Games World of Puzzles

The Magazine for Creative Minds at Play

Games World of Puzzles2 min read
…from The Editor
Welcome to the October issue of GAMES WORLD OF PUZZLES! If you’re anything like us, you appreciate autumn, and we can’t think of a better way to accompany the falling leaves and that nip in the air than solving some challenging puzzles. Of course, Oc
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Games World Of Puzzles
PUTTING A NEW SPIN ON AN OLD FAVORITE SAVE UP TO ⅓ OFF THE NEWS STAND PRICE! Please send me 1 year of Games World of Puzzles (gms) $43.00 · 9 Issues Please send me 2 years of Games World of Puzzles (gms) $78.00 · 18 Issues Remit with payment to: KAPP
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Games World of Puzzles
Editorial Director Lia Brown Editor in Chief Jennifer Orehowsky Editor Raymond Simon Contributing Editors Scott Appel, Thomas L. McDonald, Andrew Parr, Jonathan Schmalzbach Supporting Players Rachel Garland, Catherine Keeney, Julie Snider, Madison St
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
AI Anagrams Instructions
Recently we were playing around with an online AI image generator. We input 4 two-word phrases in which the words are anagrams of each other (like CALM CLAM) yielding the images below. Can you identify the phrase represented by each image? Bread bear
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Mixed Doubles
Each answer in this crossword variation has two clues leading to it, using different meanings of the word. The clues are separated into Across and Down, but are otherwise ordered randomly. When you find two Across or two Down clues that seem to have
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
52-skiddoo
There is one place for each letter of the alphabet in the 26 empty squares of each blank column in the diagram below. Fill in each letter so that a word of at least five letters is formed reading across only. Not all of the letters to the left and ri
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Pencil Pointers 1
In this crossword puzzle, the clues appear in the grid itself. Enter the answers in the direction of the pointers. ANSWER, PAGE 70
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Riddle-me-ree
The answer to each of the riddles below is a nine-letter word. Can you find all of the words? PUZZLE 1: CROISSANT PUZZLE 2: SCARECROW PUZZLE 3: HOLLYWOOD PUZZLE 4: DALMATIAN ■
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Breaking Up The Band
Inevitably, it seems some of our favorite bands will break up, whether it’s due to creative differences or other reasons. Luckily, in this word search we’ve just broken up the two-word names of 47 bands and split them up, with their first word in the
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Kid Stuff
How well do you know your words? Below are two lists. See if you can change the first letter of each word to make a new word that fits the category “Animals” (Puzzle 1) or “Colors” (Puzzle 2). For example, the answer to A1, BOX, is FOX. A. ANIMALS 1.
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Halloween Verses
With Halloween here, let’s see how well you know spooky stuff. Don’t be afraid; the rhyming puzzles below should help guide you to the correct answers on page 70. Still looking for a Halloween costume, But unable to sew a stitch? Just grab an old bla
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Four Seasons Rhymes
Each of these clues can be answered with a word that rhymes with one of the four seasons: WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, or FALL. If you can answer them all, crown yourself Wordsmith of the Year! 1. STING 2. WALL 3. SPLINTER 4. PLUMBER 5. SMALL 6. BUMMER 7.
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
I Know That Kid!
Sometimes, a favorite character in a book feels as real to us as a good friend. In the matching quiz below, try to match the description of a child from a popular kids’ book (1–15) to that character’s name (a–o). Good luck! 1. …loves junk food and vi
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Symbol Sudoku
Place the symbols shown in the grid so that every symbol appears exactly once (that is, no symbol is repeated) in each row, column, and heavily outlined 3×3 box. ANSWER, PAGE 71
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
More AI Anagrams
This puzzle is a continuation of this issue’s cover puzzle. We were having so much fun playing around with our AI image generator that we thought of 10 more two-word phrases in which the words are anagrams of each other—like DUSTY STUDY or BARE BEAR.
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Quote Boxes
To solve Quote Boxes, drop the letters from each vertical column—not necessarily in the order in which they appear—into the empty squares below them to spell a quotation reading from left to right, line by line. Words may continue from one line to th
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Hashi
In these puzzles, you are given an arrangement of numbered islands. Your goal is to add bridges (lines) between islands so that the islands form a single connected group. When adding bridges, you must follow these rules: 1. The number on each island
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Six Of The Best
It’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other! Fill the 76 six-letter words and phrases listed below into the grid so that they intersect in standard crossword fashion. When the puzzle is solved correctly, each word will be used exactly once. STARTIN
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Pencil Pointers 2
In this crossword puzzle, the clues appear in the grid itself. Enter the answers in the direction of the pointers.
