Tag Archives: Puzzle to solve

Happy Thanksgiving, puzzlers and PuzzleNationers!

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To celebrate this most festive and familial of days, we couldn’t help but cook up a little puzzle for you and yours today. Please enjoy this Thanksgiving puzzle, and have a safe and happy holiday!

Five Houses, One Big Meal

This Thanksgiving, five families (the Corbins, the Johnsons, the McDashes, the Whittons, and the Edgertons) agreed to each bring one part of Thanksgiving dinner to five other households in the neighborhood. The options were Turkey, Stuffing, Sweet potato, Turnip, and Rolls.

Each family dropped off a different food at each house at a different time (9 AM, 10 AM, 11 AM, Noon, and 1 PM). No two families gave the same food to the same house, or showed up to the same house at the same time.

The table below displays each family’s name, each household they visited, what food they dropped off, and what time they dropped off the food. Some of the boxes have been filled in already. Can you complete the chart and figure out what time each family dropped off each food?

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! And say, why not save yourself the hassle of Black Friday madness by checking out our Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide?

Answers to the PuzzleNation Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

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Happy Day-After-Halloween, puzzlers and PuzzleNationers! (Also known as Candy Coma Day…)

It’s time for the answers to our PuzzleNation Punderful Halloween Costume Game! How did you do? Let’s find out!

 

PuzzleNation’s Punderful Halloween Costume Game: Answers!

#1

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She’s a spelling bee!

#2

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They’re the Black-Eyed P’s! [picture courtesy of ThinkingCloset.com]

#3

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Why, it’s a lovely Mail-Order Bride!

#4

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Dunkin’ Donuts!

#5

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French kiss!

#6

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It’s fantasy football for all to enjoy!

#7

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He’s a ceiling fan!

#8

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What a lovely Freudian slip!

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It’s the Grapes of Wrath!

#10

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She’s a blessing in disguise! [picture courtesy of ThinkingCloset.com]

So how did you do, PuzzleNationers? I hope you enjoyed our little Halloween Costume challenge. Has this inspired you to create a punny costume of your own for next year? Let us know!

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 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!

PuzzleNation’s Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

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Happy Halloween, puzzlers and PuzzleNationers!

One of the best things about Halloween is guessing what people’s costumes are. Clever costumes can be great fun — like these puzzle-themed costumes we featured last year! — and I’m a particular fan of costumes that only cost a few bucks to put together, because they really let your creativity shine through.

Punny costumes lend themselves to the low-budget costume style brilliantly. For instance, this year I’m gathering three pals with flashlights, magnifying glasses, hawaiian leis and party hats, because we’re a Search Party.

And I figured that punny costumes would make for a perfect Halloween game for my fellow puzzlers!

It’s simple. I post a picture, and you guess what the costume is.

For example:

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Did you get it? He’s a chick magnet!

I’ve compiled ten costumes for you to figure out. Let’s see how many you can get!

PuzzleNation’s Punderful Halloween Costume Game!

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#10

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So how did you do, PuzzleNationers? I hope you enjoyed our little Halloween Costume challenge. Were there any great punny costumes we missed? Let us know! And happy Halloween to you!

[We’ll be posting the answers tomorrow! Many thanks to our photo sources: Buzzfeed, The Thinking Closet, So Much Pun, and Tim Helbig.]

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 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!

Bonus Friday Post: Scottish Reminder Edition!

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Hello puzzle friends and PuzzleNationers, I just have a few quick reminders to drop in this bonus Friday post!

Last week, I wrote about the National Museums Scotland invitation to the public to assist in reconstructing a 1200-year-old Scottish relic, and that website went active today! So if you’d like to put your puzzly skills to work for the greater good, check it out!

But hey, if you’re looking for something a little less challenging, you could always check out our Classic Word Search iBook (all three volumes available here!) or the Crossword app our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles put together (available here!) for some puzzly fun.

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm and support, and enjoy your weekend!

Remake history at home! (With puzzles!)

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Crowdsourcing has become an increasingly popular method for scientists and deep thinkers to solve problems that would otherwise be far too staggering a challenge to tackle on their own.

I’ve written in the past about crowdfunding efforts, but this is something different: actually handing over the problem to the public. It’s citizen science!

