Tag Archives: Wordplay

5 Questions with Puzzler/Artist Hayley Gold!

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Welcome to another edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, board game creators, writers, filmmakers, musicians, 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. (Click here to check out previous editions of 5 Questions!)

And I’m excited to have Hayley Gold as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

An enthusiastic puzzle solver as well as an accomplished artist, Hayley combines her interests with Across and Down, a weekly webcomic devoted to The New York Times crossword.

She combines humor and the keen eye of a long-time solver to not only entertain, but offer worthwhile insight into crosswords as a whole and individual puzzles in particular. Whether she’s punning on themed entries or proving her pop culture savvy with references galore, each Across and Down comic brings something unique to the table.

Hayley was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for Hayley Gold

1. Which came first for you: puzzles or art? How did you discover puzzles?

Well, I think art is rather intuitive. As soon as a child gets hold of a crayon their artistic career begins. A lot of people are miffed when artists comment that they’ve been drawing all their life, but I actually did more drawing in my youth than in my maturity, when pressure became attached to it.

That being said, I find doing puzzles much more relaxing and more natural for me. So, though one may have preceded the other doesn’t mean that it’s the dominant hobby.

2. When did you launch Across and Down, and has it evolved from your original vision?

I started the site in January 2014 as a project for my web comics class. The whole operation was rather hasty. We were told we needed to come up with a comic that’s updated weekly, the teacher said the content was completely up to us, though her web comic followed a linear narrative, as did the comics of most of the other students.

I needed something I could do without too much time lost, as the class was only an elective and I had other comics to complete, and something that focused on writing more than visuals as that has always been my strong suit. And of course I wanted it to be fun, and something that I cared about.

I never imagined it would become what it has. Okay, let me rephrase that. I have wild fantasies about it being much MORE than it is, what I never imagined is how much I would NEED it. I experience withdrawal if I go too long without making one.

[Strategy, a wonderful crayon-and-pencil piece, as featured on her portfolio site.]

3. Your comics offer a wonderful mix of humor, tongue-in-cheek wordplay, and savvy commentary from a clearly experienced solver. How have the constructors reacted to your comics? Do you think couching your critiques in this format allows you to say more than a straightforward review or blog post?

In general, I get a good response from constructors. I certainly never got any flak from anyone. Many have reached out to thank me actually, which is a very rewarding gesture. And I’ve never attempting real blogging to compare the reactions side by side, but I would guess that giving everything a lighthearted air does assuage some of the severity of critique.

But, at the same time, I am rarely totally critical and try to be balanced. And though I often address the constructor directly, I try not to make any serious personal attacks if I thoroughly rip something apart, though, by and large, I don’t do comics on puzzles that are completely horrendous. Partly because I don’t wish to be horribly cruel to anyone, and partly because I don’t think it’s very entertaining. At least in a comic, I think nitpicking about the usual crossword faux pas gets repetitive.

[A sample of one of her most recent webcomics.]

4. What’s next for Hayley Gold?

I’m working on a graphic novel, but no ETA on that. And for anyone who’s a fan of my site, I’ll warn you that it’s totally different, both graphically and narratively, so no guarantees that you’ll like it. I also need a job. Hey, anyone out there, hire me! Would love to do some custom crossword comics!

5. If you could give the readers, writers, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

Er, I’m not really good with this. God knows, my life is a mess. But let’s try to narrow it down a bit. How about advice pertaining to webcomics? Make it about something you’re passionate about. Most of my peers quit their webcomic after the class finished. Now, my stick-to-it-iveness may be due to my uptight nature, but also because it really meant something to me.

Also, keep at it even if you think no one is reading. I hope to get more eyeballs as I go along, though my site still reaches relatively few readers. People may look over it once and then never come back instead of subscribing, or just never come across it even though they are ardent puzzle solvers.

When I go to comics events, so many people come up to me to tell me what a “great idea” my site is — but they personally don’t do the puzzle so it’s not for them. I’ve experienced a very small overlap in the fanbases. The way comics are promoted, as one big giant blob of content, is rather weird — as if readers would be attracted to all of it simply because of the medium, rather than it being placed into subcategories — but I digress.

Choose something you like, stick with it.