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Boxing Match
The object of this solitaire challenge is to guess a word before making six incorrect guesses, as in a familiar childhood game. To begin, choose any letter of the alphabet that you think might appear in word I below. Suppose you pick E. Go to the Let
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Crossways
In this puzzle, all of the words and phrases listed below can be found in the grid, with one letter replaced by a small cross. The letter that is replaced depends on the word’s location within the large cross: The four outer regions substitute a diff
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
The Spiral
This puzzle turns in two directions. The spiral’s Inward clues yield a sequence of words to be entered counter clockwise in the spaces from 1 to 100. The Outward clues yield a different set of words to be entered clockwise from 100 to 1. Keep track o
Games World of Puzzles2 min readForeign Language Studies
Dszquphsbnt!
Below are seven messages—pithy sayings, fascinating facts, and a cartoon gag—that have been translated into simple cipher alphabets. Letter substitutions remain constant throughout any one cipher, but change from one cipher to the next; the level of
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Siamese Twins
This puzzle gives you two grids for the price of one. And two sets of clues to go with them, so you can work both crosswords at the same time. What’s the catch? Each clue number is followed by two different clues to two different answers. The puzzle
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Opposites Distract
Inside each word or phrase, find two opposites reading left to right. For example, the first word UNYOKES conceals NO and YES: UNYOKES & UNYOKES. The length of each word is given in parentheses. The first word length indicates the word that begins fi
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Battleships
WWW.CONCEPTISPUZZLES.COM The six puzzles on this page are solitaire versions of the classic paper-and-pencil game of Battleships. Each grid represents a section of ocean in which a fleet is hiding. This fleet consists of one battleship (four grid cel
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Split Decisions®
The only clues in this crossword are the letter pairs provided in the grid. Each answer across and down consists of two words that share the letters you’ll enter in the empty squares. In the example below, S, E, and W fill the empty squares to make S
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Code Crosswords
In the puzzles below, the numbers in the grid squares stand for letters of the alphabet; your task is to crack the code. Once you’ve figured out the letter that matches a certain number, place that letter in every square containing the same number an
Games World of Puzzles4 min read
Wild Cards
What 9-letter food becomes a drink if you change its last two letters? —SHAWN KENNEDY Think of a type of business with seven letters. If you cross out its second, fourth, and last letters, you are left with what that business makes. What are the two
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Paint By Numbers
These eight puzzles feature a unique blend of logic and art. The numbers are all you need to determine which squares should be filled in to form a picture. Here’s how it’s done: The numbers outside each row and column tell you how many groups of blac
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
One, Two, Three
Solve this puzzle as you would a regular crossword, except that each space may hold one, two, or three letters. The number of letters in a space is for you to determine, using logic and the crossing of words. The answer to 1-Across, W-AI-VER, has bee
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Crazy Paving
In the 1970s, “crazy paving” referred to a landscaping technique that used irregularly shaped pieces of flagstone to pave an area. Like that trend, a Crazy Paving puzzle consists of irregularly shaped regions that fit together to form a rectangluar g
Games World of Puzzles6 min read
The Stellar Puzzles Of Stella Zawistowski
No matter where you look in the “crossworld”—competitive solving, indie puzzles, mainstream puzzles, cryptic crosswords—you’re certain to run into Stella Zawistowski, an accomplished crossword solver, constructor, and editor. While becoming one of th
Games World of Puzzles3 min read
Hopping In The Shower
I live in one of those very nice final departure lounges—a home for the ancient and bewildered. An old people’s home. You get the picture? Anyway, at supper last night I was chatting with a new inmate. Old guy, somewhere in his 80s, like a lot of us
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Creep-tograms
Do you like scary movies? Well, you’d better, because we’ve encrypted creepy quotes from some popular fright flicks of the last two decades or so. Try to decode them…if you dare. One word of warning: The code for each quotation is different. Bonus po