The National Museums Scotland are trying to reassemble the shattered design on a Scottish relic dated back to the year 800 or so, hoping that reaching out to nonprofessionals will help them to restore the intricate designs that once adorned a sandstone slab centuries past.

Every fragment has been scanned into a 3-D model and catalogued, making each a small piece of a truly monumental puzzle to be solved. (And without the picture on the box to guide you!)

From an NBC News article:

The pieces will be grouped into categories — for example, corner pieces, or parts of the design’s knotwork. That will help users organize the work into manageable subtasks, as if they were working collectively on a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suggested solutions to parts of the puzzle would be judged by fellow users, and then passed on to the professionals.

This mix of science and puzzle-gaming has engendered marvelous successes before. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (or SETI) utilizes dozens of citizen computers for processing power in order to more efficiently scan the skies for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. The FoldIt program led to the crowdsourced discovery of the structure of a monkey HIV virus in ten days, after a decade of attempts by scientists.

(There are similar puzzle-game attempts being made to map the human brain, explore the potential of DNA, and catalogue animal species. Check out this IO9 link for further details.)

This is yet another amazing example of puzzle solving making a true contribution to our understanding of the world. And it’s always nice to remind ourselves that puzzles can be all fun and games, but they can also be something much much more.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out 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!

Bonus Friday blog post! (Plus FoG Word Chain Answers!)

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Wow, two Fridays in a row! If this keeps up, it’ll stop being a bonus…

Anyway, I’ve got a few quick announcements before the weekend arrives, so I’ll make this snappy.

First off, our review of John Kovalic and Cryptozoic’s game ROFL! has been linked and quoted on the game’s webpage! Check it out here!

Second, I want to welcome any Forces of Geek readers visiting the PuzzleNation Blog today!

Stefan at Forces of Geek graciously offered me the opportunity to share my puzzly viewpoint (as well as PuzzleNation‘s) with his readers, and that guest post went up today at 3 PM!

As a thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with the Forces of Geek audience, I whipped up a Word Chain puzzle for the FoG readers.

(If you’ve come here seeking the solution to the puzzle, scroll down! But if you’re a PuzzleNation Blog regular and you’d like to try the puzzle, fear not! I’m posting it right here right now.)

A quick Word Chain refresher: The solver is given clues to a series of six-letter words. The “chain” (or “loop”, if you prefer) aspect comes from the answers themselves. The last three letters of one answer become the first three letters of the next answer, and so on down the line, until the final answer’s last three letters are the same as the first answer’s first three letters, completing the chain.

(For examples of how to solve, click here!)

And so, without further ado, here’s the 11-step Word Chain (this puzzle goes all the way to 11!) created especially for Forces of Geek!

Richard B. Riddick portrayer       __ __ __ __ __ __
“Foundation” doomsayer             __ __ __ __ __ __
Glover of “Community”                __ __ __ __ __ __
He walked on the moon               __ __ __ __ __ __
Horseshoes accomplishment     __ __ __ __ __ __
Hans Gruber, e.g.                        __ __ __ __ __ __
“Deal or No Deal” host                 __ __ __ __ __ __
Giant stony “D&D” slug               __ __ __ __ __ __
“The Usual Suspects” role          __ __ __ __ __ __
“The ____ of Bilbo Baggins”        __ __ __ __ __ __
Scottish boy or Simpsons dog    __ __ __ __ __ __

And now, a little filler to put the answers to the puzzle out of accidental viewing range.

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Q: What do you get if you cross Big Ben with the Leaning Tower of Pisa

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A: The time and the inclination.

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Okay, that oughta do it. Let’s get on with the answers to our FoG Word Chain puzzle!

Richard B. Riddick portrayer        DIESEL
“Foundation” doomsayer             SELDON
Glover of “Community”                DONALD
He walked on the moon               ALDRIN
Horseshoes accomplishment     RINGER
Hans Gruber, e.g.                       GERMAN
“Deal or No Deal” host                MANDEL
Giant stony “D&D” slug               DELVER
“The Usual Suspects” role          VERBAL
“The ____ of Bilbo Baggins”       BALLAD
Scottish boy or Simpsons dog    LADDIE

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (three volumes to choose from!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!