I'm bad at Really Bad Chess...
November 5, 2023 5:09 PM Subscribe
Puzzmo is webgame site that I came across somewhere on the Internet. I was delighted at the prospect of having to solve a puzzle in order to get access to the site at this time! Turns out I'm really bad at Really Bad Chess but got in anyway.
Crosswords, Typeshift, Really Bad Chess, and, to my delight, SpellTower, are among the games you can play at the site. As someone who used to play the app version of SpellTower, it was awesome to see this among the possible games available.
(Note: Subscriptions are available, but not required.)
What's your favourite game?
Crosswords, Typeshift, Really Bad Chess, and, to my delight, SpellTower, are among the games you can play at the site. As someone who used to play the app version of SpellTower, it was awesome to see this among the possible games available.
(Note: Subscriptions are available, but not required.)
What's your favourite game?
Uh sorry they're collecting my home address. I was raised on cyber security, this seems bad.
posted by constraint at 5:32 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by constraint at 5:32 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
constraint: Zach Gage is ok. They want your real address to stop it being farmed for keys.
posted by aspo at 5:38 PM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by aspo at 5:38 PM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
There are no keys left but you can solve today’s puzzle for fun
Like a sucker.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:46 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Puzzmo is great, I love really bad chess so much that I'm a paid subscriber.
If you've wanted to boycott the NYT but stayed around for the puzzles it's a brilliant alternative.
posted by zymil at 6:40 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
If you've wanted to boycott the NYT but stayed around for the puzzles it's a brilliant alternative.
posted by zymil at 6:40 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I gave them a non-US address. They emailed me a PDF instead. That could be a route for the security conscious.
posted by Magnakai at 6:52 PM on November 5, 2023
posted by Magnakai at 6:52 PM on November 5, 2023
I never got asked for my address. Could be that I'm Canadian?
posted by juliebug at 7:48 PM on November 5, 2023
posted by juliebug at 7:48 PM on November 5, 2023
I suspect part of why they want the physical addresses is because -- despite the indie pedigree -- the site is owned by newspaper conglomerate Hearst. (And it's a little weird how little the site acknowledges that. This is totally a newspaper rival making a bid for that Wordle/NYTimesCrossword shine.) Might also explain why they're apparently only interested in U.S. addresses (if the additional cost of postage isn't reason enough).
I've been playing three out of five of the free daily puzzles for the last week or so. The whole thing is pretty slick, but...nothing too stunning -- though you might find it more stunning if you haven't had your fill of SpellTower ages ago or if you're more interested in Chess than I am. They've implemented a few novel things to make their (mid-sized) crosswords more accessible to a new audience (all optional: dividing lines for multiword answers, an additional "hint" clue you can request for any primary clue, possibly something else I'm forgetting), and each crossword is accompanied by friendly little writeup by the grid's creator. The whole thing is really cute and friendly.
Each day you also get to see a little news report about the previous day's puzzles, pointing out which crossword clue had the most people asking for a hint, naming some top scorers, pointing out if you'd surpassed your previous best on one of various metrics on any of the puzzles.
A paid subscription ($40/yr, temporarily with a free additional year to gift to someone else) gets you a couple more daily puzzles (a harder version of one of the regulars, plus an "experimental" puzzle that I think might eventually be in contention for being added to the regular rotation), plus access to leaderboards, the archive of prior puzzles, and a wider choice of avatar options. Or for a limited time you can buy a lifetime subscription for not much more than a regular yearly one ($55, but that number goes up as more people buy it).
Lastly, it looks like I have access codes that would let two people skip the race to be one of the first 500 daily solvers of the gateway puzzle. Feel free to memail me if you want one of them, but be warned: 1) they'll still ask for a physical address (at least if you're in the U.S.), and 2) the race to get access in the first place was kind of the most engaging aspect of the whole thing so far, so you'd be robbing yourself of that.
posted by nobody at 8:11 PM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
I've been playing three out of five of the free daily puzzles for the last week or so. The whole thing is pretty slick, but...nothing too stunning -- though you might find it more stunning if you haven't had your fill of SpellTower ages ago or if you're more interested in Chess than I am. They've implemented a few novel things to make their (mid-sized) crosswords more accessible to a new audience (all optional: dividing lines for multiword answers, an additional "hint" clue you can request for any primary clue, possibly something else I'm forgetting), and each crossword is accompanied by friendly little writeup by the grid's creator. The whole thing is really cute and friendly.
