My 10-year-old niece Sofia introduced me to Mochi Squishy Toys — these super soft, jelly-like animals that you can squeeze and stretch. They help soothe her when she’s anxious. I am not a fidgeter, but now I keep a cute black cat on desk for my hour-long zooms with my therapist. And I’m not embarrassed to say that I’ve slipped it into my pocket a few times on my way out. I can see how these would work as emotional support toys. — CD

Unsolved Case Files is my new favorite game to play with my husband and 14-year-old stepson. Each case file comes with evidence photos, suspect interviews, coroners report, witness statements, newspaper clippings and more. The objective is to work collaboratively and solve three mysteries before you can “crack the case.” So far I’ve solved the Harmony Ashcroft and Max Cahill case and each one took a couple hours. They can be challenging, but it is so satisfying when you’ve completed one. The quality of the documents and materials are so good, that these made-up characters actually come to life and it’s hard not to let it all get to my head when I’ve solved one of the mysteries. It makes me feel like a real detective! I just ordered my third case on Amazon because they are often out of stock, so now I’m just gonna grab one when I can. I also signed up on their website to be notified about new cases that will be released later this Spring, and I discovered if you sign up for their email list, they will email you a free mini-case that you can download and print out. — CD

I played a ton of text adventure games in the 1980s. (Check out the Infocom titles using Archive.org’s early Mac emulator.) I’ve been reading about the origins of text games in a new newsletter called 50 Years of Text Games, by Aaron A. Reed. In the first three issues he takes deep dives into The Oregon Trail (1971), ROCKET (1972) (aka Lunar Lander, which I wrote about in my newsletter, The Magnet), and Hunt the Wumpus (1973). Reed plans to eventually publish a book about text adventure games. — MF

For the past week I’ve been visiting frij.io to play with word magnets. Every day the word bank is swapped out with new nouns and verbs and emojis you can use to create poetry or funny phrases. Linking words and images in a fun and weird way works as a mental palette cleanser during my workday. — CD

A really fun parlor game you can play with friends and family at a distance is Among Us. It’s a bluff and deceit game like Werewolf or Mafia. The fun of the game is the cascading social ramifications of bluffing, being fooled, not being fooled, detective work, psy-ops, acting, being found out, persuading, leading, and getting surprised. The game runs on mobile phones ($0, or $2 for ad free) or Windows PC (everyone does NOT need to be on the same kind of device), and usually the group gathers in parallel on Zoom or Discord to chat during the game. There is some degree of coordination needed to perform mindless busy work tasks in the game, but otherwise no fast twitching is needed to really enjoy this social game. I think of it as playing Werewolf remotely. — KK

Even if you’ve never held a guitar, you can have fun playing a blues lead on this simple web app. Just press the play button to start the backing track and roll your cursor over the buttons at the top of the page. You can’t make a bad sound. If you’re aware of a more sophisticated virtual lead guitar app, let me know! — MF

I find it hard to sit through Ted Talks and avoid anything that gets too preachy about the creative process, but in this 9-minute video, “Give yourself permission to be creative”, Ethan Hawke likens creativity to a poet playing the fool and that is exactly my language. “Don’t read the book you should read. Read the book you want to read. Get close to what you love. Play the fool.” — CD

In a recent issue of my newsletter, The Magnet, I wrote about a fascinating curiosity called nontransitive dice. It’s a set of three nonstandard dice with confounding rock-paper-scissors behavior. No matter which of the three dice your opponent chooses, you can always pick one of the other two dice to beat it. I made my own nontransitive dice on a 3D printer, but they are also available on Amazon if you want a set. — MF

This cool website, Drive & Listen, pulls dashboard cam videos from YouTube and pairs them up with local music channels so that you can feel like you’re cruising around in a foreign city, blasting the radio, all while sitting at your desk. — CD 

I just spent the last ten minutes on Window Swap staring out a window in Villalago, Italy, where I could see the mountains and hear birds chirping and church bells ringing. Anyone is welcome to submit video (and audio) of their window view, and with the click of a button you can bounce around all over the world. — CD

I was delighted to come across this repository of paper airplane designs on Foldnfly.com. I didn’t know so many possibilities existed! We had a fun family tournament in the backyard this weekend. There seems to be quick, video tutorials for all of the designs. — CD

My daughter told me about Astronaut.io. It’s a website that plays a few seconds of random YouTube videos with almost no views — like this video of a cafe in Vietnam with 1 view, and this one of goats eating weeds near a freeway in rural Japan with 0 views. After a few seconds, it starts playing another video. It’s addictive. Many of the videos aren’t in English, which is a plus for me. — MF

One thing that has helped me unwind at the end of every day is trying to solve logic puzzles on my phone. Something I always loved doing as a kid. I found this free, no ads iPhone app ($2.99 on Google Play) called Logic Puzzles by Egghead Games. There are puzzles for different levels of experience that you have access to, so you can start off easy and work your way up, or alternate between quick and more challenging games. It’s been two months since I downloaded it, and I have solved 80+ games, and I still have 16 more to go before I in-app purchase more, which I will, because it really is fun! — CD

This helped me get out of my headspace for a bit: NASA’s What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday? I entered all the important dates I could think of and went down a Wikipedia wormhole to learn more about the Sombrero Galaxy and light echos. Every image is awesome and uplifting and teleports me out of my mental space to somewhere else. Which reminds me of a quote I’ve always treasured by Lao Tzu: “Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question.” — CD

In these dark times I need a little lightness, I need some humor, I need a bit of inspiration. I need Inspirobot. Inspirobot is an AI that generates inspirational quotes set on an inspirational photo — you know those posters. Because it is a dumb AI, it generates a lot of nonsense. But every fifth one is foolish in an unconventional way, which is the root of humor. It borders on profundity. Just keep clicking. — KK

You have probably heard about the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the classic Game Theory problem. This website, called The Evolution of Trust, lets you play the Prisoner’s Dilemma against computer opponents who employ different strategies to maximize their winnings. You also get to see what happens when the computer players play against each other. — MF

Magnetic “blocks” are a toy for constructing things. I keep a big pile of these magnetic tiles around our place for small kids visiting. The outline shape of these tiles are easy for toddlers to grasp, yet still satisfying (for a short while) for older kids. Like Magnatiles, embedded magnets along their edges assist in constructing shapes fast. What you can build is far more limited than what you can do with Lego or Kapla blocks, but these are quick and easy. I have bought many different “brands” of what are sometimes called Magnaforms; they are all interchangeable. I am partial to the 110 piece Magnetic Block set from Ailuki. — KK

When we meet for family reunions, or gather with friends, our favorite group game is Werewolf. Classrooms and corporate retreats also play Werewolf. It’s a deduction/deception game, extremely social, that is as much fun to watch as to play, so it can involve everyone. The games are exhilarating, surprising, and addictive. The only gear you need are some cards. While you can get by with an ordinary deck of cards, a set of dedicated Werewolf cards makes it much easier. After you’ve played a number of basic games, it’s easy and fun to play with variations, which are supported by this deck of Apostrophe Werewolf cards ($11). — KK

I love poetry, so this Google AI experiment “PoemPortraits“ was something I enjoyed playing with. I donated the word “supernatural” which then produced a unique two-line poem, pulling from more than 20 million words of 19th century poetry. Then I took a selfie with my laptop camera and the poem became my face. I am now a part of the ever-expanding and evolving machine-created poem. — CD

This website (Have They Faked Me?) matches your selfie against AI-generated photos and tells you how close you are to being faked. You might be helping them to create more fakes, but it’s still kind of fun. It’s weird to see pictures of women that look so human and look sort of like me, but don’t exist at all. — CD