This Sunday, July 25th, from 1 PM to 6 PM Eastern, the Boswords Crossword Tournament returns! The fifth edition of this event will be contested online for the second year in a row, so it’s the perfect opportunity to test your puzzly skills.
If you haven’t signed up yet, registration closes tomorrow at 5 PM Eastern.
With two divisions to choose from — Individual and Pairs — puzzlers of all ages and experience levels are welcome to enjoy some challenging and clever crosswords in a day of puzzly fun and camaraderie.
Tournament organizers Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb (along with talented puzzle editor Brad Wilber) have gathered a diabolical Ocean’s Eleven-style crew of terrific constructors for this year’s puzzles. The five themed puzzles in regular competition (as well as the championship themeless final) will be constructed by Malaika Handa, Andrew Kingsley, Chandi Deitmer, Wyna Liu, Hoang-Kim Vu, Rob Gonsalves, and Jennifer Lim!
Boswords is asking for $25 for adults, $35 for pairs, and $5 for students to (virtually) attend and compete, which is a real bargain! (Also, for anyone with financial difficulties, there is a discounted rate available.)
If you want to solve the puzzles at your leisure and outside of the competitive setting, it’ll only cost you $10 for the puzzle packet, which you’ll receive Monday by email.
To check out the full details of this year’s event, click here! (And for our rundown of last year’s tournament puzzles, click here!)
Will you be attending the Boswords tournament, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know! We’d love to hear from you.
In the last week or so, crossword fans have been treated to a bevy of announcements regarding upcoming tournaments and events, and we’ve got all the details for you!
So let’s get started!
First off, Boswords is back for the summer!
Sunday, July 25th, from 1 PM to 6 PM Eastern, puzzlers from all over will virtually gather for the fifth edition (and second edition online) of the Boswords Tournament, and registration opens today!
With two divisions to choose from — Individual and Pairs — puzzlers of all ages and experience levels will have the opportunity to test their puzzly wits.
Tournament organizers Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb have gathered a murderer’s row of talented constructors for this year’s puzzles. The five themed puzzles in regular competition (as well as the championship themeless final) will be constructed by Malaika Handa, Andrew Kingsley, Chandi Deitmer, Wyna Liu, Hoang-Kim Vu, Rob Gonsalves, and Jennifer Lim!
Boswords is asking for $25 for adults, $35 for pairs, and $5 for students to attend and compete (or as a discounted rate), which is a real bargain!
(And if you want to solve the puzzles but not compete, it’ll only cost you $10 for the puzzle packet, which you’ll receive Sunday night by email!)
You can visit the BosWords website for full details! And to check out our thoughts on last year’s tournament puzzles, click here!
The team behind the Indie 500 crossword tournament also reached out to solvers to announce that they’re releasing the puzzles intended for the 2020 edition of the tournament as a downloadable puzzle packet.
And they’re doing so as part of a charity fundraiser. All it takes is a $10 donation to one of the charities listed here, and you’ll receive some top-flight puzzles.
What a marvelous way to do some good AND keep the puzzly spirit of the Indie 500 tournament alive. (Click here for full details!)
But that’s not all. The Lollapuzzoola team also posted updates regarding this year’s virtual edition of “the best tournament held in New York on a Saturday in August.” Saturday, August 21st, will be Lollapuzzoola 14!
The format is simple. Two divisions — Solo and Pairs — pit their puzzly minds against clever clues and crafty constructors.
There’s also the Next Day Division, where you’re outside of tournament contention but you get the puzzles the next day to solve on your own!
With five tournament puzzles plus the championship round (and bonus puzzles!) — designed with inimitable style, both fun and befuddling in how often they innovate classic crossword tropes — you’re guaranteed to get your money’s worth as you solve!
Click here to solve the announcement puzzle, and to check out the full details of this year’s event, click here! (And for the rundown of last year’s tournament puzzles, click here!)
Will you be virtually attending Boswords or Lollapuzzoola, or contributing to the Indie 500 charity promotion, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know! We’d love to hear from you!
In 1913, Arthur Wynne created the first modern crossword puzzle — which he called a Word-Cross puzzle — and over a hundred years later, we are still enjoying the ever-increasing variety of puzzles and clues spawned by that “fun”-filled grid.
Wynne was born on June 22, 1871 in Liverpool, England, but moved to the states in the early 1890s, spending time in Pittsburgh and New York City before creating his Word-Cross puzzle for the New York Sunday World.
But, speaking of figures who helped elevate crosswords to greater prominence, that brings us to our second anniversary.
Tomorrow marks the 15th anniversary of the release of the influential crossword documentary Wordplay.
