Tag Archives: PuzzleNation

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Word Mastery Answers 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’ve got the answers to last week’s edition of Word Mastery: Famous Expressions!

We posted twelve famous sayings or expressions that were reworded in a verbose and ridiculous fashion, and we challenged you to unravel them and figure out the original expressions. Let’s see how you did!

1.) A mobile section of petrified matter agglomerates no bryophytes.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

2.) Desist from enumerating your fowl prior to their emergence from the shell.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

3.) Scintillation is not always identification for an auric substance.

All that glitters is not gold.

4.) A plethora of culinary specialists has a deleterious effect upon the quality of purees, consummes, and other soluble pabula.

Too many cooks spoil the broth,

5.) A chronic disposition to inquiry deprived the domestic feline carnivorous quadruped of its vital quality.

Curiosity killed the cat.

6.) It is in the realm of possibility to entice an equine member of the animal kingdom to a source of oxidized hydrogen; however, it is not possible to force him to imbibe.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

7.) Persons deficient in the faculty of determining values move with impetuosity into places that purely spiritual beings view with trepidation.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

8.) If John persists without respite in a constant prolonged exertion of physical or intellectual effort he will develop into a youth slow and blunted in perception and sensibility.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

9.) Immediately upon the absence of the domesticated carnivorous feline, the common house rodent proceeds to engage in sportive capers.

When the cat’s away, the mouse will play.

10.) A round vessel made of staves bound with hoops that is destitute of contents is productive of the most deafening din.

It is the empty barrel that rattles the loudest.

11.) Products of ingenuity are the offspring of exigency.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

12.) Residents of structures composed of silicate substances should refrain from casting hardened mineral objects.

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

How did you do? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Scrabble-Rousers Change the Game with Shorter Words!

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Whether we’re talking Scrabble, Words With Friends, or another word-forming game where points are king, there’s one abiding rule: bigger words are where it’s at.

They reach the bonus squares easier, they offer more slots for new letters in your rack, and there’s always the chance of scoring bonus points for using all your letters.

But as it turns out, bigger words are not the end-all be-all of Scrabble. Between computer analysis of scoring possibilities and the dedicated playtesting of champion-level Scrabblers from across the world, a sea change in gameplay is now underway.

Apparently, studying up on your 5-letter words is far more beneficial than shooting for 6- and 7-letter plays, since most of the bonus squares are four or five letters apart.

And slowly but surely, the formerly dominant North American and European players are losing ground to players from countries like Nigeria, culminating in a win last year for Nigerian Wellington Jighere at the World Scrabble Championship in Australia.

From The Wall Street Journal:

It was the crowning achievement for a nation that boasts more top-200 Scrabble players than any other country, including the U.K., Nigeria’s former colonizer and one of the board game’s legacy powers.

“In other countries they see it as a game,” said Mr. Jighere, now a borderline celebrity and talent scout for one of the world’s few government-backed national programs. “Nigeria is one of the countries where Scrabble is seen as a sport.”

[Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal and Getty Images.]

And those sportsmen have exploited the West’s reliance on long words by strategically employing smaller words and being more judicious in their use of the letters in their racks.

Whereas Western players would often go for the maximum score every round (using every tile they can), they leave themselves open to bad draws of replacement tiles, which can hamper their efforts in following rounds.

This is considered poor rack management by players like the champion-level Nigerians:

Now, his [Jighere’s] method is changing the game. Champions have studied his defensive style, including his decision to put REPAIR on an S during the final, for 30 points. He could have earned 86, including a 50-point bingo, spelling PEREIRAS. Instead, Mr. Jighere kept an “e” for the next round.

“It’s this sort of strategic thinking that the Nigerians are embracing,” said American Chris Lipe, runner up in the 2014 world championship, who called Mr. Jighere’s performance a Scrabble master class.

It just goes to show you, bigger isn’t always better. (Though vocabulary still wins the day.)

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How Many Girls Do You See?

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Optical illusions are a topic we’ve covered numerous times here on the blog, but I’ve noticed a growing trend in the optical-illusion memes that go viral: something to debate.

Think about it. We had The Dress, which the Internet lost its collective mind over. Then we had The Jacket, which upped the ante from two interpretations to four.

