Just a quick post today to remind you that Free RPG Day is tomorrow, Saturday, June 27th!
Legitimately one of my favorite gaming-centric days of the year, Free RPG Day is all about building the RPG community. Game companies send freebies to local game shops and hobby shops all over!
And it literally helps everybody:
Local game shops get more foot traffic, hosting events and getting more eyes on all the products and services they offer.
Game companies introduce their games to new audiences, either through free adventures to try out (often being run in-house at those local hobby shops!) or through Quickstart versions of their games, giving a sample of what their game has to offer in a smaller, easily-digestible presentation.
Customers get freebies to expand their knowledge of the hobby, and often game shops run events and sales to capitalize on customer interest. Plus there’s always the chance of making new friends and discovering a new favorite game.
This year, loads of companies are taking part in the Free RPG Day festivities, although what’s available will vary from store to store.
You could find Quickstart versions for games like The Crooked Moon, Wizard Riders, Age of Vikings, Arkham Horror, Dungeons & Kittens, Vaesen, and Root, giving you a marvelous cross-section of different RPG worlds and play styles to choose from!
There could also be one-shot adventures for Cosmere RPG, Daggerheart, Everyday Heroes, Pirate Borg, Kobold Press, Marvel Multiverse RPG, Pathfinder, Starfinder, and more, offering a sample of adventure, horror, excitement, derring-do, and communal storytelling to try out!
You can visit the Free RPG Day website to find a participating store near you and to check out previews from all the companies taking part in the event.
And make sure to follow the #FreeRPGDay hashtag on Twitter and Bluesky, as lots of companies have discounts and freebies online as well!
Please keep your eyes peeled for this year’s edition of the Level 1 Anthology, offered by 9th Level Games. It’s a collection of new games by up-and-coming and established RPG creators, all centered around a particular theme. Last year’s edition was all about the end of the Wild West. This year’s edition is about Stand Up.
This project is close to my heart because I have a game featured in this year’s collection! (It’s called Pip, Pip, Cheerio: A Game of Last Words and Last Stands and it’s about remaining defiant, sometimes comedically so, in front of a firing squad.)
I’m a sucker for statistical analysis, especially when it comes to puzzles and games. In previous posts, I’ve looked at improved strategies for playing Guess Who, Hangman, and Monopoly.
And now, we’ve got solid data that might indicate the best method for tackling your daily Wordle solve.
Players in Hard Mode solve in fewer turns on average.
That seems like an contradiction in terms. Hard Mode limits letter choices and flexibility based on which letters are locked in (green), whereas Standard Mode allows you to play any letter at any time, which should offer a solving advantage.
But it doesn’t seem to, as Hard Mode solvers average more efficient solves than Standard Mode solvers.
While it’s possible this could be attributed to the pool of solvers — Hard Mode likely attracts better or more efficient solvers in general — the article theorizes that Hard Mode’s constraints push players to guess less wastefully.
This, combined with better starting-word selection — apparently vowel-heavy words like ADIEU and AUDIO are statistically less efficient! — leads to better results overall.
These are certainly helpful guidelines, but I do think an overall change in tactics can also help solvers in both Standard and Hard Mode.
The article mentions one of the dangers of Hard Mode solving, “the rhyming trap,” where you end up with most of a word in green, like _ATCH, but you’re left with all the rhyming possibilities, which could result in a worse score or even a failure to complete the day’s solve at all.
Standard Mode solvers can play a word like BLIMP, which would confirm or eliminate BATCH, LATCH, MATCH, and PATCH, covering most of the possible answers in one fell swoop.
This isn’t an option in Hard Mode, but it has led to players attacking the puzzle in reverse, trying to eliminate letters early, rather than trying to confirm letters early.
After all, if you go vowel-heavy and confirm, say, two letters, that’s two spots taken up in every single guess. But if you go one vowel at a time and burn through consonants with words like CHILD or MONTH, you whittle down the alphabet quicker. (I remember David Kwong writing about this technique in his email newsletter a while back.)
It’s interesting to have actual data to examine, even if the data seems counterintuitive at the start.
It’s certainly not as straightforward as the connection between the decrease in pirate populations and the rise of global warming…
Of course, if you want the answers the fastest way possible, you could just do what I did last week and get the next day’s Wordle spoiled for you by Google AI.
Yeah.