Each day you also get to see a little news report about the previous day's puzzles, pointing out which crossword clue had the most people asking for a hint, naming some top scorers, pointing out if you'd surpassed your previous best on one of various metrics on any of the puzzles.
A paid subscription ($40/yr, temporarily with a free additional year to gift to someone else) gets you a couple more daily puzzles (a harder version of one of the regulars, plus an "experimental" puzzle that I think might eventually be in contention for being added to the regular rotation), plus access to leaderboards, the archive of prior puzzles, and a wider choice of avatar options. Or for a limited time you can buy a lifetime subscription for not much more than a regular yearly one ($55, but that number goes up as more people buy it).
Lastly, it looks like I have access codes that would let two people skip the race to be one of the first 500 daily solvers of the gateway puzzle. Feel free to memail me if you want one of them, but be warned: 1) they'll still ask for a physical address (at least if you're in the U.S.), and 2) the race to get access in the first place was kind of the most engaging aspect of the whole thing so far, so you'd be robbing yourself of that.
posted by nobody at 8:11 PM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
One more thought: I wonder if gating off the leaderboards was a mistake. I could see myself getting more drawn in by the whole thing if I could see the histogram of scores/times after completing each puzzle (instead of the blur they show to non-subscribers).
And then I wonder if I would have been tempted to buy a lifetime subscription if access to those histograms otherwise only lasted the first week or two. (On the other hand, I'd guess a larger number of people might drop the daily habit completely once they saw something they had access to was being taken away. That unfriendly feeling is probably a good reason to not have gone this route.)
posted by nobody at 8:19 PM on November 5, 2023
And then I wonder if I would have been tempted to buy a lifetime subscription if access to those histograms otherwise only lasted the first week or two. (On the other hand, I'd guess a larger number of people might drop the daily habit completely once they saw something they had access to was being taken away. That unfriendly feeling is probably a good reason to not have gone this route.)
posted by nobody at 8:19 PM on November 5, 2023
Being (a) in Australia, so the Race To The 500 will likely be over while I'm still in bed and (b) actually being bad at chess because I've only ever played it once and even now don't really remember how it works, I doubt I'd ever get one of those keys.
Is the entry puzzle always chess-based?
posted by creatrixtiara at 10:00 PM on November 5, 2023
Is the entry puzzle always chess-based?
posted by creatrixtiara at 10:00 PM on November 5, 2023
Is the entry puzzle always chess-based?
No, it seems to rotate from among a series of Zach Gage's previous works.
posted by pwnguin at 10:33 PM on November 5, 2023
No, it seems to rotate from among a series of Zach Gage's previous works.
posted by pwnguin at 10:33 PM on November 5, 2023
Is the entry puzzle always chess-based?
It cycles between at least four different puzzletypes: the chess puzzle that you've seen, SpellTower (wordsearch game with disappearing/falling letters and a score threshold for success), Flipart (a new spatial reasoning puzzletype: spin shapes so none overlap), and Typeshift (a new word puzzletype: spin tumblers to pick one letter per column, trying to make multiple words and eventually use all available letters in at least one word).
And each day's puzzle is posted at a different time of day, presumably to solve the timezone problem (but whether any have gone out at Australia-friendly times, I don't know) , but also to encourage you to sign up for the email list, which'll notify you each day five minutes before other channels' notifications go out. (The three notification emails I received before finally being in the right place at the right time were at around 11am, 2pm, and 12pm EDT.)
posted by nobody at 10:36 PM on November 5, 2023
It cycles between at least four different puzzletypes: the chess puzzle that you've seen, SpellTower (wordsearch game with disappearing/falling letters and a score threshold for success), Flipart (a new spatial reasoning puzzletype: spin shapes so none overlap), and Typeshift (a new word puzzletype: spin tumblers to pick one letter per column, trying to make multiple words and eventually use all available letters in at least one word).