Now a friend of the blog has sent me an optical illusion that’s been making the rounds in her group of friends and sparking much debate.

Fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers, I give you…How Many Girls?

What’s going on here? Is this a casting call? A family reunion? Are there mirrors involved, or identical twins? Is this a doppelganger convention? Evidence of human cloning?

This image first appeared a few months ago on the Instagram account of Swiss photographer Tiziana Vergari, and although it hasn’t quite reached the fever pitch of The Dress, it’s by far the most viewed image on her account.

So, how many girls do you see?

Last chance before I give you the definitive answer!

Okay then.

According to Vergari, this photo features two sisters, both of whom are looking into mirrors (although one of those mirrors is out of frame).

Honestly, based on the eye placement and angle of the heads for the two I circled, I would’ve said four.

Just goes to show you, you never can tell.

Except for The Dress. That was obviously blue and black. I mean, come on.

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It’s Follow-Up Friday: Cartoons and Crosswords 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’m posting the results of our #PennyDellPuzzleCartoons hashtag game!

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

For the last few months, we’ve been collaborating on puzzle-themed hashtag games with our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles, and this month’s hook was #PennyDellPuzzleCartoons, mashing up Penny Dell puzzles and anything and everything having to do with stand-up comics, film and television comedians, funny movies, funny shows, funny plays…even one-liners or jokes!

Examples include Letter Powerpuff Girls, SpongeBob Four SquarePants, and Betty Blips.

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

Slide-o-Futurama (and therefore Around the Bender)

Aaahh!!! Real Mon-Star Words

The Anagram Magic Square Bus

Who Fiddler’s Framed Roger Rabbit? / Who Frameworked Roger Rabbit?

He-Man and the Masterwords of the Universe

“By the power of GraySkill-O-Grams! I have the power!”

“That’s All Fours, folks!”

“Wonder Twins Flower Power, activate!”

“There’s no need to fear, Underdog is Here & There!”

“I hate meeces to Bits and Pieces!”

“Ups and Downs and at ‘em, Atom Ant!”

“Exit! Stage Right of Way!”

“Zip It Dee-Doo-Dah!”

“Heroes in a Halftime, Turtle Power!”

Teenage Multiplier Ninja Turnabouts

Beavis and Butt-Headings / Beavis and Buttheads and Tails

Crypto-Family Guy

Porky Piggybacks

The Jungle Bookworms

Dr. Joshua Sweet Stuff

Flower (from Bambi) Power

Lotsa Buck Cluck

Looney Rooney Tunes

Dancing Bo-Peep Feet

Top to Bottom Cat

Quick Draw the Line McGraw

Courage the Coming and Going Dog

DartBoard Duck / Bartboard

Dartwing Duck

(Home R)uns Simpson

101 Dial-a-Grams

Blackout-man and Robin

Successorgram-man

Johnny Word Quest

Dudley Do-Right of Way

Scooby Two by Two, Where are you?

Mystery Word Machine

Alvin and the Chips-munks

Patchwork Patrol

“Friendly Neighborhood Spider’s Web”

Wonder Twin Crosswords

“Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Add Ones Here” / “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Codewords Here”

“Three From Nine Is the Anagram Magic Number”

“In A Word Planet Janet”

“Syllability, Syll-a-bility”

“I’m Just a Blips, Yes I’m Only a Blips”

“Connections Junction, What’s Your Function”

AnagraManiacs Magic Squares, with Yakk-odewords, Wakk-o Words and Dot Matrix.

Stepping Flintstones

Miss Piggybacks

A fellow puzzler even cooked up a version of the Steven Universe theme song all about Crypto puzzles!

We are the Crypto-Gems
We’ll always save the day
And if you don’t believe us
We’ll always find a way
That’s why the people of this earth
Believe in
Geo, Zoo, and Verse…
And Steven!

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

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PuzzleNation Product Review: Back Spin by ThinkFun

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[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review. Due diligence, full disclosure, and all that.]

Imagine someone hands you a small puzzle game. You twist and turn it this way and that way, trying to line up all the different colored components so that they match, spinning and manipulating it so that one particular piece falls into place, but by doing so, three others end up somewhere else, and now you have to chase them down.

