Heck, there’s a coffee mug where you can fill out different crosswords that all fit the same empty, fillable grid on the outside of the mug. I have a crossword analog wall clock that’s solvable.
But this is definitely the first time I’ve seen a crossword made of snow.
I think the gripping nature of this artistic act of puzzly expression was best summed up by his brother on Twitter:
This is a REAL crossword puzzle with REAL questions and solutions (see the thread) constructed on a REAL ice rink done by my REAL brother who is REALLY impressive.
I’m curious if other frigid puzzle styles will follow suit. Will we see an ice rink word seek where he has to skate around the words to loop them? Perhaps a rime-crafted rebus to challenge observers with wordplay?
There are definitely possibilities here, with a natural timer built-in as well!
Forgive the unintentional pun, but this is pretty cool.
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Welcome to 5 Questions, our recurring interview series where we reach out to puzzle constructors, game designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life!
It’s all about exploring the vast and intriguing puzzle community by talking to those who make puzzles and those who enjoy them! (Click here to check out previous editions of 5 Questions!)
And we’re excited to welcome Deb Amlen as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!
[Deb in the center, flanked by her fellow Musketeers.]
Deb is a talented crossword constructor, but these days, it’s more likely you know her for her role as the head writer and senior editor of Wordplay, the crossword blog and educational/humor column associated with The New York Times crossword puzzle.
One of the most public faces associated with the crossword, Deb entertains and informs across both the blog and its associated Twitter account, as well as hosting a live-solving show on YouTube with fellow constructor Sam Ezersky and celebrity guests!
Deb 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 Deb Amlen
1. How did you get started with puzzles?
Word games like “Ghost” were always my favorite things to play when I was a child, but I didn’t really get into puzzles until I was a young adult. I watched my father solve the New York Times crossword when I was really young, but I didn’t start solving on my own until I bought myself a subscription to New York Magazine after college and discovered Maura Jacobson’s puzzles.
I started constructing crosswords when my own kids were young because, as a stay-at-home mom, I desperately needed a creative outlet that didn’t involve Pokémon or Elmo. I read everything I could about puzzle making and learned how to make crosswords from Nancy Salomon. Nancy has mentored hundreds of constructors to publication.
2. As the flagbearer for crosswords in the public eye, The New York Times crossword is often the most scrutinized when it comes to cultural sensitivity regarding entries and clues, and more than once, that has depicted the Times puzzle in an unflattering light.
As a very public figure for the brand — not to mention the de facto social media gatekeeper — this puts you in the unenviable position of being between the audience and the editorial team. How do you handle these situations, and as an enthusiastic solver yourself, how do you think the Times is doing in this arena?
The crossword does get a lot of flack, doesn’t it? Honestly, some of it is warranted, some of it is not.
There is definitely a need to bring the flagship puzzle into the 21st century in terms of diversity and representation. Like most large companies, however, sometimes change happens slowly at The New York Times.
A lot of work is being done by the company and the puzzle editors behind the scenes, though, to increase diversity on their team and to be more aware of content that is inflammatory, and I think the recent puzzles reflect that. They have a ways to go, but the conversation is active and ongoing, and I’m very optimistic about the future of the crossword.
As far as social media goes, people tend to conflate “the Wordplay Twitter account” with “Everything The New York Times Does With Regard to Puzzles and Games.” So, since I run the Wordplay account and the puzzle editors are not really on social media, I tend to be the target of people’s complaints, which is hilarious because I’m just the columnist. Luckily, The Times has allowed me to expense a thick skin, so I’m doing OK. When I’m not, I take a break from social media, which I highly recommend and think everyone should do.
On the other hand, most people are well-wishers and are a lot of fun. They tweet their solving victories to me and I give them a gold medal emoji, which people really respond to. It’s very satisfying to be able to lift people up and encourage them, especially on social media, which can be very negative.
3. For the 75th anniversary of the New York Times crossword, constructors and celebrity guest puzzlers collaborated on numerous puzzles. Which celebrity constructors surprised you the most with their work, and who would you like to see as guest constructors in the future?
