More Collaborative Word Puzzles
November 19, 2020 6:59 AM Subscribe
My dad and I loved doing Eric Berlin's Social Distancing Puzzles. Where can we find more collaborative word games to play together?
The social distancing puzzles were the best way we've found to connect regularly and spend time together while far apart. We finished them this week and we'd like to find something similar to carry us forward through the winter. We're open to online things, book recommendations, or whatever other media I'm not thinking of.
About us:
-Avid crossword puzzlers and Scrabble-players.
-We prefer word games with clear rules to other kinds of puzzles.
-We hang out over zoom while solving, but would rather not have to mess with screen sharing and stuff if we can avoid it.
-We like lower-tech options, not, like, playing a video game together.
-The Eric Berlin puzzles were the right difficulty level for us. Each one was solvable in a single session, and we liked that it really required collaboration.
-Prefer cooperation to competition in this case. We know we could be playing online Scrabble.
Things we've tried:
Virtual escape rooms (fine, but not our favorites)
Jackbox games (okay for the larger family group, but not suitable for the two of us)
Some of the games recommended in this thread (pretty successful, but we've worn them out.)
pilcrow.bar (too abstract for our taste. we like rules.)
AskMe's I've explored:
https://ask.metafilter.com/344878/Virtual-Escape-Room-Adventures
https://ask.metafilter.com/343488/Talking-games
https://ask.metafilter.com/346731/Collaborative-puzzling-gaming-recommendations-for-distanced-friends
I know none of those are so old, but I'm hoping more collaborative puzzles have been created since they were posted.
The social distancing puzzles were the best way we've found to connect regularly and spend time together while far apart. We finished them this week and we'd like to find something similar to carry us forward through the winter. We're open to online things, book recommendations, or whatever other media I'm not thinking of.
About us:
-Avid crossword puzzlers and Scrabble-players.
-We prefer word games with clear rules to other kinds of puzzles.
-We hang out over zoom while solving, but would rather not have to mess with screen sharing and stuff if we can avoid it.
-We like lower-tech options, not, like, playing a video game together.
-The Eric Berlin puzzles were the right difficulty level for us. Each one was solvable in a single session, and we liked that it really required collaboration.
-Prefer cooperation to competition in this case. We know we could be playing online Scrabble.
Things we've tried:
Virtual escape rooms (fine, but not our favorites)
Jackbox games (okay for the larger family group, but not suitable for the two of us)
Some of the games recommended in this thread (pretty successful, but we've worn them out.)
pilcrow.bar (too abstract for our taste. we like rules.)
AskMe's I've explored:
https://ask.metafilter.com/344878/Virtual-Escape-Room-Adventures
https://ask.metafilter.com/343488/Talking-games
https://ask.metafilter.com/346731/Collaborative-puzzling-gaming-recommendations-for-distanced-friends
I know none of those are so old, but I'm hoping more collaborative puzzles have been created since they were posted.
Are smartphone/tablet apps of any interest? The Guardian has an app for collaborative crossword solving, available for both iOS and Android and including seven different types of crossword. It requires a subscription, £3.49 a month. According to their FAQ, it's available in all countries and includes the entire, gigantic, crossword archive as well as all the new daily and weekly crosswords.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:28 AM on November 19, 2020
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:28 AM on November 19, 2020
Best answer: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0996256806/ ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you each had this book, or if one of you did and you could work over zoom, I think you would like it a great deal.
posted by dpx.mfx at 8:13 AM on November 19, 2020 [3 favorites]
If you each had this book, or if one of you did and you could work over zoom, I think you would like it a great deal.
posted by dpx.mfx at 8:13 AM on November 19, 2020 [3 favorites]
Best answer: My family did the Librarian's Almanaq as linked above while on vacation a couple years ago. We loved it, but be aware that some of the puzzles involve tearing out and arranging pages across the entire floor, so I would say you really each want a copy of the book in order to work jointly. But 4 very good crossword solvers spent the better part of 3 days working through the book and had a blast, so definitely recommended.
posted by lemonade at 7:55 PM on November 19, 2020
posted by lemonade at 7:55 PM on November 19, 2020
Response by poster: Update: We had a great time with Librarian's Almanaq, and now we're working on Journal 29. I'm so glad to have discovered the universe of puzzle books!
posted by juliapangolin at 9:34 AM on May 20, 2021
posted by juliapangolin at 9:34 AM on May 20, 2021
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posted by juliapangolin at 7:02 AM on November 19, 2020