Many thanks to Hayley for her time. Check out AcrossandDown.net for her comics and links to her other works, and to keep up on all things Hayley, follow her Across and Down Facebook page, her Twitter (@HayleyRabbit), and her Etsy page! I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

Puzzles in Pop Culture: The Big Bang Theory

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Puzzles in Pop Culture is all about chronicling those moments in TV, film, literature, art, and elsewhere in which puzzles play a key role. In previous installments, we’ve tackled everything from The West Wing, The Simpsons, and M*A*S*H, to MacGyver, Gilmore Girls, and various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes.

And in today’s edition, we’re delving into the world of The Big Bang Theory, CBS’s runaway hit about four nerdy scientists — Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj — bumbling their way through social interactions of all sorts.

Although the show covers all sorts of activities often deemed “nerdy” — roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, The Lord of the Rings, comic books, cosplay, conventions, obsessive fandom, etc. — they rarely play puzzles. Usually, the closest they get are board games and card games, whether real ones like 3-D chess or fictional ones like Mystic Warlords of Ka’a.

But in episode 3 of season 7, The Scavenger Vortex, the boys and their girlfriends embarked on one of my favorite puzzly pursuits: the scavenger hunt.

Here, hunt organizer Raj lays down the rules with plenty of style:

The teams end up being the odd couples of Leonard and Bernadette (Howard’s girlfriend), Sheldon and Penny (Leonard’s girlfriend), and Howard and Amy (Sheldon’s girlfriend), allowing some new pairings for the writers to have fun with.

For instance, we’re treated to this exchange between Howard and Amy, where Amy references her unpopularity growing up:

Howard Wolowitz: Wow, you’re really good at puzzles.
Amy Farrah Fowler: I did them all the time as a kid. As my mom used to say: when you’re doing a puzzle, it’s like having a thousand friends. She was full of fun lies like that.

The game starts with a jigsaw puzzle, which quickly reveals the location of the next clue: the comic book store. (Although Sheldon forces Penny to wait while he completes the entire puzzle.)

When the competitors arrive at the comic book store, a cardboard cutout of the Riddler holds their next clue.

Riddle me this:
Arrah, Arrah, and gather ’round,
this hero is legion-bound,
He multiplies N by the number of He,
and in this room the thing you’ll see.

Sheldon instantly solves the riddle, followed by Howard and Amy, then finally by Bernadette and Leonard, highlighting how well the three teams are working together. (Either Sheldon or Penny takes the lead, depending on the task, while Howard and Amy collaborate well, and overcompetitive Bernadette basically yells at Leonard the entire time.)

Arriving at the geology lab at the university, Penny and Sheldon reveal the next puzzle: To continue on your quest, leave no stone unturned.

While they turn over various rock samples in the lab, Sheldon explains how he solved the riddle.

Arrah pointed to Jan Arrah, a member of the DC Comics superhero team The Legion of Super-Heroes, who goes by the name Element Lad. This pointed Sheldon to the Periodic Table of Elements, where he multiplied the atomic number of N, Nitrogen (7) by the atomic number of He, Helium (2), getting 14, the atomic number of Silica, which pointed him to either the geology lab or the chemistry lab.

And the final line of the riddle — “and in this room, the thing you’ll see” — pointed toward the Marvel superhero The Thing, who is made entirely of rock.

As Sheldon is showing off his impressive riddle-cracking skills, underdog Penny actually solves the current puzzle, realizing that “no stone unturned” didn’t mean the samples in the lab. It meant the Rolling Stones poster hung on the door, which she lifts to reveal map coordinates.

This sends them to a bowling alley, and then to the disused elevator shaft in Leonard, Sheldon, and Penny’s apartment building. A montage mentions further puzzles at the planetarium and the tar pits (and plans to attend a Neil Diamond concert for new chums Howard and Amy), before ending up in the laundry room at Leonard, Sheldon, and Penny’s apartment building.

Three bags of laundry await the players, and they quickly realize each bag contains only pants, except for a single shirt of Sheldon’s. A shirt with a spot on it.

Fans of the show, of course, know where their final destination — and the coin — awaits them. But when they tear apart the couch, there’s no coin.

In the end, we discover the final clue was a red herring, and Raj had slipped gold coins into everyone’s pockets earlier in the day. (Which is some pretty impressive sleight-of-hand, I must say.)

And although Raj’s big lesson — it’s getting together and playing that’s important, not the prize at the end — is lost on his fellow castmates, it really does encapsulate the best in group puzzling and gaming… the experience.

