Games World of Puzzles

Welcome to the August issue of GAMES WORLD OF PUZZLES. At press time, much of the U.S. was still under quarantine due to COVID-19. But that hasn’t stopped gamers and puzzlers from getting their fix—often in ingenious ways. A quick flip through these

Editor in Chief Janis Weiner Senior Editor Jennifer Orehowsky Editor Raymond Simon Contributing Editors Scott Appel, Thomas L. McDonald, Jonathan Schmalzbach Supporting Players Gabrielle Fabioneri, Joel Nanni Email Address games@kappapublishing.com S

In each of the three puzzles below, place the answer to clue 1 in its place in the diagram, one letter per square. The answer to clue 2 contains the rearranged letters of the first answer except one. Insert the dropped letter into the space at the le

If you’ve got a couple of spare moments, here’s a quick mental workout. In the puzzle below, fill in the missing letter in each of the words; at first there may appear to be several choices. But select your letters carefully, because the next step is

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

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

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

www.conceptispuzzles.com 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 yo

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 49,

A Tom Swifty is a line of dialogue that ends in a whimsically appropriate adverb. For example, “Let’s not cut the Valentine,” Tom agreed wholeheartedly. Awful, isn’t it? See if you can complete the 17 Tom Swifties below with the appropriate adverbs.

Each Down answer in this variety cryptic crossword is six letters long. It may begin in any of the six squares in its correspondingly lettered column; it then continues to the bottom of the diagram and, if necessary, resumes at the top (of the same c

This Japanese puzzle genre, also known as Goishi Hiroi, dates back at least as far as the 14th century, when it may have originated as a kind of bar bet. The goal is simple: Given an arrangement of stones on the intersections of a grid such as a go b

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