And each day's puzzle is posted at a different time of day, presumably to solve the timezone problem (but whether any have gone out at Australia-friendly times, I don't know) , but also to encourage you to sign up for the email list, which'll notify you each day five minutes before other channels' notifications go out. (The three notification emails I received before finally being in the right place at the right time were at around 11am, 2pm, and 12pm EDT.)
posted by nobody at 10:36 PM on November 5, 2023
Wait, Typeshift isn't new -- I'd just missed it (or forgotten about it) from 2017 -- but I think Flipart is new.
posted by nobody at 10:39 PM on November 5, 2023
posted by nobody at 10:39 PM on November 5, 2023
Don't fret, even grandmasters have difficulty playing really bad chess.
posted by fairmettle at 12:22 AM on November 6, 2023
posted by fairmettle at 12:22 AM on November 6, 2023
I'm gonna go a bit further and say that Zach Gage isn't quite okay. Is a bit sub-okay, really.
I've played with it a bit. All of the crosswords seem to assume that solvers have intimate knowledge of the minutiae of American life (a recent one had eight separate clues that were on USA-specific phenomena) - the personality of them is nice but the cultural imperialism of it all is rank so left a sour taste for me, and "be American" being a secret theme for every puzzle just gets boring. Really Bad Chess is fun for me but has its own app. The other puzzles are generic stuff you can find anywhere.
I wouldn't put money down on this.
posted by aosher at 1:42 AM on November 6, 2023
I've played with it a bit. All of the crosswords seem to assume that solvers have intimate knowledge of the minutiae of American life (a recent one had eight separate clues that were on USA-specific phenomena) - the personality of them is nice but the cultural imperialism of it all is rank so left a sour taste for me, and "be American" being a secret theme for every puzzle just gets boring. Really Bad Chess is fun for me but has its own app. The other puzzles are generic stuff you can find anywhere.
I wouldn't put money down on this.
posted by aosher at 1:42 AM on November 6, 2023
Sad that I saw this too late for that day's puzzle. Happy that I mated in 5.
posted by parliboy at 5:55 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by parliboy at 5:55 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've got three Kings and my opponent has none. How am I supposed to checkmate that? The restart button just gives me the same board again.
posted by achrise at 6:29 AM on November 6, 2023
posted by achrise at 6:29 AM on November 6, 2023
There's only one King on each side. There may be multiple Queens however. Perhaps you are confusing the two pieces?
Really Bad Chess isn't about spending too much time in development. All those bishops out front usually create the chance for a quick strike, which you also have to defend against. You also want to get your Queens, usually in the back row, moving out as soon as possible.
posted by vacapinta at 6:53 AM on November 6, 2023
Really Bad Chess isn't about spending too much time in development. All those bishops out front usually create the chance for a quick strike, which you also have to defend against. You also want to get your Queens, usually in the back row, moving out as soon as possible.
posted by vacapinta at 6:53 AM on November 6, 2023
By the way, I was never asked for an address. After solving the puzzle it immediately gave me a PDF to download. The PDF contained yet another, easy, puzzle and that generated an access code. Perhaps it detected my (outside US) IP?
posted by vacapinta at 7:00 AM on November 6, 2023
posted by vacapinta at 7:00 AM on November 6, 2023
Hearst makes its gaming move, in a bid for the Wordle and crossword crowd (Oct 20, 2023). Covers the launch but with a focus on Hearst's involvement. I appreciate nobody pointing out the association; I'd thought this was an indie project.
To be clear I think this association is merely interesting, not nefarious. I don't think there's anything wrong with a media company launching a puzzle site. It's great to have funding and I appreciate Gage is putting his personal brand and spin on it to make it seem more friendly than corporate.
posted by Nelson at 7:33 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
To be clear I think this association is merely interesting, not nefarious. I don't think there's anything wrong with a media company launching a puzzle site. It's great to have funding and I appreciate Gage is putting his personal brand and spin on it to make it seem more friendly than corporate.
posted by Nelson at 7:33 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
If there's nothing wrong with a media company being involved, why would anyone try to make it seem non-corporate?
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:42 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:42 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
You're right, not a chess player but the icons seem backwards and the UI didn't want to seem to let me lose a Queen, which I thought was a King.
posted by achrise at 7:48 AM on November 6, 2023
posted by achrise at 7:48 AM on November 6, 2023
I'm a big fan of Zach Gage's games, but, as a bid for the Wordle and crossword crowd, especially once backed by a multi-billion-dollar media company, this all seems a bit underwhelming.
