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To Jack Thompson's great dismay, I will not deny it - playing computer games is a ton of fun. However, if your computer is your only source of entertainment, you'll be missing out on a lot of other fun things. Offline fun.

Offline fun is what's to be had when there's a power outage for example, and your beloved PC will not boot up. In the past month, Paul already wrote an article about the Top 10 Activities to do When There's a Power Outage. For more alternatives, be sure to read on.

But even when your system is up and running, it pays to take a little break once in a while, and enjoy something else with some of your friends - play a game of football, basketball, or rugby.  Or chess.

Today we'll focus on - the irony! - online sources for free, printable fill-in puzzles and other offline fun. We'll skip the conventional stuff, like popular sports and lying in your bed all day, and focus on good old puzzles. Even if you already spend a lot of time offline, this post still ought to be a decent source of inspiration.

1. The National Puzzler's League

Sounds fancy, doesn't it? I hope so, they've been around since 1893, and aren't planning on leaving.

On their site, you'll find a lot of  'advanced puzzlers' information for composing flats and puzzles, but also quite a few sample printable fill-in puzzles like cryptograms, crosswords and anagrams.

printable fill in puzzles

Nevertheless, there's something else I want to shove under the spotlight; chat and con games. These are quite literally games that can be played over the chat (we'll ignore these for now to keep the article's concept up) and on conventions. In other words, 'simple games that can be played without any preparation and often just with your voice.

2. Printable Fill-In Sudoku Puzzles

Do you like sudoku puzzles? So do we. Most cellphones, and even MP3-players have sudoku games these days, but if you're to play on paper, you can always grab the nearest newspaper. Another option is to print some printable fill-in puzzles on Printable Sudoku Puzzles.

printable fill-in puzzles

The available sudoku types include kid-sudoku's (4x4, 6x6, 9x9), samurai sudoku's (as displayed above) and X-sudoku's, which also have to add up diagonally. Hell, if you want, you can even print blank grids and make your own sudoku's!

Each type counts multiple difficulty levels, and there are literally thousands of available sudokus - to get a new one, you just have to refresh the page. Each sudoku has a number, so the next time you get online, you can check if you've made any mistakes. Have fun!

3. Printable Free Board Games

Technically, these aren't puzzles, but because they're 'intellectual board games', I'm going to include them as well.

free printable fill in puzzles

Do you know those 'traveler's chess boards'? Way too bulky! Why don't you just print your own? A simple google search shows up a multitude of printable game boards, including Checkers and even snakes and ladders!

Download a free printable Chess/Checkers board here - playing pieces included. Or are you looking for something more special? Try downloading a Go board!

Do you have some other cool ideas? Tell us all about them in the comments section below.