Maybe The Big Bang Theory gets puzzles after all.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Sing It 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’d like to return to the subject of hashtag games!

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

Last month, a hashtag game was part of our International TableTop Day festivities. The hook was Penny/Dell Puzzle Movies, and it was great fun.

Well, we’ve decided to make it a monthly game, and this month’s hook was Penny/Dell Puzzle Songs!

Examples might be “Lucy in the Sky with Nine of Diamonds” or “Man in the Mirror Image” or “Dream Weaver Words.”

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

Penny’s from Heaven

We are Crypto-Families

Piggybacks in the U.S.S.R.

Say Say Say That Again

Do You Want To Know A Secret Word

Jenny From The Block Letters

You’re the First and Last, My Everything

Double Trouble No More

Double Crosswords Trouble

Battleships of Fools

Stoplines (In the Name of Love)

More than Codewords

Hip to be Jigsaw Squares

Hip To Be Anagram Magic Square

Anagram Magic Carpet Ride

Crackerjacks and Diane

Jack & Diagramless

Halftime After Time

Too Much Rhyme Time on My Hands

Rhyme Time and Time Again

Give and Take It to the Limit

Give & Take a Chance on Me

We’re Not Gonna Take It from There

Frame By Framework

Freeze Frameworks

Across and Downbound Train

Lay Across and Down Sally

Flower Power of Love

Where Have All the Flower Powers Gone?

Places, Please Please Me

Friends in Low Places, Please

Letterboxes To Me

Love Letterboxes in the Sand

Thick As A Brick By Brick

Brick by Brick to Heaven

Goodbye Brick by Brick Road

Another Brick by Brick in the Wall

Wish You Were Here & There

Pinball Wizard Words

Zigzag Stardust

Mystery State of Love and Trust

A Hard Rains A-Gonna Quotefall

Take Me Out to the Bowl Game

The Itsy Bitsy Spider’s Web

Bull’s-Eye Spiral of the Tiger

Candle in the Windowboxes

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad Ties

Shadowbox Dancing

Under the Scoreboardwalk

Free Your Mind Tickler

Runaround the Block Sue

Ringmaster of Fire

Old Time Rock and Roll of the Dice

Walk Like an Encryption

A Boy Named Su-Doku

Pencil Pusherman

Girls Just Wanna Have Bible Fun

Text Message in a Bottle

Out on the Missing Tiles

The Bookworms of Love

50 Ways to Leave Your Logic Lover

Guess Who Can It Be Now?

Make the Rainbow Connection

Matching Circles in the Sand

Power of Two for One

What’s Left? Of Center

Add One Is the Loneliest Number

Will the Circle Search Be Unbroken?

Alphabet Soup John B

Triangle Sum Kind of Wonderful

Everybody Wants You Know the Odds

The Shadow Knows

I Put A Spellathon You

A View To A Skill-O-Gram

Trans-Europe Crossword Express

Anagrams-a Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Cryptogram-ma Got Run Over By A Reindeer

One fellow puzzler even went so far as to create new puzzly lyrics for some of these songs!

  • Brand New Keyword – Deanna Carter

I’ve got a brand new pair of Cryptograms, you’ve got a brand new Keyword

  • You Don’t Bring Me Flower Powers – Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand

B: You don’t bring me Flower Powers. You don’t give me Codewords.
N: You hardly talk to me anymore, when you solve on that floor at the end of the day

  • Quotefalls – TLC

Don’t go chasing Quotefalls
Please stick to the Fill-Ins and the Takeouts you’re used to

  • Crossword Traffic – Jimi Hendrix

Ninety words per hour, baby, that’s the speed I solve.

All in all, the game was great fun!

Plus, we received some submissions from solvers on Twitter! Friend of the blog Robin Stears submitted Runaround Sudoku, The Old Rugged Crostic, and Do You Believe in Magic Squares?, while @Francespuzzles submitted a boatload of good ones, like Blowin’ in the Windowboxes; That’s All Right Angles, and Crimson and Lucky Clover!

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

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Single Letter 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’ll be posting the answers to the single letter puzzles from Tuesday’s blog post all about the power of single letters in puzzles!

The first puzzle was a brain teaser.