Wordle seems like the kind of viral pandemic perfect storm/black swan/choose-your-own-business-school-cliché that may not happen again.
The NYT crosswords are, at least for people in their target audience, a best-in-class product, and they seem more serious about building their Games brand than the people behind Puzzmo.
(None of this is to say that I won't play these puzzles, because I will, but I've already paid for TypeShift and SpellTower once, and I don't see myself paying for a Puzzmo subscription.)
posted by box at 8:01 AM on November 6, 2023
Wordle seems like the kind of viral pandemic perfect storm/black swan/choose-your-own-business-school-cliché that may not happen again.
The NYT crosswords are, at least for people in their target audience, a best-in-class product, and they seem more serious about building their Games brand than the people behind Puzzmo.
(None of this is to say that I won't play these puzzles, because I will, but I've already paid for TypeShift and SpellTower once, and I don't see myself paying for a Puzzmo subscription.)
posted by box at 8:01 AM on November 6, 2023
The Metafilter Brigades are so primed to hate anything capitalist that I'm a little sorry to have shared the link about Hearst's involvement. Puzzmo doesn't make a secret of it, it's in the terms of service and privacy notice. It's just not part of the branding.
There could be lots of reasons, my guess is mostly it's that Zach Gage is a stronger brand for a puzzle site. Hearst doesn't blazon their name across the many newspapers they own either. I also feel that the site really is Gage's, it looks very personal. That's good! The Puzzmo Manifesto is also worth a read. My guess is they sincerely intend to stay with this and it will be a nice place to play puzzles, at least for a few years.
Gage got to spend two years making this site and judging by the quality of it, he had a fair amount of help. Orta Therox, among others. Someone's got to pay for that.
The downside is potential enshittification; the investors will want some return. They're starting with a $40 annual subscription, that seems like a pretty square deal. What are the ads like right now? They're clearly planning them, just like every other major web property, are they already showing ads? Are they intrusive?
posted by Nelson at 8:18 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
There could be lots of reasons, my guess is mostly it's that Zach Gage is a stronger brand for a puzzle site. Hearst doesn't blazon their name across the many newspapers they own either. I also feel that the site really is Gage's, it looks very personal. That's good! The Puzzmo Manifesto is also worth a read. My guess is they sincerely intend to stay with this and it will be a nice place to play puzzles, at least for a few years.
Gage got to spend two years making this site and judging by the quality of it, he had a fair amount of help. Orta Therox, among others. Someone's got to pay for that.
The downside is potential enshittification; the investors will want some return. They're starting with a $40 annual subscription, that seems like a pretty square deal. What are the ads like right now? They're clearly planning them, just like every other major web property, are they already showing ads? Are they intrusive?
posted by Nelson at 8:18 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Gage talks about Hearst in this Reddit discussion.
The first is, thus far, it has been amazing working with Hearst and we are granted a huge amount of autonomy while also being afforded a huge amount of support. ...Orta also responded to the same question about Hearst:
The great thing about working with a partner like Hearst is that we are not a startup. Which means we're trying to build an awesome thing, that people pay us a fair amount for, that can be run forever. ...
I think our biggest tech problem is going to be figuring out how to make a cute indie project scale to run at giant media conglomerate size. ... We're somewhere in-between at the moment, and trying to figure out how to safely get to the point where we can handle the sort of server traffic which can come from working within an existing massive ecosystem.In another reply Gage says
They came in during our development and were interested in supporting the project. They have so far been an amazing supporter and have been honestly kind of a joy to work with. Their support has been great, and they have left the vision for the site itself to me and the team. We've been able to do some big things that we previously wouldn't have been able to do (like the prelaunch mailers) and we're going to be rolling out some other extremely cool very stuff soon with them.posted by Nelson at 8:39 AM on November 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've been in and playing for 2 weeks. I like the puzzles, I like daily puzzles, I went ahead and got the lifetime membership which sounds like it's a few bucks more expensive now. I don't care about giving them my address or that it's owned by a media company, I just like puzzles. I feel there are bigger problems in the world than who gets a few cents because I enjoyed a crossword puzzle. My life is uncomplicated in that way I guess. Bless. I have a friend link if anyone wants in.