Wordplay introduced several famous names in crossword tournament circles, like Ellen Ripstein, Trip Payne, Tyler Hinman, Jon Delfin, and Al Sanders, as well as highlighting many celebrity crossword solvers like Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Bill Clinton, and more. The documentary also chronicled the 2005 edition of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, bringing national attention to the tournament (and inspiring a Simpsons episode about crosswords).
Wordplay sparked a 40% increase in attendance the year after it aired, and the growing interest in the yearly event caused the tournament to actually change locations to a larger venue in New York City for 7 years!
(It has since returned to the Stamford Marriott, its traditional setting, despite actually topping the biggest NYC attendance in 2019, and again virtually in 2021.)
But the impact Wordplay had on the tournament itself, and interest in crosswords in general, cannot be overstated.
And this week, we celebrate both crossword anniversaries, one marking the genesis of crosswords, and the other marking how far crosswords had come, and how much farther they could go in the future.
It’s a pretty cool confluence of dates, to be sure.
Whether you play board games, role-playing games, card games, dice games, puzzles, or logic games, this is the holiday for you, family, and friends to come together and enjoy games.
So, to celebrate, we’ve got a grab-bag of different ideas for you today. Want to learn more about games through video playthroughs? We’ve got you covered. Want to solve a Mix and Match puzzle all about games? We’ve got you covered. Want to play something similar to Monopoly that’s not Monopoly? We’ve got you covered.
Please enjoy this somewhat chaotic sampling of board game-themed goodness in honor of Tabletop Day!
Monopoly is the most famous board game in history. We really can’t discuss the topic of board games without mentioning Monopoly.
But Monopoly has its issues. It takes a long time to play, and if you fall behind, it’s incredibly difficult to catch up. Plus, if you get eliminated, it’s not fun to watch other people keep going.
So what do you do if you like some of the game mechanics in Monopoly but not the total package? Easy! Use our handy-dandy guide to find other games that do part (or ALL) of Monopoly better than Monopoly!
Maybe you enjoy buying property and building it up with enhancements and making money with it. That’s great. You should check out Lords of Vegas.
It’s a casino-building game set in the early days of Las Vegas. It’s got play money, dice, all sorts of strategy, plus a gambling mechanic where you can make up for monetary shortfalls. It’s a brilliant game and so so much fun.
Maybe it’s collecting valuable cards, negotiating and trading with other players that you enjoy most about Monopoly. Terrific! You should try Sheriff of Nottingham.
In Sheriff of Nottingham, players collect cards with different goods to take to market — apples, chickens, bread, and cheese — as well as cards of contraband items (like spices, mead, and weapons). Each turn, one player is the Sheriff, trying to stop the other players from sneaking contraband into the market. So you can bluff, or bribe, or try to sneak goods past the Sheriff, or just play it straight with regular goods.
The game allows for trading, cutting deals, being sneaky, and bonuses for being the person with the most of certain goods (apples, for instance) at the market. It’s so much fun, and allows for lots of fun interaction throughout the game, since nobody is ever eliminated.
Do you like completing colored sets of items? Outmaneuvering other players? Claiming valuable property that other players want? Pretty much everything involved in Monopoly is also part of Ticket to Ride.
In Ticket to Ride, players collect cards and play train cards on a map in order to complete different train routes to earn points. Not only can you score by completing those routes under your banner, but you gain bonus points if you can connect distant locations through your railways.
It covers a lot of the strategy and craftiness that made Monopoly famous, but in a sleeker, quicker package.
Oh, and if you want a totally off-the-walls Monopoly-inspired game, there’s always The Doom That Came to Atlantic City.
In this game, you crush houses to claim properties, play Chants (instead of Chance) cards, and basically try to be the best doomsday cultist at the table, summoning your monstrous god to end the world before the other players can.
It’s delightfully tongue-in-cheek, great fun, and a hilarious inversion of a lot of classic Monopoly tropes. I highly recommend it.
Oh, were you looking for some great video content? We’ve got you covered!
If you’re looking for great recommendations and playthroughs of games that your family will love — like Sushi Go, Codenames, Tak, or Takenoko — Girls’ Game Shelf is one of my favorite YouTube channels. The hosts (Kiki and AnnaMaria) are brilliant and insightful, the players are hilarious, and the game choices are topnotch.
It’s been a few months since they’ve uploaded, but there’s a load of terrific content already waiting for you there. Check out Girls’ Game Shelf!
And for slightly less-family friendly — but still fantastic — fare, No Rolls Barred‘s game playthroughs are uproariously funny. Whether they’re bickering over Telestrations, betraying and misleading each other in epic-length games of Blood on the Clocktower, or simply pitching insane products with Snake Oil, their videos are incredibly entertaining.