You see, my mother solves Wordle every day and keeps track of her results on her calendar. Every word, every number of guesses. It’s her ritual and I respect that.
But on Thursday of last week, she realized she hadn’t written down the previous few days’ words and results. And we are completionists, both of us, so around 8 PM that night, I did a quick Google search of the week’s answer words to help her out.
And lo and behold, the stupid Google AI told me Friday’s word ahead of time.
Yes, I suppose it is my fault for not typing “-AI” into the search bar. (And unfortunately, as entertaining as it is to type “shut the f*ck up bot” into the search bar and see the AI’s momentary contrition, that only lasts a few searches at most before it returns.)
But it also sucks that this was a possibility at all. I genuinely didn’t think I’d be spoiling the next day’s solve for myself with a casual search of the week’s words.
Did you learn anything from the NYT’s deep-dive into Wordle solving statistics, fellow solver, or do you already have your starting word of choice that you’ll be sticking with? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.
2026 continues to be a year of big anniversaries in the world of puzzles. Yesterday marked the 155th birthday of Arthur Wynne, the creator of the first modern crossword puzzle in 1913.
And today marks twenty years since the Wordplay documentary first hit theaters.
The documentary chronicled the 2005 edition of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, bringing national attention to the tournament (and inspiring a Simpsons episode about crosswords).
Wordplay introduced a wider audience to several famous names in crossword tournament circles, like Ellen Ripstein, Trip Payne, Tyler Hinman, Jon Delfin, and Al Sanders, as well as highlighting many celebrity crossword solvers like Jon Stewart, Ken Burns, Bill Clinton, and more.
And the impact Wordplay had on the tournament itself, and interest in crosswords in general, cannot be overstated.
Wordplay sparked a 40% increase in attendance the year after it aired, and the growing interest in the yearly event caused the tournament to actually change locations from the Stamford Marriott to a larger venue in New York City for 7 years.
And it’s delightfully apropos that this year marked the tournament’s last year in Stamford, once again moving to a larger venue (in Philadelphia this time!) in order to accommodate increased attendance. Synchronicity!
There was even a song for the documentary…
I think my favorite part of the documentary was Will Shortz reading some critical responses (aka hate mail) in good spirits, though getting a glimpse into the creative process of Merl Reagle was also a treat.
Over the last twenty years, Wordplay has gone from introducing many people to crosswords and tournament solving to a time capsule of a particular era in puzzles.
A time when the hundredth anniversary of the crossword hadn’t arrived. A time before crosswords on The Simpsons, before online tournaments and apps like Daily Pop Crosswords or Puzzmo. A time when crosswords were still weirdly considered a niche interest, despite the tens of millions of people solving them every day.
And we can thank Wordplay for helping welcome a new generation of solvers to our puzzly world.
In honor of the anniversary, I’ve got a puzzle for you!
I had the idea for the theme while writing this post and thinking about puzzle history, and I hope you enjoy.
How did you find your way to crossword solving, fellow puzzlers? Was Wordplay your gateway, or was it a friend or a family member? Or did you simply accept the challenge of a grid in your local paper on a whim one day?
Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.
It’s time, once again, for me to sit down and try my hand at some tournament-style puzzles. This week, it was the puzzles from this past weekend’s Westwords Crossword Tournament.
Given the talent involved amongst the organizers and constructors, as well as the previous year’s banger crop of puzzles, I had high expectations, and I was not disappointed.
So let’s put those puzzles under the microscope and see what’s what!
Puzzle #1: Western Expansionby Andrea Carla Michaels & Mark Axel
The tournament began with this 15x grid where the word WEST appeared in each theme entry, but the letters were spread further apart with each subsequent answer, offering solvers the Western Expansion promised in the title.
This was a great opener with a fun, accessible theme and a very smooth solve. The vocabulary was playful and the puzzle had great Monday energy. My only quibble was the repetition of YOU in the crossing entries I GOT YOU and WE STILL LOVE YOU, but that’s more of a personal preference than any fault with the construction.
Interesting grid entries included BAD LUCK, HIS LOSS, E-CLASS, and SOBFEST, and my favorite clues were “Duct tape has dozens of these” for USES and “Beatles song about an age that Paul is nearly 20 years past” for WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR.
Puzzle #2: Make It Rainby Sophia Maymudes
The second tournament puzzle was a freestyle 15x absolutely loaded with trivia about the West Coast and western cities, as well as two grid-spanning entries about the Pacific Northwest in particular (BIGFOOT SIGHTING and SEATTLE SOUNDERS).