posted by phunniemee at 9:30 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 9:30 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
I love Gage's Knotwords, but don't care for SpellTower (it's just boggle), or really bad chess (almost any modern board game is better than chess), or TypeShift (you just turn the crank and the puzzle solves itself). Somehow I have yet to see one of the crosswords. Nonetheless, I signed up just to see if maybe there's something more interesting inside. I also contacted them to see if they maybe wanted to feature one of mine, but of course got no reply -- I bet they are pretty busy right now. I didn't send them Middles, since it wasn't quite ready then, and they tend to favor things that you can just sort of grind at until you solve.
posted by novalis_dt at 10:02 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by novalis_dt at 10:02 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
New puzzle is up. Friend links here and there, if you're quick. I assume the "You've got a very nice friend!" header will go away as each one is used up.
posted by delfin at 11:23 AM on November 6, 2023
posted by delfin at 11:23 AM on November 6, 2023
I don't see myself paying for a Puzzmo subscription.
Update: I just bought a lifetime subscription.
posted by box at 11:57 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
Update: I just bought a lifetime subscription.
posted by box at 11:57 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm so desperate for a non New York Times way to play games every day. Once I swore never to give them another dollar for all their TERFyness, I've been looking for something and this, hopefully, will be it??
posted by fillsthepews at 12:42 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by fillsthepews at 12:42 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I got the email about new keys 5 hours ago and they're already gone!
posted by jy4m at 4:25 PM on November 6, 2023
posted by jy4m at 4:25 PM on November 6, 2023
Just got a key via email yesterday afternoon (they're supposed to be sending me one via snail mail, but I haven't received it yet) and spent some time looking around the site.
I don't know if there's a true NYT puzzle-killer among the initial menagerie, although I've developed enough of a fondness for Really Bad Chess just in trying to nail one of those keys that I downloaded the app for practice.
(FYI, it behooves you to "git gud" at RBC because that's the one where the 500 daily keys get doled out the slowest. It's taught me more about playing fast/aggressive chess than anything else I've played in my life.)
I'm hoping to see a somewhat tougher incarnation of their crosswords, because the two dailies I've done so far feel pretty simple even compared to NYT's Mon/Tues puzzles. Reserving final judgment until I've played a full week, but for now I think I'm okay with playing for free until there's a little more challenge/variety.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2023
I don't know if there's a true NYT puzzle-killer among the initial menagerie, although I've developed enough of a fondness for Really Bad Chess just in trying to nail one of those keys that I downloaded the app for practice.
(FYI, it behooves you to "git gud" at RBC because that's the one where the 500 daily keys get doled out the slowest. It's taught me more about playing fast/aggressive chess than anything else I've played in my life.)
I'm hoping to see a somewhat tougher incarnation of their crosswords, because the two dailies I've done so far feel pretty simple even compared to NYT's Mon/Tues puzzles. Reserving final judgment until I've played a full week, but for now I think I'm okay with playing for free until there's a little more challenge/variety.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2023
I've spent the last few days getting excited when I receive the email saying the codes are about to go live only for them all to have gone by the time I get there!!!
posted by lloyder at 5:08 AM on November 8, 2023
posted by lloyder at 5:08 AM on November 8, 2023
I still have two passes to give out, if anyone's gotten sick of trying their hand at the happen-to-check-your-email-within-five-minutes-of-the-daily-refresh-notification-going-out game.
posted by nobody at 3:11 PM on November 8, 2023
posted by nobody at 3:11 PM on November 8, 2023
I'll take one! Thanks!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2023
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2023
Sent! (Check your memail.) One more remaining, if anyone else wants one.
posted by nobody at 6:02 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by nobody at 6:02 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
(FYI, it behooves you to "git gud" at RBC because that's the one where the 500 daily keys get doled out the slowest. It's taught me more about playing fast/aggressive chess than anything else I've played in my life.)
