Featured Puzzle: Nurimaze #2 – A House Full of Dracula
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Featured Puzzle: Nurimaze #2 – A House Full of Dracula

No, it’s not an early Halloween puzzle – today is World Dracula Day! In 1897, Bram Stoker published his infamous novel. Interestingly, he didn’t make much money from it, but in 1922, the film Nosferatu inflamed interest in the character. Stoker’s widow sued for copyright infringement, and Dracula became the iconic vampire, even though he wasn’t the first.

Today, you’re trapped in a castle with a coven of vampires, and you must escape. But Dracula is clever – there are walls everywhere! Can you discover the secret doors and the path of escape?

Featured Puzzle: Paint by Pairs #2 – Kakizome
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Featured Puzzle: Paint by Pairs #2 – Kakizome

I love finding unique holidays to theme a puzzle around. In Japan, Kakizome takes place on the second of January. It’s meant to celebrate one of the major traditional arts – calligraphy. This practice began as a court event during the Heian era during the late 8th century. They would make ink with water drawn on the morning of the first day, then write short aspirational poetry for the year.

Featured Puzzle: Pencils #1 – National Pencil Day
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Featured Puzzle: Pencils #1 – National Pencil Day

On this day in 1858, Hymen Lipman received US Patent # 19,783 for a pencil with an attached eraser. Sure, it was later rescinded because it wasn’t a new device, but just a composite of two existing products, but we still celebrate the day as National Pencil Day.

Much later, in 2017, a Japanese teenager submitted a new puzzle themed around pencils to Nikoli magazine that quickly gained popularity, because it seemed to capture the essence of solving pencil puzzles.

Draw pencils into the grid. Each pencil must also draw a line as long as itself, so that all grid cells are used.