Tag Archives: Wordplay

Answers to the Punderful Pop Culture Halloween Costume Game!

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Halloween has come and gone, but the glorious puns remain.

That’s right, today we’ve got the answers to this year’s edition of the Punderful Pop Culture Halloween Costume Game!

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the answers!

PuzzleNation’s Punderful Pop Culture Halloween Costume Game!

#1

It’s Beauty AND the Beast!

#2

It’s the Black (Pink) Panther!

(Black Panther from the Marvel Universe + The Pink Panther)

#3

It’s the Darth Knight!

(Darth Vader from Star Wars + Batman, aka The Dark Knight)

#4

It’s Ronald McDonald Weasley!

(Ron Weasley from Harry Potter + Ronald McDonald)

#5

It’s a Royal Lifeguard!

(Royal Guardsman from Star Wars + lifeguard)

#6

It’s Gand-ALF!

(Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings + ALF)

#7

It’s Snow-ba Fett!

(Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs + Boba Fett from Star Wars)

#8

It’s Sailor Freddie Mercury!

(Sailor Mercury from Sailor Moon + Freddie Mercury of Queen)

#9

It’s OB-GYN Kenobi!

(OB-GYN + Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars)

#10

It’s Doctor Cindy Lou Who!

(Doctor Who + Cindy Lou Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas)

#11

It’s Doctor Stranger Things!

(Doctor Strange from the Marvel Universe + Netflix’s Stranger Things)

#12

It’s Hermione Texas Ranger!

(Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books + Texas rangers)

#13

It’s Stevie Wonder Woman!

(Stevie Wonder + Wonder Woman)

#14

It’s a WeresWaldo!

(Werewolf + Where’s Waldo?)

#15

It’s Ash Wednesday!

(Either Ash from Pokemon + Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family OR Ash from Evil Dead/Army of Darkness + Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family.)

How many did you get? Have you seen any great punny costumes we missed? Let us know!

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Punny Tricks and Treats This Halloween!

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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, and I’m a huge fan of costumes that only cost a few bucks to put together, because they really let your creativity shine through. (They’d all make terrific #SpookySolvingSelfies!)

Punny costumes lend themselves to the low-budget costume genre brilliantly. So it’s only appropriate that we celebrate Halloween in the puzzliest way possible by looking at some punny costumes!

This time around, though, we’ve got a bit of a twist for you, as each costume is a punny combination of pop culture icons! Can you figure out these punny mashup costumes?

Let’s try one:

Get it? It’s Homer and Marge!

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

PuzzleNation’s Punderful Pop Culture Halloween Costume Game!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15 (Here’s two different versions of the same pun!)

How many did you get? Have you seen any great punny costumes we missed? Let us know! And Happy Halloween!

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!

You Autumn Pick Up These Puzzle Sets!

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Fall is in full swing! The leaves are turning and falling, and Halloween is almost here! (Have you submitted any #SpookySolvingSelfies yet?)

We’re celebrating the season the way we know best: with some terrific Puzzle Sets for the Penny Dell Crosswords App!

That’s right, you have three fall combos to choose from! Each one is loaded with terrific easy, medium, and hard puzzles, plus seasonal theme puzzles as a bonus! That’s 70 puzzles in each combo!

And hey, would you like to pick up all three combos in one fell swoop AND save a little money on the deal?

We’ve got you covered there too, with our Fall Double Deluxe Bundle! All three Fall Combos together at last! That’s 210 quality crosswords, locked and loaded and ready to go, brought to you by the fine puzzlesmiths at PuzzleNation!

Plus they’re available for both iOS and Android users!

Happy puzzling, everybody!

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!

Time for Some Spooky Solving Selfies!

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[An appropriately spooky crossword puzzle from 1927, London After Midnight.]

We love interacting with members of the PuzzleNation community, so we’ve cooked up something new that we think you’ll enjoy!

Welcome to our first round of Solving Selfies!

The game is simple! We’ll give you a theme, and you reply with a photo! We’ll randomly pick a winner each month for a terrific Daily POP Crosswords prize!

Ready to play? Great!

Today’s theme is “Spooky Solving Selfie!”

Show us your Halloween spirit! Do you deck out your house for the holiday? Or have a killer costume picked out? Do your kids or pets get involved in Halloween shenanigans? Or maybe your favorite place to solve is particularly spooktacular?

We’d love to see it! Send us your Spooky Solving Selfie today! And be sure to use the hashtag #SolvingSelfies or #SpookySolvingSelfies so we don’t miss it!

[Our resident office tentacle is getting into the Spooky Selfies spirit while solving!]

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!

A New Venue to Publish More Women!

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Long-time readers know that one of my favorite things about the blog is that I can use it to spread the word about different worthwhile projects.

In the past, we’ve proudly provided a signal boost to folks adapting popular games for the visually impaired, game shops that could use more support, and campaigns to encourage and recruit constructors from more diverse backgrounds.

So when I heard about the Kickstarter campaign for The Inkubator, I knew it was another worthwhile project to put a spotlight on.

The brainchild of crossword constructors Tracy Bennett and Laura Braunstein, The Inkubator is a by-email subscription puzzle service where 100% of the puzzles will be constructed by women. (It follows in the footsteps of the wonderful Women of Letters project from last year.)

From the public announcement:

The editors invite women — cis women, trans women, and woman-aligned constructors — to submit themed and themeless crosswords or queries in any stage of development. (If you think you may be eligible to construct, but you’re not sure, you’re eligible to construct. Still not sure? Ask us!) If you’re new to constructing, we’ll make every effort to connect you with a collaborator.

Yes, The Inkubator is not only a publishing outlet for anyone who identifies as female, but it is intended to help and encourage new and inexperienced constructors, providing resources and advice in the hopes of publishing more women.

The Kickstarter has only been up for two days, and they’ve already passed their initial funding goal, proving that there is not only a market for women-driven puzzles, but a lot of support for female constructors as well. They’re currently brainstorming stretch goals for the project right now!

I wish The Inkubator not only luck, but success, and I can’t wait to see what new voices the project helps bring to the fore.

For more details or to donate to The Inkubator, check out the Kickstarter page for the project 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!

Brain Teaser: A Curious Way to Tell Time

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We love tackling brain teasers, riddles, math puzzles, and mind ticklers here at PuzzleNation Blog.

Our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles also enjoy putting their puzzly skills to work by posting various brain teasers..

And one of our mutual readers was hoping we could explain how to solve a puzzle that recently made the rounds on Penny’s social media accounts.

We’d be happy to!

Today, let’s take a look at a brain teaser all about time.

So, where do we begin?

Let’s start by breaking that sentence down to make it easier to parse: “The number of hours left today is half of the number of hours already passed.”

Well, a simpler way of saying that is “the number of hours already passed is twice the number of hours left.”

So if you have the number of hours left — let’s call that X — then the number of hours already passed is twice X, or 2X. Between X and 2X, that’s your entire day covered.

Sorting that out gives us the simple formula of X + 2X = 24, since there are 24 hours in a day.

That easily becomes 3X = 24, and simple division tells us that X = 8.

So X, the number of hours left today, is 8. Which means that twice X, or 16, is the number of hours already passed.

And if there are 8 hours left in the day (or 16 hours already passed), that means it’s 4 PM.

Most of the time, brain teasers are all about efficiently organizing the information we have.

That allows us to figure out how best to use that information to move forward and solve the puzzle. This is just as true with a relatively straightforward brain teaser like this as it is with a complicated logic puzzle with all sorts of pieces to put together.

It’s all about figuring out what we know, what we don’t, and how what we DO know can lead us to what we don’t.

That’s just part of the fun.

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!