Whereas I'm finding RBC to be the most frustrating and uncomfortable of all of the puzzles there. Today's, for instance, puts me in a situation where I have piece superiority but a massive tactical disadvantage because my useful pieces are badly positioned, and I've been checkmated three times in a row without seeing much of a way out of it.
posted by delfin at 6:01 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Whereas I'm finding RBC to be the most frustrating and uncomfortable of all of the puzzles there. Today's, for instance, puts me in a situation where I have piece superiority but a massive tactical disadvantage because my useful pieces are badly positioned, and I've been checkmated three times in a row without seeing much of a way out of it.
posted by delfin at 6:01 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Honestly, RBC is not a puzzle. There's an opponent, and it sometimes makes unpredictable moves. It feels weird because the daily games in the RBC app itself have a leaderboard where some rando found a mate in four, while I usually need 30 moves to build up a material advantage first, with heavy use of the undo button. But for whatever reason, people don't grind it out and this is how I got in.
If folks are interested in a board game style puzzle that you can actually reason about and solve, I found Puzzle Retreat enjoyable. As this is basically a planning puzzle, I'm slightly sad you can't annotate "happens before" relationships between pegs, which meant I ended up scribbling on screenshots for advanced puzzles.
posted by pwnguin at 8:44 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
If folks are interested in a board game style puzzle that you can actually reason about and solve, I found Puzzle Retreat enjoyable. As this is basically a planning puzzle, I'm slightly sad you can't annotate "happens before" relationships between pegs, which meant I ended up scribbling on screenshots for advanced puzzles.
posted by pwnguin at 8:44 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Whereas I'm finding RBC to be the most frustrating and uncomfortable of all of the puzzles there.
I don't disagree; I make liberal use of the "undo" command and it typically takes me at least a couple of attempts to find my way to a checkmate. I would not call myself a good chess player and I've always had trouble with similar chess puzzles, but the assymetrical setup combined with the ability to rewind means that I can recover from my mistakes quickly without falling into analysis paralysis.
RBC's brutal initial placement of bishops as first-strike attackers on the opponent's side encourages me to up my defensive game by working out how best to stymie their moves, and then the fairly generous allotment of multiple queens/knights/rooks on my side gives me some redundancy on offense/defense if I can free them up effectively.
I don't know if it's teaching me real strategy for normal chess, but it's definitely giving me an appreciation of keeping a diversity of pieces for myself while trying to hamstring the opponent's ability to move against me. I'm not at the point where I'm playing imaginary games on the ceiling "Queen's Gambit" style, but it's given me a good outlet for trying things that I could never do in an ordinary game.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:47 AM on November 10, 2023
I don't disagree; I make liberal use of the "undo" command and it typically takes me at least a couple of attempts to find my way to a checkmate. I would not call myself a good chess player and I've always had trouble with similar chess puzzles, but the assymetrical setup combined with the ability to rewind means that I can recover from my mistakes quickly without falling into analysis paralysis.
RBC's brutal initial placement of bishops as first-strike attackers on the opponent's side encourages me to up my defensive game by working out how best to stymie their moves, and then the fairly generous allotment of multiple queens/knights/rooks on my side gives me some redundancy on offense/defense if I can free them up effectively.
I don't know if it's teaching me real strategy for normal chess, but it's definitely giving me an appreciation of keeping a diversity of pieces for myself while trying to hamstring the opponent's ability to move against me. I'm not at the point where I'm playing imaginary games on the ceiling "Queen's Gambit" style, but it's given me a good outlet for trying things that I could never do in an ordinary game.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:47 AM on November 10, 2023
From today's internal site:
We hope you’re enjoying Puzzmo in early access! Last week we cooked up a new kind of link for sharing Puzzmo. Y’all seemed to really love it, so we’re bringing it back today. Any friends you share it with will still have to solve the puzzle of the day, but they’ll be guaranteed to snag a key if they do.
Just a heads up: this link will expire around noon ET tomorrow
Magic Link
posted by delfin at 9:11 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
We hope you’re enjoying Puzzmo in early access! Last week we cooked up a new kind of link for sharing Puzzmo. Y’all seemed to really love it, so we’re bringing it back today. Any friends you share it with will still have to solve the puzzle of the day, but they’ll be guaranteed to snag a key if they do.
