It's three years late and shorter than usual... but at long last, here's the PENULTIMATE EPISODE of Ouerdplait! Our crop of contestants, all winners from previous shows, makes this episode a tournament of champions! Who will reign supreme? There's only one way to find out, so give it a listen NOW! (I mean, sure, you COULD just skip to the end, but then you'd miss all the puzzles.) I) Rule of Threes, Part Two II) The Shape of Things III) Spun with Foonerisms IV) First Things First: Ouelcome Back Find more Ouerdplait puzzles at http://ouerdplait.tumblr.com. Featuring music by Mark Sparling and Landon Beall. Subscribe to the show via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ouerdplait/id997648102 Subscribe via RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ouerdplait

It's not a drill, and it's not a mistake: it's a new Ouerdplait Mini! I'm sure I've mentioned this on a previous show, but my favorite holiday by far is Halloween, and now that it's finally October, it seemed like a good time to release this little puzzle I wrote a FULL YEAR ago. It's called “Bootiful.” Every response in this game is a single word that ends with the “boo” sound. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Mark Sparling, Broke For Free, and Nheap.)

The puzzle I'm serving up for you today was printed on some cards I handed out at Ouerdplait's live show in February, so until now, the only folks who have seen this puzzle were the ones who showed up to that live show. It ain't much, but it's something. Each correct answer in this game will be a single word with the letters “C-O-N” in consecutive order. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Mark Sparling, Broke For Free, and Nheap.)

This is the last puzzle from our live show in February, and goodness, it's a doozy. How many Star Wars character names do you know? That's most of the challenge in this one, honestly. In this game, I'll give you a clue to help you think of a classic Star Wars character name, and I'll give you a hint about what the character's new name might be if one letter is changed. All I want to know is what the character's new name would be once that letter has changed. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Mark Sparling, and Nheap.)

And now that we've had our Marvel round, it seems only fitting that we offset that with a round devoted to DC Comics, specifically… The Batman. You guys? Keep this on the down-low, but I think… I think Bruce Wayne? He might be the guy. Ssh. I know. I KNOW! I mean, he's rich, he's been around the world, his parents were tragically killed all those years ago, so there's motive… I think I might really be onto something here. In fact, I've got Mr. Wayne's bank statements from the last 20 years to prove it. I swear, I'm not crazy! So in this exposé, I'll name something Bruce has had charged to his bank account over the past few years, but I've been staring at these papers so much over the past six weeks that I might need a little help remembering the exact word for what I'm trying to name. Every correct answer here will be a single word that contains the consecutive letters B-A-T. That's conclusive proof! (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Broke for Free, Mark Sparling, and Cosmo Cub.)

Seems like wherever you go nowadays you just can't escape the presence of Marvel! From the X-Men and Avengers to the Guardians of the Galaxy, they're just… everywhere! In this puzzle, we'll be doing some Marvel Math Mashups. I'll start by giving you a clue involving a Marvel character and some other piece of pop culture that will share a common word. Your job will be to successfully mash up the two bits into one answer. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Nheap, and Mark Sparling.)

Welcome, honorary Hogwarts students, to “Parseltongue 101.” Parseltongue is, as you almost certainly already know, the ability to speak with snakes. Many powerful wizards, like Harry Potter and Voldemort, were well-known for their ability to speak Parseltongue. For natural parseltongues, it's possible to speak it without even realizing. However, since so much of the snake language sounds so similar to an outsider, it can be hard to pick it up if you're not naturally gifted. But contrary to many other magical educators, I myself believe that even No-Maj folks can learn to talk to snakes if they're willing to put in the work. Sorry, if there are any British wizards and witches in the audience, I meant Muggles. You probably knew that. Anyway, in this session, we'll be learning the basics of how to speak parseltongue. I'll be asking you some questions, and the correct answer to each question will contain at least one S—and to get into the parseltongue mindset, which is sort of the first step for non-native speakers, I encourage you all to REALLY lean on those Ss. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Nheap, Mark Sparling, and Venere.)

For today's puzzle, we're taking a dive into the Joss Whedon TV series “Firefly” and its big-screen follow-up “Serenity.” I'll start by reading off the letters of a word associated with the Firefly universe, except I'll only be reading the word's consonants. You'll have to suss out the vowels and think of the full word yourself. I'll give you an extra clue to help you along. (Featuring music by Broke for Free, Nheap, Mark Sparling, and jdc5294.)

There is no set of villains quite as iconic as the Daleks from Doctor Who, and they're pretty well known for saying “EXTERMINATE,” in their very staccato tone. In this puzzle, I'll be trying to teach you to talk like a Dalek yourself. I'll start with a clue, as usual. And here's the hook: every correct response in this game will be a single word that begins with the letter E and ends with the “ate” sound. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Nheap, and Mark Sparling [”Day 2″ and “Day 8″].) Want more? Browse our entire back catalog of puzzles at Ouerdplait.com.

This entry marks the last Ouerdplait of 2015, and I could think of no better way to pay tribute to the year that was than to spin up a puzzle based on the very digits this year is composed of. This puzzle is called “Digital Love.”Each correct response in this game will be a phrase or hyphenated word containing one of the digits in the year 2015—two, zero, one or five. (Featuring music by Landon Beall, Broke for Free, Nheap, and Mark Sparling [”Day 2″ and “Day 8″].)