[Author’s note: When asked about her puzzle, Natasha said, “Working with Deb Amlen to create this puzzle has quite literally been a lifetime highlight for me.”]
4. What’s next for Deb Amlen?
Dinner, probably.
5. If you could give the readers, writers, aspiring constructors, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?
Enjoy yourself. This is not like sitting down to take the SAT; it’s a game. And games should be fun. Life is too short to sweat the crossword.
You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie, hashtag games on Twitter, or @midnight’s Hashtag Wars segment on Comedy Central.
For years now, we’ve been collaborating on puzzle-themed hashtag games with our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles, and this month’s hook was #PennyDellPuzzlyBands, mashing up Penny Dell puzzles with musicians, singers, bands, and more!
Examples include: The Beat-the-Clock-les, Brick by Brick Astley, or Kris
Krossword.
So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny Dell Puzzles came up with!
U2 at a Time
Sheryl Crows Soundgarden
Sheryl Letter Crow
Men at Framework
Framebjork
Patchwork Swayze
Alphabet Bowling for Soup
Mixmaster Flash and the Furious Five / Grandmaster Flash and the Fancy Fives
Fancy Jackson Fives
The Cracker Jackson 5 / Cracker-Joe-Jackson
Fill-In Collins
Wilson Fill-Ins
Fill-INXS
The Four Topsy-Turvy Fill-In / ZZ Topsy-Turvy Fill-In
ZZ Top to Bottom
Tina Turnabout
TurnabOutkast
Danzig-Zag
Zigzag Marley
RadioHeads & Tails
The Lemon Heads & Tails
The Lemon Headings
Bobby V-Words
Scramb-Led Zeppelin Words
Diagram-Les Paul
Mixed Nikki Sixxes
Throw-Burt-Bach-arachs
Neil Sudoku
Siouxsie Sioux-doku and the Banshees
Hüsker Sudokü
Kenkenny Rogers
Paul Simon Says / Carly Simon Says
Crypto Graham Nash
CryptoGram Parsons
Sly & the Crypto-Families Stone
Sly and the Family Ties
The Partridge Family Ties
Ringo Starr Words / Ringo Starrspell
ABBA-cus
Bay City Rollers of the Dice
Derek and the Missing Dominoes
Grand Funk Railroad Ties
Earth, Windowboxes & Fire
Tower of Letter Power
Flower Power Station
Rufus WainRight of Way
Point the Wayland Jennings
Steve Cropperfect Fit
Susan TedeschiWord
Green Daisy
Sum Words 41
KC and the Sum Words Band
Mathboxes Twenty
Hearts and Flowers
Stepping Rolling Stones
Alice in Chain Words
Sir Mix-and-Match-A-Lot
Busta Pairs in Rhymes
Dexy’s Midnight Punners
New Kidz On The Letterboxes / New Kids on the Blockbuilders
Bull’s-Eilish Spiral
Simple Minds Tickler / Simple Minds Boggler
Right Angles Said Fred
Quote Questlove
Mariah Carry-Overs
AccorDionne Warwick Words
Ella Four-Fitzgerald
The Blackout! Crowes / The Blackout! Eyed Peas / Blackout Sabbath!
Roberta Flack-out!
LudaCrisscross / Kiss-Kross
Chaka Khancellations
Fats Domino Theory
Neil Diamond Mine / Neil Diamond Rings
Alphabet Soupertramp
Cros-Styx
The Lucky Clovers
Miles Around the Block Davis
End of The Skyliners
The Who’s Calling / The Guess Who
Charlie Watts’ My Name
Duke Skellington Key
DartLorde
“My Sudoku” by The Knack
Dell Amitri / Dell La Soul
Tom Penny Publications and the Heartbreakers
Daily Iggy POP Crossword
One puzzler even paired puzzly bands with puzzly songs and albums!
MegaSudokuDeth (“Peace Sells . . . But Who’s Calling?”)