Plus the channel has top ten lists of games by genre or play-style, skits, and glimpses of game history. They recently passed 50,000 subscribers on YouTube, and their content keeps getting better. Check them out!
Yes, it’s a puzzle on International Tabletop Day. Hey, we’re PuzzleNation, we’ve got to include some puzzly fun, don’t we?
Today, we’ve got a Mix and Match puzzle for you. Can you anagram these phrases into the names of characters from famous board games, and then match them up with their board game?
How are you celebrating International Tabletop Day? Let us know in the comment section below! We’d love to hear from you.
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Over the last 18 months or so, an uncountable number of events had to be cancelled or postponed due to safety restrictions. Everyone knows someone whose wedding or graduation or vacation was affected by the pandemic. Major holidays were disrupted.
As more people across the country are fully vaccinated and things start to open up, people are naturally starting to plan get-togethers with those they haven’t seen and share communal experiences denied to them over the last year.
For puzzle and game fans, the same is true, as folks all over are gearing up for this year’s International Tabletop Day.
As long-time readers of the blog know, International Tabletop Day is one of the highlights of the puzzle/game calendar, especially around here. We usually celebrate with an open game session with tons of games to try, snacks and game-themed treats, and more.
There was some controversy back in 2019 regarding when to actually celebrate Tabletop Day. It had been celebrated at the end of April for years, but then the official creators “moved” the date to June 1st, so there is a little bit of debate regarding when to celebrate this year’s game-fueled event.
But whether you’re celebrating on May 29th or June 1st (or any other date that suits you), we’ve got plenty of suggestions for how to enjoy the day, no matter what your circumstances!
In Person
If you’re gathering a small group of like-minded vaccinated chums for Tabletop Day fun, there’s plenty you can do:
Host a short game tournament and crown the winner King/Queen/Non-Binary Ruler of Tabletop Day
Have people dress up as favorite games or game characters
Have secret game-related rules for people to follow, like not being allowed to say certain words or trying to accomplish certain tasks (stealing a candlestick, referencing Clue, for instance)
Create specialized Bingo cards with games or rules or inside jokes to cross off as they happen, and have some small prize for people who get Bingo
Refresh with old classics OR break out something new from your stash that you’ve been desperate to play for months
[Image from Stranger Things courtesy of The Verge.]
At Home
If you’re trying to keep things mellow but still enjoy the day, here are some suggestions for the game fans in your household:
Play a communal storytelling game where the story goes around to each player and you have to build on what other players have said before. You can even add a twist to it with cards to play that add story elements, settings, and other weird obstacles to incorporate into the story at a moment’s notice.
Use Candyland as a guide, but each of the different colored spaces represents cards to draw or tasks to complete or other neat personalized challenges or prizes!
Try to kitbash together two games and make up new rules on the spot, and play your new hybrid game to see how it works! You’d be surprised how a few new twists can bring new life to old classics that have grown a little stale
In the same vein, make up your own game by playing 1000 Blank White Cards! (The link suggests everyone submit 5 cards, but I prefer that everyone submit as many cards as they can think of!)
Maybe you’re still hesitant to gather together to celebrate. No problem! There are some terrific virtual options for you, no matter how you connect online with friends and family:
Writing games where you need to compare answers (like Scattergories or Hive Mind) are perfect for this sort of interaction, because all you need is some paper and something to write with!
Trivia Night! There are tons of ways to do this, either by having someone write the trivia, or use pre-set trivia games or websites, or even log into an app like Kahoot and have everyone virtually compete in the same online quizzes.
Play a social deduction game like Mafia or Werewolf by having one person run the game and assign players their rolls! This requires some coordination (and a willingness by players to shut their eyes and adhere to the rules), but it can be great fun if you pull it off!
Sign up for virtual board game spaces like Board Game Arena to communally play virtual versions of your favorites. (Also, there are tons of online versions of games as varied as Telestrations, Wits & Wagers, Uno, Secret Hitler, and many many more if you’re willing to search for them! All you need is one person to share their screen and run the game for you, and you’re in!)
One game that quickly became a favorite in our virtual office game group is Dobbins or Bobbins, a DIY parlor game that is huge fun.
Essentially, you pick a topic — the usual one is racehorse names — and have everyone who is playing submit 5 fake racehorse names each ahead of game time. Then you find 5 real racehorse names, and you create 5 lists.
Each list has a fake name from each of the players, plus one of the real names. (The person running the game can also submit a fake name if you want to spice things up a bit.)