I found the difficulty to be pretty much on par with the first puzzle of the tournament, and I was impressed with Sophia’s clean layout, construction, and delightful grid fill. (The across pairing of MADE PROUD and IMMODESTY was a fun little visual Easter Egg as well.)
Interesting grid entries included LA GEAR, ARMAGEDDON, DIOGENES, and KATNISS, and my favorite clues were ‘Word preceding “dash” or “bracelet”‘ for SLAP and “Quality that’s neither very demure nor very mindful” for IMMODESTY.
Puzzle #3: Pride of Placeby Zhou Zhang and Mallory Montgomery
This 18×17 grid was the largest of the tournament (though Puzzle #5 came close), and the theme centered around common phrases where a W was replaced with a B, as explained by the revealer WESTCOASTBESTCOAST (which is a nice nod to both the tournament’s setting and the fantastic URL for the Westwords website, westwordsbestwords.com).
The puckish wordplay (particularly with READ ‘EM AND BEEP) made this midpoint puzzle of the tournament a treat. I also liked the synchronicity of HASTA LA VISTA and LEAVE NO TRACE reading down, continuing the unofficial theme of related fill entries in grids.
Interesting grid entries included DOG DAD, ODAWA, JOIN US, MALORT, and TREBEK, and my favorite clues were “Fairy tale girl who gets a witch baked?” for GRETEL, “Super-duper promise” for VOW, “Lawless heroine?” for XENA, “Hue grant?” for DYE JOB, and “They were celebrated 35 days ago” for MOMS. So many great clues in this one!
I predicted last year that Puzzle #4 in Westwords could build a similar reputation to the dreaded Puzzle #5 at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and this year’s Puzzle #4 understood its instructions perfectly.
This 16×15 grid was the toughest of the tournament. Fault lines ran throughout the grid, causing letters to drop out of many of the down entries. These SHAKEUPS related to the shifting of TECTONIC PLATES — our two revealers in the grid! — not only caused PLATE to be removed from those aforementioned down entries, but they also made the across entry ABOVE each fault line scramble/anagram itself into another word!
There was so much going on with this grid, and despite the fault lines, it all fit together seamlessly. (The down words that lost letters STILL spelled actual words.) It was a diabolical bit of crossword construction, to be sure!
Between the down entries with letters from PLATE removed and the scrambled entries across, there was a lot of “I KNOW this is the right answer, but it doesn’t fit” brain scramble as I was solving, heh. But it was an immensely fun challenge to puzzle out.
Interesting grid entries included PIXIE CUT, ANOMALIES, and DRIP PAN, and my favorite clues were “Not exactly a long look” for PIXIE CUT and “Some docs” for IDS.
Puzzle #5: Play Groundsby Sarah Sinclair
After the deviousness of Puzzle #4, and with the freestyle final puzzle looming, Puzzle #5 was a lighter, breezier solve, but one that still managed to pack this 18×15 grid with five punnily-clued entries tied to West Coast landmarks.
And that “play”-ful aspect continued throughout the cluing. We had pop culture trivia, tongue-in-cheek jabs at pop culture and crosswordese, and more facts and details germane to the tournament’s setting. Sinclair went all out with the cluing in this one.
Interesting grid entries included OH HELL NO, KOOPA, SO LONG, and ADORBS, and my favorite clues were “Concave decagon, more familiarly” for STAR, “Knd f lttr mssng frm ths cl” for VOWEL, and “Something read by a cleric… that becomes something read by a clairvoyant when a letter is removed” for PSALM.
Puzzle #6: Finalby Byron Walden
The final puzzle for the tournament boasts a different set of clues for each of the divisions — Beach and Mountain — and Byron constructed a 15x puzzle with smooth fill, cunning cluing, and great variety in vocabulary. This was a Byron Walden special, for sure.
Both the Beach and Mountain versions of the puzzle had kickass clues (including a Reginald VelJohnson reference), and either version would made for a suitable challenge for the tournament’s finalists. I’m glad I didn’t have to try to puzzle this one out in front of a crowd!
Interesting grid entries included BUDDY SYSTEM, STANDING O, HOG WILD, and DAIKONS.