Sonny & Share-A-Letter (“The Beat the Clock Goes On,” “I Got You Know the Odds Babe”)
FleetWord Math (“LandSlide-O-Gram,” “Go Your Own Word Ways”)
Guns N’ Rows Garden (“Sweet Child O’ Diamond Mine,” “Live and Let Diagramless”)
Bingo Crosby (“White Crisscross”)
The Rolling SteppingStones (“Rhyme Time Is on My Side,” “Paint It Blackout!,” “Ruby Cluesday”)
One intrepid puzzler went so far as to rewrite the lyrics to Bungle in the Jungle by Jethro Tull! So please enjoy Bungle In The Jumble…
My friend says she’s bored, yeah she’s lonely and older I thought, “She needs puzzles.”, and that’s what I told her
With fun illustrations they’re hers for the taking She can finish several while her cookies are baking
Now she is hooked; she is terribly spellbound She quickly deciphers and shares whatever she’s found
Bungle in the jumble, well for her that’s a breeze Don’t give her easy puzzles, ‘cause she’ll say they’re a tease
Our readership also got it on the fun!
Laura Campbell offered up SyllacroSTYX and Bananaramagram Magic Squares. (Judy Schumacker on Twitter also pitched Bananaramagram Magic Squares!)
Sandra Halbrook posted Christopher Cross Sums, and Roni Gunn shared Slay-er-cros-tic.
Terrific puns all around!
Have you come up with any Penny Dell Puzzly Bands entries of your own? Let us know! We’d love to see them!
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In the wake of puzzly public events like the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament being cancelled, as well as the shutdown of various school districts, workplaces, and businesses in order to limit exposure to the Coronavirus, it’s completely understandable that some puzzle fans may be feeling disappointed or even isolated from their fellow puzzlers.
But fear not! There are all sorts of options available to solvers looking to enjoy a puzzly experience from home, either on their own or with friends.
If you’re looking for crosswords, all you need is your computer. The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, and many other outlets offer online puzzle-solving, either by subscription or through watching ads before solving.
If you have access to a printer, you can print those puzzles out for the true pencil-and-paper solving experience.
And it’s not just newspapers. Many constructors — Brendan Emmett Quigley comes to mind — offer their own free puzzles semi-regularly (though you’re welcome to tip as a thank you). There is a world of puzzles out there on the Internet awaiting solvers.
But you don’t even have to go to a computer anymore. There are loads of terrific puzzles available right on your phone. Forgive us for tooting our own horn, but Daily POP Crosswords is a great puzzle app with a free puzzle every day and additional puzzle packets available for purchase or through our in-app coin system. (We also offer Word Seeks, Sudoku, and a marvelous story-driven puzzle mystery, Wordventures, if you’re looking for something different.)
Oh, and speaking of something different, if you’re looking to delve into more elaborate puzzles, there are some fantastic puzzle services by mail that offer all sorts of challenges.
Wish You Were Here by the Enigma Emporium conceals an entire mystery within a handful of postcards, challenging you to mine them for every scrap of information as you uncover a series of coded messages. It’s spycraft in an envelope, very clever stuff.
The Cryptogram Puzzle Post out of the UK offers something unique, mixing puzzles and encryption with bits of mystery and supernatural narratives to create standalone chapters in an ongoing story. So you can pick one season or an entire year, depending on how deep you want to go!
And for multi-month affairs, there are outlets like Hunt a Killer and The Mysterious Package Company, which create vast, immersive puzzle experiences by mail. (Though according to friends’ recommendations, Hunt a Killer works better without the month wait between installments.)
As you can see, there’s a wide variety of ways you can puzzle from home, whether you prefer to solve online, by email, on the phone, or by mail!
That’s all well and good, you might be saying, but what about the social aspect? Well, there are options there as well, even from the comforts of your home.
Some puzzlers actually livestream their puzzle-solving online through avenues like Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube. The New York Timesperiodically does this as well, often with celebrity guest solvers!