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Crypto-doubles
This contest is a mash-up of Cryptograms and Mixed Doubles (see pages 20 and 3 of this issue for an example of each). You’ll need to start by decoding the clues, which have been translated into a simple cipher alphabet (the same cipher is used throug
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
ACT SCARED A Fright Flick Quiz
What could be more appropriate for Halloween than a quiz on scary movies? See if you can identify the actors who starred in some classic horror films from the descriptions below. 1. She shouldn’t have taken a shower in the 1960 film Psycho. 2. Later
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Silence Is Golden From February
February’s contest was presented as a totally straightforward crossword puzzle. Of course, there was something else going on, but we kept it hush-hush. As it turned out, that “something” was that eight silent letters had to be written in the shaded b
Games World of Puzzles4 min read
Electronic Game Reviews
DICE ROLL PLAYER MIPMAP PC/MAC: $15, IOS/ANDROID: $10 AGE RANGE: 9+ PLAY TIME: 30 MIN. PLAYERS: 1 Roll Player grabs elements from a variety of game types to create something immediately familiar yet utterly unique. The premise and the gameplay will b
Games World of Puzzles4 min read
Tabletop Game Reviews
RACING LONG SHOT: THE DICE GAME PERPLEXT: $33 AGE RANGE: 14+ PLAY TIME: 30 MIN. PLAYERS: 1–8 Racing games should be zippy. They should play fast, without a lot of fuss. The original Long Shot board game plays well and, with its little painted horses,
Games World of Puzzles3 min read
This Old Game
In his 1893 essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote: “Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isola
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Dungeon Sudoku
These two puzzles are a combination of sudoku and maze-solving. Before you begin, read the rules from start to finish. First, solve the sudoku problem within each dungeon using the digits 1 through 7 and two letters. That is, each of the digits from
Games World of Puzzles2 min read
Trivialogic: Super Obscure
Metamorpho was introduced nine years before OMAC, and Deadman was introduced nine years before Captain Ultra (1). None of these four heroes were introduced in 1968 (which is neither nine years before nor after any other year given), so 1968 saw the i
Games World of Puzzles3 min read
Cryptic Crossword 1
Each clue in a cryptic crossword has two parts: a definition of the answer and an indication of the answer’s literal makeup via wordplay. Either half may come first; finding the dividing point between the two parts is the key to solving. On page 61,
Games World of Puzzles3 min read
Def Jam
OMG this is sweet! Great stuff! Asterisked clues comprise intimidating cryptic wordplays. According to the constructor, every definition is located in the text you are reading right now. Understood? Carry on, brainiac! 1 Pass out suckers (4) 4 * Turn
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Family Reunions
Change each group of 10 words below into a “family” of different words (words or proper names that have something in common) by dropping one letter from each word and then rearranging the remaining letters. For example, given the entries HAUNT, HAIRD
Games World of Puzzles3 min read
Cryptic Crossword 2
Anagrams: The answer appears in anagrammed form, preceded or followed by a word or phrase that suggests the mixing, as in Changing times for ITEMS. Deletions: Deletions come in three varieties: beheadments, curtailments, and internal deletions. The c
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Double Cross
Answer the clues on the numbered dashes, one letter per dash. Then transfer the letters on the dashes to the correspondingly numbered squares in the puzzle grid to reveal a quotation reading from left to right. (Black squares separate words.) When yo
Games World of Puzzles1 min read
Sudomino Puzzles
This puzzle combines two perennial favorites—sudoku and dominoes. In each puzzle, you are given a set of dominoes with numbers 1 through 6, excluding doubles. Your goal is to fit them into the grid—using each domino once—so that every row, column, an
Games World of Puzzles18 min read
At Your Leisure: The 2023 Acpt Puzzles
Crossword lovers, have we got a treat for you! This issue includes a special 10-page section featuring every puzzle from the most recent American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which took place from March 31 to April 2, 2023. That includes the seven cr
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Collector’s Item
Subscribe now and receive your favorite magazine every 3 weeks! All Sunday-size puzzles with up-to-date clues. ■
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Love Cryptograms
THIS CRYPTOGRAM MAGAZINE OFFERS 300 CRYPTOGRAMS IN EVERY ISSUE AS WELL AS CRYPTO-CLANS, CODE CROSSWORDS, AND OTHER VARIETY CODE PUZZLES. ■

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