As for favorite clues, here’s a list:
BEACH: “Company with a Breakout hit?” for ATARI BEACH: “Unruly way to go” for HOG WILD BEACH: “Poly relative” for MULTI BEACH: The Galatea pairing of “Water-dwelling divinity such as Galatea” for SEA NYMPH and “Solar system body such as Galatea” for MOON MOUNTAIN: “They’re not sold on the Sabbath” for AGNOSTICS MOUNTAIN: “Alaska is 120 times its size: abbr.” for CONN MOUNTAIN: “Set of safety matches” for BUDDY SYSTEM MOUNTAIN: “Past perfect mood?” for NOSTAGIA MOUNTAIN: “Avon calling?” for BARD
There were genuinely too many to list. Between this one, Puzzle #3, and Puzzle #5, solvers were absolutely spoiled with great cluing this year.
Westwords goes from strength to strength with another standout year of puzzles. The bar is SO HIGH for tournament puzzles these days, and the 2026 Westwords constructors stepped up big time. The creativity was there, the trivia was flowing, and the cluing was fantastic.
We got several different puzzles playing on the Westwords / West Coast branding, and every puzzle felt like it had its own identity and voice, which is not always the case with tournament puzzles as a whole.
If you’ve never tackled tournament-style puzzling before, I would highly recommend giving Westwords a try. It gets you into the flow of solving with the first few puzzles, punches you in the face with a proper challenge, then eases you back into it before the final. It’s a great time.
I can’t wait to see what they cook up for us next year!
Did you attempt this year’s Westwords tournament puzzles, fellow solver? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.
There are always worthwhile charitable efforts going on in the world of puzzles and games, and that’s true in the roleplaying game community as well.
Dozens of roleplaying game companies and content creators have partnered to create charity bundles in support of the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s the Gayming with Pride initiative, organized through DriveThruRPG!
All proceeds from Bundle #1 support Outright International, a team that works to document and amplify awareness of human rights violations against the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as advocating for inclusion, equality, and communication globally between members of the community.
All proceeds from Bundle #2 support Tabletop Gaymers, a nonprofit that champions the community in public spaces, handing out free ribbons (identifying yourself by your pronouns, as an ally, or as a gaymer) at conventions, while also promoting discussion, inclusion, acceptance, and joy through gaming and self-identification.
A lot of these donated games and supplements are being shared at 90% off, so these companies are putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to supporting this cause.
9th Level Games, Renegade Game Studios, Warhammer, Doctor Who, Pirate Borg, and more are represented in this charity effort, showing that love and support for the LGBTQIA+ community spans all genres, worlds, and interests.
A lot of companies this year aren’t even engaging in their usual half-hearted rainbow-washing branding, let alone ACTUALLY working to support and bolster the cause of the LGBTQIA+ community.
So it’s awesome to see RPG companies once again stepping up in solidarity with friends, loved ones, coworkers, and strangers in the community whose voices deserve to be heard.
Are there other charity efforts going on in puzzles and games that I’ve missed? Let me know and I’ll happily shout them out in the blog and try my best to help raise awareness.
Yes, I know this is the New Yorker’s iconography, but sadly this is also the default in some people’s minds for who constructs and who solves the NYT crossword, and it’s awesome we’re taking steps to change that…
The New York Times Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship provides mentorship and support for constructors whose backgrounds and perspectives could be better reflected in our puzzles. We want our puzzles to reflect the experiences of as many people as possible, which means publishing work that displays a wide range of cultural reference points, language usage and communities.
This mentorship gives aspiring constructors (ones who haven’t yet been published by NYT) the opportunity for three months of instruction, advice, and insight from one of the NYT puzzle editors. It’s an incredibly talented list of people to learn from: Sam Ezersky, Wyna Liu, Tracy Bennett, Christina Iverson, Joel Fagliano, and Ian Livengood.
It’s open to constructors seeking guidance on either themed or unthemed crosswords, with specific guidelines when you apply:
If you’d like to work on a themed puzzle during the fellowship, you will need a theme set with theme clues provided. A tentative grid with theme answers placed is helpful.
If you’d like to work on a themeless puzzle, you will need to provide one of the following: a 7×7 grid with clues, a 15×15 grid with clues or a partly filled 15×15 grid with clues.
Good luck to everyone submitting! The world of crosswords is a more interesting, more immersive place when everyone is represented, and opportunities like this make both constructors AND outlets better.
PuzzCulture 