There’s a word in the English language in which the first 2 letters signify a male, the first 3 signify a female, the first 4 signify a great man, and the whole word signifies a great woman. What is that word?

The word is HEROINE. The first two letters are HE, the first three are HER, and the first four are HERO.

The second puzzle involved the first letters of words forming a pattern, and I asked you to both deduce the pattern and provide the next entry in the series.

O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, ?

The next entry in the series is N, for Nine. These are the first letters of numbers — One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight.

J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, ?

The next entry in the series is D, for December. These are the first letters of the months of the year.

S, M, H, D, W, M, ?

The next entry in the series is Y, for Year. These are the first letters for increasing lengths of time — Second, Minute, Hour, Day, Week, Month.

M, V, E, M, J, S, U, ?

The next entry in the series is N, for Neptune. These are the first letters of the planets in the solar system, from closest to the sun to furthest from it.

D, K, P, C, O, F, G, ?

The next entry in the series is S, for Species. These are the first letters of the classification system for all life on Earth — Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus.

The third and final puzzle involved the first letters of words, but with numbers added, and I asked you to deduce what the letters represent.

3 F in a Y: 3 feet in a yard

366 D in a LY: 366 days in a leap year

12 S in the Z: 12 signs in the Zodiac

4 Q in a D: 4 quarters in a dollar

13 C in a S: 13 cards in a suit

How did you do? Did you solve them all, or did these crafty single letter puzzles stump you?

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

One Letter Makes All the Difference

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I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about the power of words, and rightly so. Words are the foundation of civilization. They’re how we communicate, how we express ourselves, how we interpret and process and quantify the world around us.

And playing with them is a cornerstone of entertainment. Jokes and puns depend on wordplay, as do riddles, brain teasers, and so many puzzles. Whether they’re being crossed, anagrammed, or shared with friends on an online Scrabble board, words are puzzle power.

That’s true even of letters. A single letter can not only speak volumes, it can be the key to unlocking an entire puzzle.

For instance, let’s talk crosswords. Knowing one across entry is a plural often allows you to place an S, giving you an anchor for the down entry that crosses it.

Cryptograms often offer a single letter as a hook to get you started. In addition, anytime you see a lone letter in a quote, you know it’s an I or an A.

Numerous anagram puzzles involve adding a single letter to a word, anagramming the result, and getting something new and unexpected.

That sort of letter addition reminds me of a brain teaser:

There’s a word in the English language in which the first 2 letters signify a male, the first 3 signify a female, the first 4 signify a great man, and the whole word signifies a great woman. What is that word?

In all of these examples, single letters are part of a greater puzzle. But what about puzzles composed entirely of single letters?

Easy. I can think of two.

In the first, single letters are the first letters of words forming some sort of pattern. Can you deduce the pattern AND provide the next entry in the series?

  • O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, ?
  • J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, ?
  • S, M, H, D, W, M, ?
  • M, V, E, M, J, S, U, ?
  • D, K, P, C, O, F, G, ?

In the second, the single letters are still the first letters of words, but we’ve added numbers and it’s up to you to deduce what the letters represent.

  • 3 F in a Y
  • 366 D in a LY
  • 12 S in the Z
  • 4 Q in a D
  • 13 C in a S

All of this, sprung from a single letter. Pretty impressive, isn’t it? No wonder we can accomplish so much with words, given building blocks like these.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Mother’s Day 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’ll be posting the answers to our Mother’s Day Unscramblers puzzle!

On Sunday, in honor of the many puzzle-loving moms in the audience, I created a twofold challenge. First, you had to unscramble the names of 12 famous sitcom mothers, and then you had to match them with their respective TV shows.

So, without further ado and hullabaloo, here are the answers!

1. Marion Cunningham — H. Happy Days
2. Samantha Stephens — D. Bewitched
3. Morticia Addams — B. The Addams Family
4. Jill Taylor — L. Home Improvement
5. Peggy Bundy — G. Married… With Children
6. Sophia Petrillo — K. The Golden Girls
7. Claire Dunphy — J. Modern Family
8. Florida Evans — E. Good Times
9. Maggie Seaver — F. Growing Pains
10. Thelma Harper — A. Mama’s Family
11. Harriette Winslow — I. Family Matters
12. Jane Jetson — C. The Jetsons

How did you do? Are you a Mother’s Day puzzle master, or did you sitcom this one out?

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!