with the new TV show coming, there’s going to be more of this.
So I was pleasantly surprised when the company released the following statement:
We are all devastated that the project we were so excited to share with you caused harm instead of joy. We have been working to bring you the best possible games for years, and just like our other titles, we worked diligently to bring you this latest title, too.
In our excitement about creating a game within a universe many of us still treasure, we failed to see how that universe no longer brings joy to others. Over time, the harmful views of the story’s creator have escalated into harmful actions. We apologize unreservedly for not doing more to consider that possibility, and for subsequently announcing the game without taking preemptive actions to mitigate the pain it would cause.
Many of you have expressed your understandable anger, pain, and disappointment through a variety of platforms. Frankly, we were not prepared for the volume of the response. As a result, multiple accounts and comments were blocked or muted that should not have been. We would never want anyone experiencing the pain this situation has caused to then feel like they are being silenced. So for that, too, we want to sincerely apologize.
Like the world we live in, CGE is made up of individuals with various backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, and belief systems. None of us would ever want to take actions that would hurt or restrict the rights of another human being. We commit to remaining supportive of an inclusive and welcoming community of gamers. We believe in the rights of all people to have their own identity, and we reject hate and bigotry in all their forms. Trans rights are human rights.
With the above in mind, and after many heartfelt and vital discussions both internally and with members of the affected community, we have decided to donate 100% of the profit from this game to appropriate charitable organizations. We will ensure that an amount equal to or greater than the fee paid to license this product will go directly to organizations that provide support for the trans community.
We evaluate profits and make charitable-giving decisions each December, and we will continue using this annual process to direct the game’s profits. We will listen to recommendations from the community to help guide our choices of organizations that provide support for the trans community. Our goal is to select those that offer direct, practical help to people in need — for example, services similar to the emergency hotline that was recently discontinued.
At CGE, we are committed to making decisions that come from the heart in everything we do. We opened discussions with members of the affected communities and we came together as a whole company to find a way forward that was a genuine reflection of our values and desire to do the right thing. We are sorry for the time it took us to communicate our path forward, but we hope you see that we did so with the care and consideration that you all deserve.
I think it’s the best we could have hoped for. An acknowledgment of the harm caused, a promise to do better, and a tangible response that the audience will be able to track.
Boycotts work, speaking up works, and I’m so proud of the board game community for making noise and pushing back, leading to a turnaround like this.
There is no ethical consumption of Harry Potter material, given J.K. Rowling’s intentions. If she makes a single dime from you, it will go towards hurting others. That’s simply the facts as presented.
And it’s entirely possible that there would be huge costs and even legal consequences if Czech Games didn’t fulfill the agreement they made over the HP license.
So this feels like the most positive outcome going forward. Czech Games isn’t a huge company like LEGO. If you don’t buy HP LEGOs, or stop buying LEGOs entirely out of protest, the company probably won’t notice. (You should STILL speak up, of course.)
But Czech Games will. Most board game companies are small, and profit margins are often razor-thin. A PR disaster like this could easily end a board game company.
I don’t look forward to all the HP nonsense we’re going to hear as the show looms closer, but I’m grateful that the board game community stood up, and Czech Games listened.
