Tag Archives: Wordplay

PuzzleNation Reviews: ROFL!

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Here at the PuzzleNation blog, we love spreading the word about new puzzle-solving experiences of all sorts.

So we were intrigued when we heard about a new puzzly party game that utilized textspeak and abbreviations. We contacted the folks at Cryptozoic about it, and they were gracious enough to pass along a free copy of ROFL!, allowing us the chance to give it a thorough PuzzleNation vetting.

And ROFL! is a seriously fun time.

Masterminded by John Kovalic (artist for games like Munchkin and Apples to Apples, creator of the comic strip Dork Tower), ROFL!’s concept is simple.

Players try to create abbreviations of pop culture terms, phrases, and quotations for other players to decode, using only the symbols available on a standard keyboard. (So basically, numbers, letters, punctuation, and a select few others.)

So everyone takes turns being The Guesser (the one who must unravel the abbreviations conjured up by the other players, The Writers), starting with the person who used the fewest characters in their abbreviation. You award points for correct guesses (to both Guesser and Writer), and whoever has the most points after three rounds wins.

Groups of up to seven can play (three is the minimum needed), and with hundreds of possible messages (the cards are double-sided to maximize options) across six categories, you’re not likely to run out of new abbreviations to solve anytime soon.

(Plus with personal whiteboards, markers, erasers, and tokens, you have everything you need boxed up and waiting for you.)

ROFL! slots beautifully into the same party-game niche as Taboo and Scattergories: games that rely on the ingenuity of your fellow players to make the most of the gameplay, and ones that evoke fits of laughter with total ease.

I recruited four fellow puzzlers to try it out over lunch, and not only were we playing within minutes, but the laughs were rolling soon after.

I’ll give you an example from our second round:

The quote to guess was “It’s quiet over there. Too quiet.”

So I quickly scribbled “ITS QT > THR, 2 QT”

13 characters. So I placed my marker on the 13, and luckily, I used the fewest characters, so the Guesser turned to me first.

There’s only one guess per Writer, but I was optimistic.

The guesser got the first part easily. “It’s quiet over there…”

But then she paused. Uh-oh.

“It’s quiet over there… Two quarts?”

Everybody burst out laughing. (She did end up getting it on her second try, but the points go to the second Writer in that case.)

From a puzzle perspective, figuring out how to abbreviate quotes and sentences (all while the sand in the timer quickly dwindles) is a terrific puzzly challenge. After all, anyone who solves crosswords is intimately familiar with unscrambling unlikely (and sometimes baffling) abbreviations, and with the proliferation of textspeak thanks to greater and greater smartphone use, you’re sharpening your ROFL! skills every time your phone vibrates.

But writing your abbreviation is also an exercise in strategy. Do I risk using fewer characters in order to go first (first guess is worth the most points), or do I hedge my bet and go for clarity, even if I’m second or third to go?

Here’s an example from our game:

The quote was “Live long and prosper.”

So I put all my eggs in one basket and wrote “L L & PSPR”, hoping that “prosper” would carry the load and the Guesser would be able to figure out the rest from there. With only 7 characters, I was the first Writer on the board.

The Guesser was stumped, though. Time ran out before she could even guess.

The next Writer stepped up. (She used 9 characters and was next in line.)

Her abbreviation was “Lg Lv & PSPR”, and even though she accidentally mixed up the order of “live” and “long”, the Guesser immediately blurted out “Live long and prosper!”, securing them 2 points a piece.

In this instance, it was worth using a few extra characters and sacrificing being first in order to get the points.

With the social aspect, the improvisational aspect, and the puzzly aspect, ROFL! pushes a lot of ideal game-playing buttons, and it does so with style.

(And don’t tell the bosses, but the game was so popular that we played again during work hours the same day. *wink*)

All in all, it’s a good time for puzzlers and board game fans alike. John and the Cryptozoic Entertainment crew have a real winner on their hands here.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! Don’t forget about our PuzzleNation Community Contest, running all this week! 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!

A 12-letter word for puzzly frustration…

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Today, we’re tackling one of the most controversial aspects of the crossword world, my friends.

Oh yes, let’s talk about crosswordese.

For the uninitiated, crosswordese consists of words that appear frequently in puzzles, but not nearly as often in conversation or common use. (My favorite variation on that definition: “words that crop up a lot but are otherwise pretty useless.”)

For me, one of the worst offenders is ELHI, the abbreviated adjective covering school K through 12. I have never encountered this word in the wild, and in fact, I only became aware of it after I started working with puzzles professionally.

Many of the dedicated puzzlesmiths I know try their hardest to avoid crosswordese at all costs, but unfortunately, so long as American-style crosswords dominate the landscape, crosswordese will be with us in some form or another.

But it did make me wonder: what are the most egregious, the most annoying, the truly infamous examples of crosswordese among my fellow puzzlers?

And when I reached out to some of my friends in the puzzle community, they enthusiastically responded.

