Schwinn Shin
Raddle makes the news
Leen Yassine
Leen Yassine of Block Club Chicago wrote an article about yours truly and Raddle. Welcome to all the new subscribers who read about me there. Thanks to the attention, Raddle got a nice bump in traffic. We're very close to averaging 10,000 players a day!
Yo dawg, I heard you like puzzles…
Raddle wasn't puzzly enough, I guess, so last week I introduced the first Mystery Theme week. For each of five Raddles, there was a one-word hidden theme. (See the pic below, or visit the archive, if you'd like to give it a shot.) 536 people submitted the right answer!
The submission form gave folks a chance to send me notes about their love of the game. I'd like to share a few of my favorites:
I'm a huge Raddle fan. Every day at work (I'm a waitress) I write down the raddle ladder and all the clues. During down time, I pull my order book out of my apron and try to solve a little. It's fun and much harder when you don't get the instant feedback of submitting a word!
Thank you for making this puzzle, it's become a wonderful little part of each morning for me :) <3
Our bartender at a local bar in wicker park turned us on to this and now we have a bunch of the regulars hovered over a laptop yelling out guesses.
We’re a married couple who race against each other every morning. Thanks for making this game!
I think I prefer the non-mystery themes, but I think it’s more important that you’re building something *you* enjoy, because that joy percolates through.
I play it nearly every day, and have even roped my friend! We routinely send each other our solved puzzle achievements. We aren't able to see each other in person much due to distance, so your puzzle has become a lovely way for us to stay connected.
This is great! Thanks! Am going to share with my dad who is a wordsmith but struggling with early dementia. Thank you!
Can I say, that you making the archives immediately accessible is one of the greatest humanitarian gestures ever offered to neuro-spicy community!!
And finally, my favorite, because I often make the same kind of slip-up when talking about my own game:
Wordle is fantastic, and the mystery theme was a perfect level of difficulty. Keep up the great work, Sandy!
The next Mystery Theme will be in a couple of weeks. I'm aiming for a pace of once every four themes or so. Make sure you're subscribed to the Raddle mailing list to learn when they appear.
Latest Puzzler
Every month I post a new bite-sized puzzle. Here's the latest one:
Think of a part of the body near the top. Remove every other letter and you'll get a part of your body at the bottom. What parts are these?
Submit your answer here 🗳Sudokuvania
Sudokuvania is a wild blend of sudoku logic and Metroidvania game design, i.e. a game based on world exploration, item collection, leveling up and defeating bosses. As you solve parts of this game, different sections of the grid/map open up, revealing new puzzles and new logic. I've never seen anything like it. It's pretty huge — 40x50 — so it's best played on desktop.
Dropout ARG
It’s Been Here the Whole Time: The Boy Who Cried “Dropout ARG”
Game Changer, one of the best things to exist on TV/online, is built on the premise of subverting your — and its contestants' — expectations. You can never be sure you know the rules of the game. Which is why it felt like fertile territory for an ARG. For the first six seasons, all of the many things that seemed like clues turned out to just be noise. But in the seventh season, which just wrapped, the fans' dedication was rewarded. Michael Andersen lays out the details in this article.
If you haven't subscribed to Dropout yet, you have seven seasons of Game Changer — and several more of Make Some Noise — to make it worth well more than the price of admission,
International Puzzle Party makes The Times
Read about Jerry Slocum, a 94-year-old collector of physical puzzles, who has been hosting his International Puzzle Party since 1978. The first party had just 10 participants. Now it's in the hundreds. His collection is housed at Indiana University, which is where the National Puzzlers' League convention is being held next year. (It's not too late to sign up and join us there!)
Letterage
A new word game has joined the chat. Letterage challenges you to make words out of at least three given letters. Using letters more than once gets you more points: for example, the letters C, T, N, E, and O can become CONTENT and CONNECT, which score higher than shorter words like CENT or TEN. Each additional occurrence of a letter garners +1 point while pangrams get you +7.
Gisnep
And here's one more. Gisnep is a daily dropquote puzzle by David Friedman aka Ironic Sans. It's been live for about a year, and David wrote a really deep dive into how it's doing here. Wondering what the name means, as I was? Here's the answer.
Vampires @ Demo Brewery
Wednesday, September 24 @ 6:30 PM
Chicagoans: I'm running my latest tabletop puzzle game, Tales from the Crypto, about a company of vampires, next Wednesday, September 24 @ Demo Brewery in Ravenswood. Tickets for a team of 4 people are $160, and that includes a drink ticket for every player. There are only 6 tables available for this one. Hope to see you there.
Solution to the July Puzzler
Think of a five-letter animal. Change one letter to get an activity that the animal can help you achieve. Or, change a different letter to get an object often employed in that activity. (Hint: both the activity and object involve counts.) What words are these?