Just a heads up: this link will expire around noon ET tomorrow
Magic Link
posted by delfin at 9:11 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
(How I scored a million points in SpellTower, previously)
posted by box at 9:20 AM on November 10, 2023
posted by box at 9:20 AM on November 10, 2023
That link is about Puzzle Mode, which is a different version than what's in PuzzMo, but some of the strategy tracks, with the big difference that in the PuzzMo one, you should probably prioritize clearing the board, since there are associated point bonuses attached.
posted by box at 9:25 AM on November 10, 2023
posted by box at 9:25 AM on November 10, 2023
Thanksgiving printable mini-puzzle book (.pdf, I'm told that if you solve all the puzzles you'll get a secret codeword to allow your whole gathering in)
posted by box at 7:12 AM on November 23, 2023
posted by box at 7:12 AM on November 23, 2023
I cannot stress how annoying it is to see "You completed Really Bad Chess in 32 moves -- a new Wednesday best!", to feel good about it for a minute, and then see that the next line is "9 people did it in 6 moves!"
posted by delfin at 8:29 AM on November 23, 2023
posted by delfin at 8:29 AM on November 23, 2023
In one of Puzzmo's recent post-crossword writeups, they mentioned a unique crossword-like puzzle available at a site called Puzzle Society, and while I probably won't subscribe there either, I'm finding their wider variety of daily word-puzzles more engaging so far.
A bunch are ultimately crossword-like variants in other forms (on top of the four or five full crosswords they offer daily, most syndicated from elsewhere), but Thematik and Unolingo have stood out so far as interesting edge cases within the possibility space.
(PlayFour is practically the tiniest crossword possible: a daily 4x4 grid. It's probably way too simple to really recommend for anyone who already likes crosswords, but they've put a tremendous amount of effort into making the presentation feel...juicy.)
(And Squared Away -- which was the one mentioned in the Puzzmo crossword writeup -- is two simultaneous 5x5 grids with 20 unnumbered clues to sort out.)
posted by nobody at 8:41 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
A bunch are ultimately crossword-like variants in other forms (on top of the four or five full crosswords they offer daily, most syndicated from elsewhere), but Thematik and Unolingo have stood out so far as interesting edge cases within the possibility space.
(PlayFour is practically the tiniest crossword possible: a daily 4x4 grid. It's probably way too simple to really recommend for anyone who already likes crosswords, but they've put a tremendous amount of effort into making the presentation feel...juicy.)
(And Squared Away -- which was the one mentioned in the Puzzmo crossword writeup -- is two simultaneous 5x5 grids with 20 unnumbered clues to sort out.)
posted by nobody at 8:41 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
So it looks like Puzzmo implemented ads today, and the result for me was -- in Firefox with uBlock Origin running default settings -- the entire browser locking up for at least a full minute. Couldn't even interact with Firefox's task manager to get the tab closed that way. I could alt-tab to other Firefox windows, but none of them would even scroll. Eventually the Puzzmo tab closed and a little while after that, the browser unfroze.
And then it happened again, even after disabling uBlock for the site (with Windows' task manager showing a 4GB spike in Firefox memory usage during the freeze-up).
So...I guess I'm done with Puzzmo. (I was down to just doing its crossword by this point, anyway.)
(I am curious to see what their ads look like, but not interested enough to try experimenting further. Maybe it would work if I disabled uBlock completely, but disabling it for all sites is definitely a bridge too far.)
posted by nobody at 8:23 AM on December 1, 2023
And then it happened again, even after disabling uBlock for the site (with Windows' task manager showing a 4GB spike in Firefox memory usage during the freeze-up).
So...I guess I'm done with Puzzmo. (I was down to just doing its crossword by this point, anyway.)
(I am curious to see what their ads look like, but not interested enough to try experimenting further. Maybe it would work if I disabled uBlock completely, but disabling it for all sites is definitely a bridge too far.)
posted by nobody at 8:23 AM on December 1, 2023
Re: The ads
Today on Firefox with UBO it worked for me, with my only explicit allowance being
posted by ob1quixote at 11:00 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Today on Firefox with UBO it worked for me, with my only explicit allowance being
t-msedge.net.posted by ob1quixote at 11:00 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
(Works for me now, too, with or without uBlock running. I wonder what went wrong yesterday, and I wonder if it wasn't about uBlock after all.)
posted by nobody at 7:28 AM on December 3, 2023
posted by nobody at 7:28 AM on December 3, 2023
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