Puzzles
A puzzle asks you to find the answer or hidden pattern behind something that at first is incomplete or even meaningless (a computer scientist might say it is in NP or is a planted problem). I like writing and solving puzzles of all sorts, especially puzzles in puzzle hunts. I once wrote for and commentated a crossword tournament.
Below are some of the puzzles I’ve written for puzzle hunts. These puzzles usually don’t come with any explicit instructions; if you “figure out” what the puzzle is getting at, there is a natural path to a single answer word or phrase from each one. To see how this kind of puzzle works, have a look at the solutions.
It's really just a game. Type the words to the beat!
A benign-looking but extremely difficult word puzzle. This puzzle is designed for a group of experts.
Here are other puzzles that I’ve made.
- Me, the Worm (solution)
- Not to Scale (solution)
- Mixed Message (solution)
- Fridge Magnets (solution)
- Cuspidation (solution)
- Where are They? (solution)
- Special Snowflake (solution)
- o ea / Wrd Srch (solution)
- Learn to Play (solution)
- Hobbyists (solution)
- A Day in the Life of Cobot (solution)
- Numbered Hexes (solution)
- P vs NP (solution)
- My First Computer (solution)
- Hello from the Outside (solution)
- Pivots (solution)
- DMCA Takedown Notice
- Land Grab
- Evolutionary, My Dear Watson
- Please Share This Image
- World Pieces
- Alpha Equivalence
- Collage Application
- Nonverbal Communication
Other
- I wrote a bunch of crossword puzzles for the Chicago Maroon (the University of Chicago’s student newspaper) which you can solve here.
- Minus Square cryptic crossword with a mysterious layout and a 5-letter answer
- DFA crossword made for STOC 2022