You can keep your eyes peeled on Facebook and Twitter for constructors and solvers who do so. It often adds a fun, communal element to puzzle-solving (especially if they struggle with the same tricky clues that you do). Some pubtrivia outlets are also moving online to allow for participating from home!
But if you don’t want to wait for someone to livestream their solving, you can do it yourself! Between Facetime and similar apps on smartphones and all the online avenues for audio and video-chatting (Skype, Google Hangouts, Discord, etc.), you could pair up with a friend and tag-team a crossword puzzle or other puzzly challenge!
It’s like co-working, except with puzzles. Co-solving!
In times like this, where uncertainty abounds and our comfortable routines have been upended, puzzles can offer a wonderful refuge from all the stresses of the world. And with technology on our side, we can even keep the communal joys of puzzling in our lives.
Happy puzzling, friends.
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One of my favorite things about puzzles and games is the way they bring people together. It could be gathering around a table for a session of Dungeons & Dragons, enlisting a friend in unraveling a tricky crossword clue, or swapping jigsaws with a fellow enthusiast to share the wealth.
Recently, a story about Dungeons & Dragons went viral, but if you haven’t seen it, I’ll happily summarize.
A Twitter user named Antoine H. delivered his grandmother’s eulogy after her sad passing, but wasn’t able to devote the time he wanted to one important aspect of her life, so he took to Twitter later to do so.
At 75 years old, in the last year of her life, she started playing D&D at his suggestion.
Her first character? A male forest gnome named Terminatur (a combination of “termite” and “nature”).
She helped her fellow players cleanse a haunted house, then made it a home, including inventing a new fruit that became quite popular. (It led to membership in an interplanar ecology organization, The Circle of the Green Hand.)
She even gave the adventuring party its name: “les Bijoutiers Fantaisistes,” the Fanciful Jewelers.
Although her cancer treatment would limit her opportunities to play regularly, she still kept on with the campaign whenever possible, adding delightful new wrinkles to her character.
Her last words to him? “Never change, never lose your family spirit, and keep on playing Dungeons & Dragons.”
As a longtime D&D player, I love this story. Because, as much fun as it is to play the game, it’s the connections you forge DURING play that mean the most. In fact, my favorite roleplaying game memory isn’t from an actual play session.
It’s from a lazy afternoon hanging out with some of my players, just listening as they shared stories about their favorite moments from the game. (Since each of them had individual adventures, in addition to group adventures, they got to share stories the others hadn’t experienced.) Their reenactments were a pleasure to watch, knowing I had helped craft adventures that they enjoyed so much, they wanted to share them with others.
Getting to tell stories with my friends is an incredible gift, and I can only imagine how much joy it brought both Antoine and his grandmother to find this lovely, unexpected common ground.
You can (and should) click here to read the entire Twitter thread. It’s wonderful.
Also, please share your own stories of how games, puzzles, and RPGs have improved your life and friendships. I’d love to hear them.
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Crosswords occupy a curious niche in popular culture.
They’re a part of everyday life, appearing in newspapers, apps, puzzle books, mysteries, and more. That simple patterning of black and white squares, no matter where it appears, brings them to mind.
And yet, despite their ubiquity, they’re not always viewed as something for the everyman. Some consider them off-putting or intimidating, steeped in obscure cluing and peculiar verbiage intended to keep casual solvers out.
That mix of familiarity and unfamiliarity makes crosswords the perfect fodder for comedians. The crew at HuffPost proved this by compiling a list of humorous tweets focusing on crosswords.
Some of them referenced the odd letter combinations you encounter in grids…
Or the difficulty some clues offer…
Or just the general difficulty of the puzzle…
But other tweets had fun with specific puzzles…
Or with the act of solving itself…
And, given how often wordplay finds its way into crosswords, it’s only appropriate to close out with a pun…
(That last one wasn’t in the HuffPost article. There’s plenty more puzzle humor out there, I just happened to stumbled across it yesterday before writing this post.)
Have you encountered any funny crossword-themed tweets recently? Let us know in the comments section below! (And be sure to follow us on Twitter, where we share little gems like these whenever we can.)
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