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My dad taught me how much fun it is to make games from stuff lying around the house. He cut open two album covers and taped them together to make a large, foldable board. Then he cut the corners from an entire deck of cards so that only the suit
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Ever stare at a long list of potential puzzle names, themes, or concepts and feel completely stuck on which to choose? You're not alone. As puzzle designers, we often generate dozens of creative options, but the selection process can become overwhelming. When faced with too many good options,
The Magnificent Mulberry Portal is the 9th Wonder of the World - a mysterious botanical anomaly discovered centuries ago that defies all scientific explanation. Despite countless expeditions by the world's greatest botanists, physicists, and adventurers, nobody has ever fully understood how it works. Professor Penelope Pemberwick came closest
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What Are Visual Puzzles? Visual puzzles come in all shapes and sizes. In this issue, I'll talk about a few, link to others and then share a special collection of my best puzzles (some are reprints.) Optical Illusions These are not really puzzles, but they are visual curiosities
What is it like to be a Crossword puzzle? Behind the grid of any puzzle hides a persona that is as rich and varied as a novelist's character. While displaying the traits of its constructor, a crossword puzzle's personality also reflects its environment. It may smile
Brevity is the soul of abbreviation Tvtropes.org describes Hurricane of Puns and cautions against its use. Apparently, I'm a self-proclaimed Pungeon Master. I must confess a weakness for puns that is exceeded only by my fondness for anagrams. (Thanks, Pop!) This morning was a good Friday, when
Happy Spring! I'm going to ease into this new, self-imposed editorial calendar. First, an update, then a bunch of puzzles for you to enjoy. Update I spent the last three months of 2024 writing a book about AI and puzzle design. I spent the first three months of
Alchemy What's old is new again. AI is the new Alchemy, and the world has gone mad, as little workshops spring up all over the benighted web. Let's ignore the doom and gloom. Instead, we will poke around in the, now venerable, ChatGPT-3.5 and leverage
As puzzle designers, our creativity can be stifled when digital workspaces become chaotic jumbles of files. Each new puzzle book project introduces elements, fonts, graphics, templates, and countless versions—all of which can overwhelm your system and your creative process. Without a thoughtful organization that follows the natural lifecycle of
Books
As part of my puzzle design journey, I have joined several groups, mostly on Facebook. I've learned a lot of things and have now become a teacher of things. One of the things, of course, is puzzle design. Long-time readers may recall my essays from Substack. (Someday, I&
When you spend a lot of time constructing word-based puzzles, a mathematics of letters emerges. The most basic example is word length. Let's build a toolkit of more advanced mathematics and use it to gain an appreciation for different puzzles. For brevity, the term dataset refers to a
The mighty spreadsheet is a canvas for a puzzle constructor. Rows and columns are merely suggestions to someone who sees a vegetable garden. If you work professionally with Excel, you may have seen eye-popping dashboards that make you think Excel had run into a phone booth for a quick change