🧩 Your 2023 Brief: Puzzles and Publishing


Your monthly digest from the world of puzzles and games	View in browser

Dear Reader,

You're reading the monthly newsletter from Amuse Labs, covering the world of puzzles, publishing and updates to PuzzleMe™, the most advanced digital platform for smart games.

For the last edition of 2023, we thought we'd look back at some major highlights from our journey this year. We hope you enjoy this special edition of PuzzleBuzz.

Three New Games from Publishers

In 2023, we worked with some great publications to design polished online experiences for new game formats. Here are some of our favorites:

1. Missing Letter by Merriam Webster

Earlier this year, our friends at Merriam Webster had the unique idea to use dictionary definitions as clues. We designed a unique online experience for the Missing Letter crossword. Their audience of language-enthusiasts loves this game.

2. Caleb's Inferno by The Atlantic

This monthly crossword developed by The Atlantic’s crossword editor Caleb Madison gets harder as you go from top to bottom. We obsessed over the look and feel of this puzzle online, and we’re proud of what came of it.

3. Headline Hunters by NY Post

Headline Hunters, a Wordle-style game by The New York Post, is a great example of what’s possible with PuzzleMe. The team at NYPost took the headlines the tabloid is most famous for and turned it into a delightful daily puzzle.

An Exciting First:
Gamified Ads Go Live

This year, we had the opportunity to show the world something that’s been brewing at Amuse Labs for a while: gamified ads!

We’ve seen how powerful games like crosswords and quizzes are at engaging audiences. Our vision is that such games fit perfectly in display ads. The Atlantic agrees, and launched a quiz-based ad campaign for Earthjustice.

Earthjustice wanted to raise awareness regarding the biodiversity crisis and we’re thrilled that they could use our quiz-based ads towards that aim. If you missed it, play a version of this quiz here.

More Niche Sites Add Puzzles

This year, we had more niche publishers use games to deepen their relationships with their audience. Here are some great niche sites that launched new games products with us:

Sports and Culture

Defector, an employee-owned sports and culture website, launched a weekly crossword, and the company’s loyal audience base loved it. “I am genuinely thrilled that Defector is getting crosswords and it will absolutely increase my time-on-site,” a reader commented.

Local Languages

The Saudi Research and Media group used PuzzleMe to launch daily crosswords in Arabic earlier this year. We loved tackling the challenge of enabling the online crossword experience in Arabic, which is a right-to-left language. With the addition of Assamese, Gaelic, Hebrew and more in 2023, PuzzleMe now supports 30+ languages across the world!

Free-Market Focus

Reason, a US-based monthly magazine with a libertarian bent, launched a new weekly crossword. The series is edited by Stella Zawistowski, known to be one of the fastest crossword solvers in the US.

From the Crossworld

Will Shortz, veteran crossword constructor, completed 30 years as the editor of The New York Times crossword this year. Here’s an interview of Shortz to mark this occasion. If you haven’t yet, this is a good time to watch Wordplay, the documentary on Shortz and the U.S. crossword community.

In a bit of sad news, the popular crossword blog XWordInfo stopped posting solutions to new crosswords this year. If you missed it, founder Jim Horne talked about the reasons behind the closure in this Fill Me In podcast episode.

PuzzleMe Spotlight

A selection of features from PuzzleMe, the most advanced digital platform for smart games.

A Revamped Completion Experience

The moment when a solver finishes a crossword is truly special. This year, we focused on enhancing that experience for both constructors and solvers:

Completion Streaks

Solvers who return to your puzzle diligently will now be able to see their progress in completion streaks. Speak to us about enabling streaks if you haven’t already.

Completion Sounds

We also added the ability for you to add your own tunes to congratulate solvers on completing a puzzle. There’s nothing like the sound of victory.

A Rich HTML Editor

To help you communicate with your solvers better, we added a new and improved editor for completion messages. Customize the completion experience with images, videos, rich text and more.

Schrödinger Puzzles Wanted (Dead or Alive)

We released support for Schrödinger crosswords earlier this year, and the level of creativity on display from constructors was beyond what we could have imagined.

This New Yorker crossword by Andy Kravis is a fantastic example of how such puzzles can delight solvers. Mary Tobler at The Morning Brew created one to mark the special weekend earlier this year when we all went to the movies.

More recently, we enhanced Magic Fill to help you create Schrödinger crosswords! Just add the Schrödinger solutions to the Must Have Words list, and PuzzleMe will magically find surrounding words that can fit both solutions.

An Enhanced Multiplayer Experience

Puzzles have always been collaborative experiences, and we wanted to bring that same co-op experience to online solving. Here are key enhancements we made to our multiplayer mode this year:

4-Player Support

PuzzleMe’s multiplayer experience now supports up to four players solving the same puzzle together. We’re excited about the possibilities this unlocks, from team bonding at work to quality family time.

Multiplayer Chat on Mobile

Multiplayer chat, which has always been available to desktop users, is now also available on mobile. Whether you’re on your home computer or on the go, enjoy a truly collaborative solving experience.

Multiplayer Jigsaws

If you've ever been engrossed in piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, you've likely noticed onlookers drawn in, itching to participate. This year, we embraced the communal spirit of jigsaw puzzles by introducing multiplayer mode on PuzzleMe jigsaws.

Puzzle of the Year 🏆

Among all the special puzzles that came out in 2023, we have to give this title to Will Nediger’s outstanding achievement, Two for the Price of One. It’s two grids that map on to the same set of clues, but with entirely different solutions.

We’re thrilled that Will could use PuzzleMe to create the online experience for this truly unique puzzle. If, like us, you’re astounded at his creativity, he wrote a blog post about the creation process that you can read here.

About Us

Amuse Labs is the creator of PuzzleMe™, the leading digital platform for Smart Games. It is a B2B SaaS company trusted globally by brands and publishers, powering Crosswords, Sudokus, Jigsaws, Quizzes, Word Searches and more. Explore opportunities to partner by sending a note or applying if you’d like to work with us!

Oh, and to the journalists on our mailing list, write to us if you’d like to cover highlights from this newsletter or about Amuse Labs.