PlayPhrase.me is a fun distraction to play with for a bit. The intention of the site is to help teach how to apply phrases in English. You type in any phrase and it will play you scenes in movies and television where your words have been spoken. You can even download the clips. You can view 5 phrases per search, but anything past that requires a $3 per month Patreon sponsorship. — CD

I played Ransom Notes with my family a couple of weeks ago and we laughed ourselves to tears. Each player grabs a handful of about 75 words printed on magnetic strips (they look like refrigerator magnets) from the inventory. Someone draws a card from the deck and reads the instructions. Example: “Tell someone you’ve clogged their toilet during a party.” Each player has to use their word magnets to form an answer on a small metal plate. Example, “I have elaborate booty chaos please not mad,” or “did dump tough disappear.” You are supposed to vote on the “best answer,” but we were too busy laughing hysterically to keep score. — MF

Unlike regular jigsaw puzzles, which have pieces that don’t match up with the artwork, this puzzle’s 40 large pieces are cut in the shape of the black and white creatures from artist M.C. Escher’s 1957 lithograph Mosaic II. The puzzle is a lot harder to solve than you may think. It’s out of print, but used ones are available on eBay and Etsy. — MF

There are lots of guessing games inspired by Wordle, but one of the toughest (and most enjoyable) is Semantle. Like Wordle, there’s a new secret word every day. Start by guessing a word, and the game will give you a score between 100 and -100, depending on how close in meaning your guess is to the secret word. Be prepared to make use of the hints! Fridays word was headphones. I got in it 73 guesses with 12 hints. (Take a look at my guesses.) — MF

I’m a big fan of author A.J. Jacobs. He embarks on crazy self-experiments — like reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, or living according the the rules in the Bible for a year — and writing books about them. His latest book is called The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life. Jacobs entered puzzle competitions, explored the psychology of puzzles, and visited with famous puzzle designers. As part of the book launch, Jacobs created a puzzle contest with a $10,000 prize. I can’t wait to win. — MF

This is just for fun: Tinder for Cats. I can easily spend all day swiping right on cute cats and rejecting others — even though they’re all cute of course! — CD

I completed my third escape room this week and it is now my favorite group entertainment. Better than a concert, or going bowling. You enter a series of elaborately decorated rooms that are packed with puzzles that your group needs to collectively solve before going further. Collaboration is more important than genius. I find it tons of exhilarating fun. Most rooms take an hour to an hour-and-half. EscapeRoom is a directory of 6,000 escape rooms around the world, with summaries and prices, and where to find one near you. I am biased, but Palace Games in San Francisco are rated among the top 3 best escape rooms in the world, and are worth a trek to play them. — KK

I’m the kind of person who fidgets a lot while having a conversation, but when I do a jigsaw puzzle with other people, it’s easy for me to chat and assemble the puzzle at the same time. My wife and I been putting this 1000-piece Edward Gorey puzzle together as a way to catch up for a few minutes each night before going to bed. I also work on the puzzle during conference calls. — MF

ColorKu is a nice looking wooden game board, with holes that hold colored wooden marbles in nine different colors. Game play is just like Sudoku, but this version makes it fun to play with others. It comes with about 100 starting problems, but you can use any Sudoku problems by assigning each color a number. I gave this to my sister for her birthday and she loves it, too. — MF

Go to Typatone, tap out a few characters on your keyboard, then click the on-screen button with the musical note. It will play an original piece of music. Each time you click the button, it plays a different style of music. This could be useful for podcasts or videos. — MF

When I feel uninspired, I like to re-read this Declaration of Enchantment, written by Depth Psychologist Craig Chalquist. There are 15 articles — all outlining the importance of nurturing our imagination. Reading this invigorates my curiosity and infuses me with awe. Below is an excerpt from the Preamble. — CD

We can live a few weeks without food, a few days without water, and a few hours without shelter in an inhospitable clime, but we cannot live for even a moment without some movement of imagination in mind and body. To restrict its enlivening flow is to cripple the wellsprings of health, vitality, and sanity. Enchantment is a self-evident basic right. An assault on enchantment is an assault on the human spirit.

Wayfinder is a soothing online game that involves traversing a vast landscape collecting fragments of seasonal-inspired poetry to restore balance to the natural world. The game itself is short but uses machine learning to create thousands of combinations of verses and visuals so that you have a completely new experience each time you play. It’s very lovely. — CD

The simplest toys are the best. Our favorite family social puzzle is a tangram, an old classic from China made of 7 geometric pieces that you arrange to fulfill a required silhouette. With two sets you can race to finish. It is much harder than it looks, yet doable and fun for small folk. You can make a tangram from cardboard, or 3D print one yourself, but the version we grab is Tangoes, a tidy travel case with two sets of pieces, plus cards (with solutions) for all the target images. We own 3 or 4 Tangoes ($12), enough for larger groups. — KK

In this web-based game, Evil Corp attempts to con you into accepting its terms and conditions with 29 sneaky tricks (e.g., “Would you like to not receive our newsletter? Yes or No”). I managed to successfully outwit 27 of Evil Corp’s dastardly tricks. Let’s see if you can beat me! — MF

My wife bought me a dartboard for Christmas last year and we play darts a few times a week now. She got a high quality dartboard — a Winmau Diamond Plus Tournament Bristle Dartboard — and it’s much better than the cheap dartboards I had as a kid. The darts rarely bounce out, and the board has held up well, showing little signs of use. — MF

Sinuous is a free web-based game where you control a snakey line through a shower of red dots. The goal is to avoid the red dots for as long as possible. There are also special dots that give your temporary powers if you touch them, like slowing down the red dots or creating a deflector shield. My high score is 11174. — MF

I thoroughly enjoy playing this geographical guessing game “City Guesser” — probably because I am good at it. To play online you are shown a first-person view of walking through a city and you have to guess what city in the world you are in. You get points depending on how close you are and how fast you recognize the place. You can play against yourself, or other players, and you can narrow the scope. I’m great in Asia and no good in Africa. The game also works as a virtual vacation because inhabiting someone else’s walk is weirdly comforting. There is a related game, “GeoGuessr”, that plops you into a random place on Google Street View, usually not in the city. Here you can look around in all directions on your own “walk” and control your speed and path. (The free version requires signup.) Some people take this challenge very seriously and there are YouTube channels that follow some of the master navigators, like the champ GeoWizard. The lightning speed of his detective work is unbelievable, and as entertaining as magic. — KK

My daughter bought a vintage Game Boy Camera and thermal printer on eBay. It takes very low resolution photos that have a nostalgic charm. Recently I came across this web-based simulation of the Game Boy Camera. It’s fun to see what things look like in a two-color palette of blocky pixels. Here’s sample. — MF

Refresh this webpage for an endless stream of words that don’t exist and were invented by a machine learning algorithm, like: truckoman (noun.) a woman hired to carry a truck all night, or cheroo (noun.) a false or exaggerated wish. (Note to self: from now on I exaggerate all my wishes.) — CD

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