New York Times Crossword contributor Ian Livengood (check out our 5 Questions Interview with him!) immediately fired back a litany of crosswordese he’d love to see stricken from puzzle grids, including ALAI (as in Jai alai), ULEE, YSER, ESME, ESNE, ERATO, ETO, SST, ASE, ISERE, and AARE.

The folks at Penny Press — whom you might remember from my previous posts about terrific puzzle-cluing — provided NUMEROUS examples of their least favorite bites of crosswordese.

ALAI made another appearance on Executive Editor Amy Roth’s list, among such suggestions as EKE, ETUI, and ELA, wherein she posed the pointed question “Who IS Guido, anyway?”

ETUI popped up on variety editor Keith Yarbrough’s list of objectionable entries, alongside ANOA, ANA, OLIO, and KEA.

Crossword guru Eileen Saunders offered INEE (an arrow poison), NENE (the infamous Maui goose), ATLI, SELD (as in “Not oft”, ick), and perhaps my least favorite crossword entry of all time, IRED.

Variety editor Cathy Quinn had one particular example in mind when she replied: “Anile. It just has no positive connotations at all.” [Random House defines ANILE as “of or like a foolish, doddering old woman.” An adjective sure to get you slapped in certain company.]

For an example of the level of enmity some crosswordese evokes, look no further than variety editor Andrew Haynes’ outstanding reply, which I proudly present in full:

OPE.

I despise that entry. I know that it has appeared in a poem or two, but be for real…

The door was ope
I saw the pope
He had some soap
It was on a rope

Pure drivel.

And for a marvelous glimpse into the exasperation crosswordese can elicit, I leave you with variety editor Paula Curry’s lyrical response, which makes for a wonderful mini-puzzle in itself:

What duel tool is full of E’s?
What Melville tale is in the South Seas?
What ubiquitous word is a building wing,
Or that wide-spouted pitcher thing?
Whenever I see such crosswordese…
I just get ired!

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! Don’t forget about our PuzzleNation Community Contest, running all this week! 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!

Carroll’s classic conundrum!

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After my post on Brain Melters (the diabolical siblings of brain teasers), I’ve had riddles on the brain, one in particular.

There’s a famous riddle that compares a raven and a writing desk. It was first penned by the brilliant, controversial, and utterly ridiculous Lewis Carroll.

The Hatter asked Alice, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“I give up,” Alice replied. “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”

It was purposely devised as a riddle with no answer — prime Brain Melter territory — but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to solve it in various silly, pragmatic, and clever ways through the years.

A practical answer is “They both have legs”, but not only is that terribly boring, but it seems to abruptly ignore Carroll’s legacy of whimsy and logodaedaly.

(Come on, it wouldn’t be a truly Lewis Carroll-worthy post without some curious vocabulary. *smiles* And a pat on the back to those who didn’t have to look it up!)

Many people have incorporated assonance, rhyme, and wordplay into their solves. Here are some of the possible solutions people have conjured over the years:

–It is used to carry on work and work carrion.
–Because the raven has a secret aerie and the writing desk is a secretary.
–It understands its tails and quills would nevar [sic] work with the wrong end in front. (This is a variation on the answer Carroll eventually provided)

Carroll himself was quoted as saying that a raven is like a writing-desk “because it can produce very few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar [sic] put with the wrong end in front.”

Despite Carroll’s typically obtuse and curious response, several sources have stated that the correct answer is that “dark wing site” is an anagram for “a writing desk”.

Ignoring all of these possible solutions, I prefer the one I consider the most simple, the most clever, and the most sensible…

How is a raven like a writing desk? Poe wrote on both. =)

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

Beware the Brain Melter…

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meninhats

I’m a huge fan of brain teasers. I love pitting my mind and mental quickness against word puzzles and other challenges, so brain teasers are perfect.

A terrific example of a quality brain teaser appeared here a while back: the Men in Hats problem (pictured above).

It’s a great brain teaser because it’s deceptively simple, but requires careful, outside-the-box thinking to figure out how to solve the puzzle.

But there’s another kind of brain teaser out there that’s not intended to be solved. These are more tricks or bits of wordy gamesmanship than brain teasers. I like to think of them as brain melters.

Here’s an example of a brain melter I tweeted a month or two ago:

True or false? Thare are five mistukes im this centence.

Now, parsing it out, you can see the misspelled “thare” (1), the misspelled “mistukes” (2), the misspelled “im” (3), and the misspelled “centence” (4).

But the statement says there are five mistakes when there are only four, which would make the statement false. If you count “five” as a mistake, then it becomes five mistakes, which makes the statement true. But if five mistakes is true, then saying “five” ISN’T a mistake, so the total goes back to four mistakes, and…

You see? You soon find yourself in a brain-melting loop that never goes anywhere. It’s like the barber who shaves only the townsmen who don’t shave themselves. So does he shave himself? If he does, he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he does.

Still with me?

Okay, here’s another brain melter. (The one, in fact, that inspired this blog post.)

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

A) 25%
B) 50%
C) 60%
D) 25%

At first glance, this seems simple. There are four options, so the chances of being correct should be 1 in 4, or 25%.