Then everyone gathers (in person or online), and you read one of the lists. The goal is for every player to pick the real racehorse name. You get three points for guessing the real racehorse, but you also get a point for every player who picks your fake racehorse name! (Also, you can play with the rule that, if no one guesses the real horse, the person running the game gets three points, making them the antagonist.)
So even if you don’t find the real racehorse, you can clean up on points if you trick the other players into picking your horse!
After five rounds, the player with the most points wins.
And you don’t have to limit the game to racehorses. Our group has played Dobbins or Bobbins with board game names, Christmas movie titles, professional wrestler names, and more!
(Yes, you do need one person to host/organize this one, but it’s great fun to watch everyone play. Also, tricking them with a fake name is very satisfying.)
Will you be celebrating International Tabletop Day, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
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If you’re unfamiliar, the Boswords 2021 Spring Themeless League spreads out a tournament-style solving experience over nine weeks, one themeless crossword per week. Each puzzle is scored based on your answer accuracy (incorrect letters, empty squares, etc.) and how quickly you complete the grid.
While each week’s puzzle only had one solution, there were three sets of clues, each representing a different difficulty level for solvers. Smooth was the least challenging, Choppy was the middle ground, and Stormy was the most challenging. (When solvers registered to participate, they chose the difficulty level that suited them best.)
Hundreds of solvers signed up for the challenge of two months of themeless puzzle solving and a bit of friendly competition, and now that it’s over, I’d like to share a few thoughts about my experience in the League.
When I participated in the 2020 Fall Themeless League, I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t have much experience with themeless puzzles, and I rarely solve online, so even though I’m very familiar with crosswords, it felt like a new experience.
But with last season’s league under my belt, I went into the 2021 Spring Themeless League excited to again test my skills with some top-flight puzzles, a touch more confident in my themeless solving than last time.
As you might expect, being freed from the shackles of themed puzzle building allows constructors to really flex their creative muscle, indulging all sorts of curious and unexpected vocabulary as they cross long entries and employ staggeringly few black squares in these impressive grids.
Aimee Lucido opened up week one with three 13-letter entries across the center of the grid, giving new solvers a taste of just what constructors can do with a themeless grid, and offering established solvers some terrific crossings and fun vocabulary.
Peter Wentz’s week two puzzle and the week three offering from Brynn Diehl and Mark Diehl continued to set the tone for the season, mixing some clever wordplay in their cluing with ambitious grid construction. (Week three’s puzzle had stacks of 10-letter entries in every corner, which was impressive.)
Rachel Fabi provided week four’s puzzle — which really tickled me by having “advice column” as a down entry, i.e. a column — and Ryan McCarty’s week five puzzle was one of my smoothest solves of the tournament. Plus, he had “doggos” in the grid, and I am fully onboard with “doggo” becoming crosswordese.
I stupidly submitted my grid with an empty square in Patti Varol’s week six, which hurt my score somewhat. I still enjoyed the puzzle, though. Crossing SPANKED with BUCKNAKED was certainly a style choice. Also, Patti always teaches me new words with her puzzles. This time around, it was “vaporetto.”
Week seven’s offering by Ricky Cruz really impressed me with some difficult letter placements — particularly the plethora of Xs in the lower-left corner. (Unfortunately, I missed the submission deadline for this one, so I got a zero for this puzzle.)
That was followed by Kevin Der’s amazing week eight grid. This one took me ten minutes longer than my average time for the rest of the tournament puzzles.
I mean, look at this grid:
Week nine’s championship puzzle was constructed by Brooke Husic, and it was the perfect closer to two months of solving. It was sharp and well-constructed, sending everyone home happy.
All in all, I enjoyed the Spring Themeless League more than the Fall League because I felt much more comfortable with the solving interface and I had a better handle on themeless solving overall. My times were stronger — although far from the blistering pace set by many of the top solvers — and I felt like I was making smarter choices in my solving. It’s always nice to both see and feel improvement in your puzzling.
I ended up placing 262nd out of around 600 competitors — had I actually gotten puzzle seven submitted, I would’ve been closer to 115th or so — which is about on pace for how I did in the Fall Themeless League.
But the tournament experience was delightful. Having a new challenge awaiting you every week is a treat, especially with the fantastic roster of talent they assembled in this season’s constructors.
And with the promise of future Boswords-hosted events in 2021 like the Summer Tournament on July 25th and the Fall Themeless League in October and November, it’s nice to have exciting puzzle events to look forward to in the near future.
Kudos to everyone who helped bring this marvelous project together, and kudos to everyone who participated. It was so much fun.
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