Games (magazine)

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This article is about a U.S. puzzle magazine. For the UK computer and video games magazine, see games™.

Games magazine (ISSN 0199-9788) is a United States-based magazine devoted to games and puzzles, and is published by Games Publications, a division of Kappa Publishing Group. It was originally published by Playboy (debuting with the September/October 1977 issue) and was briefly out of business in 1990 and 1991. The magazine was bought and brought back to life in 1991 by the mail-order company Bits & Pieces, and based in Manhattan. Kappa Publishing Group acquired it in 1996 and moved the Games office to Kappa's headquarters in Pennsylvania. The magazine is published ten times a year (monthly, except for January and June).

Throughout its publishing history, Games has differentiated itself from other puzzle magazines by its creative covers that are themselves puzzles, color sections containing feature articles and games, and a large variety of puzzle types, with wit and humor used throughout. Each issue contains a feature article and puzzles in its introductory color section, the newsprint pencil puzzle section ("Pencilwise"), and, in the closing color section, board game and video games reviews. "Wild Cards" is a final section containing one or two pages of puzzle miscellany, such as word games, trivia, or chess problems. Most issues feature a puzzle-solving contest; in fact, the magazine periodically has a "hidden contest," in which part of the challenge is to find the concealed puzzle. Readers were also challenged to find the "fake advertisement" among the legitimate ones until November 2002 (the last one was for the Red Card, a credit card used to pay off credit cards).

The December issue each year includes a compilation of new and noteworthy games in its Games 100 list, similar to the German Spiel des Jahres, and usually includes a contest based on this list. More recent years have also included a separate Electronic Games 100, focusing on video games for both computer, console, and portable systems. Notable game titles also also introduced into a "Games Hall of Fame", updated each year along with the Games 100 list.

All puzzles in the magazine are ranked by difficulty: a one-star puzzle is an "Easy Hike", while three stars means "Proceed at Your Own Risk". Some puzzles are ranked as a "Mixed Bag" denoted by one filled and one unfilled star, meaning that some may find the puzzle very easy while others will be challenged, or that the puzzle may have a range of difficulty with it. Common puzzles in the color sections include "Eyeball Benders" (identification of common objects based on photos taken from odd angles), identification of objects in picture collages of items that share a common theme, and photo-mysteries which require the reader to use photos and text to deduce a mystery. The "Pencilwise" section forms the core of the magazine, and contains common puzzle varieties such as crosswords, cryptic crosswords, word searches, cryptograms, and math and logic puzzles. It also contains more unique puzzle types such as crossword variations, visual logic puzzles like "Paint by Numbers" and "Battleships", and a variety of other wordplay and visual puzzles. Each "Pencilwise" also contains "The World's Most Ornery Crossword", a large standard crossword puzzle which has two sets of clues spanning 3 pages; one set, which is revealed by folding one page in half to hide the second page, are clues rated 3-stars, while the clues under this fold are rated as one-star; the answers to both sets of clues are the same. Recent years have seen two pages of "Pencilwise" dedicated to puzzles aimed at pre-teen children. Another new feature of "Pencilwise" in recent years has been a "Puzzlecraft" column that describes how the reader can make their own puzzles, placed alongside puzzles created by the described techniques.

Readers who write in with mistakes or alternate solutions to puzzles are often rewarded with a Games T-shirt. Readers may otherwise obtain a Games T-shirt by being a runner-up in a Games contest.

Games Publications also publishes Games World of Puzzles (ISSN 1074-4355) on a bimonthly basis. This magazine is similar to an extended "Pencilwise" section of Games. It also contains a contest in every issue, most often a variety crossword or trivia quiz.

Bygone sister publications of Games include The Four-Star Puzzler (1981-1983), Games Special Edition (late 1980s-1990), Games Premium Puzzles (early 1990s), and Pencilwise Extra (also early 1990s). Children's magazines put out by Games were Games Junior (1987-1990) and Zigzag (mid-1990s). Games has also published a number of books containing "best-of" puzzle collections.

Will Shortz, the editor of Games magazine from 1989 to 1993, is currently editor of The New York Times crossword puzzle.