A sesquipedalianist Boggle puzzle

During my analysis of the effects of playing Boggle with different letter distributions, I simulated more than 50,000 games of standard 4-by-4 Boggle. One statistic that I was tracking was the longest word found across each of the data sets. Invariably, each data set got stuck at a maximum word length of 11 letters. (In the Big Boggle simulations, the solver found words as long as 13 letters.) I was really hoping for something longer, but rather than keep running simulations until I finally find some 12-letter word and have it turn out to be something disappointing, like BORINGNESSES, I've decided to embed one 16-letter word in a Boggle grid and present it below as a puzzle for your solving pleasure.

Good luck!

A word grid puzzle

What special property does this word grid have?

               ODD
                 ICEBOX
            ECHOED          
          D K  H           
         XEBEC    
       H  E
     BOOKED

The answer, encrypted with ROT-13: "Gur tevq pna or zveebe-ersyrpgrq iregvpnyyl gb trarengr n qvssrerag tevq jvgu inyvq jbeqf." Good luck!

Two new Bananagrams puzzle books

As follow-ups to >Bananagrams! The Official Book, Joe Edley has co-authored two more Bananagrams puzzle books that should now be available in bookstores. The first book, More Bananagrams!, was written with Abe and Rena Nathanson, and features more of the puzzles that earned the initial Bananagrams puzzle book acclaim.

The second book, aimed at the younger Bananagrammists out there, is called Bananagrams for Kids and has contributions from Puzzability, a puzzle-making factory started by three former editors of Games magazine. Puzzability is probably best known for the puzzles that the New York Times has allowed them to publish on certain days, in lieu of their regular Op-Ed page. An example from last year is their "Space Case" set of puzzles. Some other examples of their non-Bananagrams puzzles can be found here, including some for kids.

Some Bananagrams puzzles

I found a neat kind of Bananagrams puzzle that I have never seen before. Explaining them might give away that step of discovery, so I will just link to three examples:

• puzzle #1


• puzzle #2


• puzzle #3

I have a solution for the last one, and I think I know how to solve the second one, though it's not really my style, so I made my own variation:



If you want a rather significant hint to how to approach these puzzles, I suggest looking at this post and this one.

Enjoy!

An event for people who love puzzles

A very unique event is happening in a couple of weeks: On September 13th, a puzzle hunt (a series of puzzles, spread around a particular area) will be simulcast to a bunch of different cities, including: Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The hunt is called DASH which stands for Different Area, Same Hunt. This is entirely run by volunteers and is an effort to expand the puzzle hunt community beyond its current ecological niches in the Bay Area and Seattle.

It will not be all words games, but if you are good at Bananagrams and like puzzles, you might enjoy it. If the sample puzzles appeal to you, I would encourage you to get together a few friends and give it a try.

UPDATE: DASH 2 is happening April 24, 2010.
2011 UPDATE: DASH 3 takes place April 30, 2011.

"Bananagrams!: the official book" - coming in September, 2009

The first Bananagrams-themed book is on its way:
Bananagrams!: The Official Book. It sounds like the book has a huge variety of Bananagrams-based puzzles (presumably puzzles you can solve using your Bananagrams tiles) as well as tactics for Bananagrams and random fun.

About the authors:
Joe Edley, the Zen master of competitive Scrabble, was featured as one of the main characters in Stefan Fatsis' _Word Freak_, the original investigation of the world of Scrabble tournaments (followed up by two documentaries (Word Wars and Scrabylon)). I really enjoyed _Word Freak_.

And from the Amazon page:

Abe Nathanson and his daughter, Rena, along with his grandchildren Aaron and Ava invented Bananagrams while spending the summer of 2005 together at a beach house in Narragansett, Rhode Island. The whole Nathanson family is involved in the growing game business. Rena and her family reside in the U.K., and Abe lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where he runs the company's headquarters.

According to the official Bananagrams origins story, Bananagrams was created by the Nathanson family during summer vacations, through a process of experimentation. Not unlike the Wright Brothers' persistent tinkering until they achieved perfection.

Why "Bananagrams"? Because they say that it is "the anagram game that will drive you bananas!".