It probably sounds like I’m describing solving a Rubik’s Cube, but the same description fits cracking the latest puzzle game from ThinkFun: Back Spin.

And you know what? Back Spin is the younger sibling of the Rubik’s Cube that I wish I could’ve tried out first.

[Both sides of Back Spin, with the spheres all mixed up between the two.]

Designed for solvers aged 8 and up, Back Spin only features two sides (front and back) to Rubik’s six, but each of those sides has six small colored chambers, intended to hold matching colored spheres. Rotating the front or the back allows you to line up these chambers and swap spheres between them.

As for the spheres, there are nine different colors to sort; red, yellow, and orange are on both sides, but each side has a different shade of blue, green, and pink/purple, meaning some spheres can go on either side, but some are only meant for the front or the back.

Whether you’re moving colored spheres from back to front or rotating them in overlapping chambers to shift the spheres’ positions within the chamber — a la the sliding tiles in one of those picture puzzles — this is an introduction to chain-thinking and solving, a step up from simpler mechanical brain teasers, but not nearly as daunting as Rubik’s infamous cube.

[Alright, it’s solved! Oh, no, wait, this is only one side. Darn.
There are still spheres misplaced on the other side of the puzzle.]

And although the game is marketed as a single-solver puzzle, you really need two: one to mix all of the spheres up, and the other to unravel it. It’s much more satisfying to conquer the challenge someone else sets out for you than one you set for yourself, because you can’t help but retain some of the steps involved in mixing up the puzzle.

Having someone else mix up the spheres not only allows for a tougher solve, but the process of mixing them up for another solver is just as valuable a puzzling experience as solving it.

[Okay, this time I’ve got it. All the spheres properly placed on both sides. Phew!
(You can also see that there are only two purple spheres, since one chamber
has to allow a sphere to pass from back to front for the puzzle to be solvable.)]

Back Spin is a wonderfully vivid variation on a classic style of puzzle solving, one whose simple mechanics — a wheel that goes back and forth and holes that line up — allow for deep, meaningful, logic-based puzzling.

It encourages exploration and experimentation, staving off both the boredom and the frustration that more difficult brain teasers often spark. It’s a terrific addition to the ThinkFun line-up of puzzle games that teach while you play.

Back Spin is available for $14.99 on the ThinkFun website. To check out previous ThinkFun product reviews on PuzzleNation Blog, click here.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

What are you trying to say here?

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[Image courtesy of Aaron Walker, Alex Talamo, and the DIG Collective]

A while back, I posted a holiday-themed game where famous Christmas songs were reworded, and I challenged the PuzzleNation readership to unravel them all.

Well, this weekend I was going through a box of old assignments and such from my school days, and I stumbled upon another instance of this kind of rewording puzzle, this time centered around famous sayings and expressions.

Can you figure out the original expressions from these overly verbose rewordings?

1.) A mobile section of petrified matter agglomerates no bryophytes.

2.) Desist from enumerating your fowl prior to their emergence from the shell.

3.) Scintillation is not always identification for an auric substance.

4.) A plethora of culinary specialists has a deleterious effect upon the quality of purees, consummes, and other soluble pabula.

5.) A chronic disposition to inquiry deprived the domestic feline carnivorous quadruped of its vital quality.

6.) It is in the realm of possibility to entice an equine member of the animal kingdom to a source of oxidized hydrogen; however, it is not possible to force him to imbibe.

7.) Persons deficient in the faculty of determining values move with impetuosity into places that purely spiritual beings view with trepidation.

8.) If John persists without respite in a constant prolonged exertion of physical or intellectual effort he will develop into a youth slow and blunted in perception and sensibility.

9.) Immediately upon the absence of the domesticated carnivorous feline, the common house rodent proceeds to engage in sportive capers.

10.) A round vessel made of staves bound with hoops that is destitute of contents is productive of the most deafening din.

11.) Products of ingenuity are the offspring of exigency.

12.) Residents of structures composed of silicate substances should refrain from casting hardened mineral objects.

How did you do? Let us know in the comments section below!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!