But wait. Two of the answers are “25%”, meaning that A AND D could lead to the right answer, so those odds become “50%”.

But “50%” as an answer only appears once, so the chances of choosing “50%” are only 25%.

And if you keep following that chain of thought, you circle around and around and around, going from 50% to 25% and back again while your brain dribbles out your ears and down into your shoes.

Beware the brain melters masquerading as brain teasers, my friends.

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

5 Questions for Crossword Constructor Ian Livengood

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s newest feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m proud to have Ian Livengood as our first 5 Questions interviewee!

Ian has constructed puzzles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, building a reputation as both a savvy constructor and a crafty cluesmith. He spends his days as a crossword editor for Penny Press, in addition to his extracurricular puzzle constructing. (And he even found time to contribute some terrific entries to two clue-centric PN blog posts earlier this year!)

So, without further ado, let’s get to it!

5 Questions for Ian Livengood

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

I started solving crosswords in high school as a way to pass the time. I was a pretty horrible solver at first, obviously, but stuck with it. I tried my hand at constructing a puzzle when I was 19 or 20 and the results were, uh, less than stellar. I think I used 82 words (78 is the limit in most outlets) with some suspect fill. I got the constructing “bug” again in my mid-20’s. I didn’t even know construction software existed — I was using Microsoft Excel and a crude wildcard search engine — but I eventually stumbled on some nice software and began to study exactly how puzzles were made. 

2. Who are three creative types that inspire you?

It’s tough to identify specific people, but I certainly respect certain types of puzzles. I really enjoy a smooth and easy Monday, a diabolically tricky Thursday-level puzzle and a tough themeless puzzle. I really admire “smooth fill.” These are the non-thematic entries in a puzzle that avoid “crosswordese” (entries you only encounter in crosswords) and that are fun and interesting to solve. Frankly, it’s really hard to pull off, and I recognize and respect the skill it took to create ’em.

3. What puzzly endeavors are you currently working on?

I teach a crossword construction class every Sunday in the Spring and Fall in New York City to a group of seniors. As a class, we go through the process of picking a puzzle theme, building a grid, filling the grid and writing the clues. The goal is to get the collaborative puzzle into the New York Times.

Also, I have a book coming out in Spring 2014 called “Sit and Solve Sports Crosswords” through Sterling Publications. As you might guess, the book has 42 easy-medium 10×10 sports-themed puzzles. Since I’m a sports nut, this was a really fun one to make. Available wherever books are sold.

4. You were recently interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation regarding your crossword construction class. What was that like, and how did that affect how you see yourself as a constructor?

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. A Canadian NPR producer was solving a recent Sunday New York Times puzzle that class made and thought it would be fun to interview the seniors that helped contribute to the puzzle. I can’t say my Q-rating has really spiked, but it’s always nice to get positive feedback from solvers.

5. If you had a million dollars and three Hawaiian islands, what would you do with them?

Well… since I’m a skier and not much of a beach guy, I’d sell the islands and just go heli-skiing everyday. That sounds pretty nice.

Many thanks to Ian Livengood for his time. Check out his ebook of 25 easy puzzles here, and keep your eyes peeled for his work in the New York Times (Monday’s puzzle is a Livengood original)!

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

Palindromic answers for all and sundry!

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As promised, here are the answers to Friday’s PuzzleNation live game, a.k.a. the Palindromes challenge! Thank you to everyone who gave it a shot. I look forward to doing another live puzzle game soon!

TWITTER

1.) Forgetful cats. (2 words)

Answer: Senile felines

2.) Love in the Italian capital. (2 words)

Answer: Amore, Roma

3.) First-person speaker favors a particular mathematical constant. (3 words)

Answer: I prefer pi.

4.) Instructions to hoist in conjunction with the speaker. (6 words)

Answer: Pull up if I pull up.

5.) A fencing challenge offered to a reluctant opponent. (3 words)

Answer: Draw, o coward!

6.) Young Mr. Hawthorne attacked a lama. (4 words)

Answer: Nate bit a Tibetan.

7.) Orders to retreat, given to one’s distant pixie. (5 words)

Answer: Flee to me, remote elf.

FACEBOOK

1.) Television premiere (2 words)

Answer: Tube debut.

2.) Young comic strip miscreant did wrong. (2 words)

Answer: Dennis sinned.

3.) Exclamation to grab the attention of the lad toting certain fruit. (3 words)

Answer: Yo, banana boy!

4.) Weather unsuitable for cheering or owl noise. (4 words)

Answer: Too hot to hoot.

5.) Question a Gotham City resident might ask after the caped crusader’s first appearance. (6 words)

Answer: Was it a bat I saw?

6.) Post’s indecorous citrus fruit (3 words)

Answer: Emily’s sassy lime.

7.) Show boredom in a manner akin to Caesar. (5 words)

Answer: Yawn a more Roman way.

And if there’s some kind of live game puzzle challenge you’d like to see, be sure to let us know! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!