MIT Mystery Hunt Puzzle Index: Category Index

Crosswords

All sorts of crossword puzzles. If you enter words in a grid across and down, it goes here. Even if the grid runs in weird directions, or some of the words bend around corners, it's here.

1, 2, 3 crossword

A crossword variant in which 1, 2, or 3 letters may be written into each square. There are variations of this variant:

Crushword is a variant with no upper limit on the number of letters, though some sources use this name for the 1, 2, 3.
Variogram forms in the NPL are also one or more.
The jumping crossword allows 0 or 1 letters.
Double-or-nothing allows 0 or 2.

When only a few squares contain multiple letters and the entries in those squares are related somehow, it is instead a rebus crossword.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 Reflecting Pool
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 Message From Above
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Crushed Petals

7x7 crossword puzzles. The 7xwords project began based on the idea that there are 312 grid patterns for a 7x7 crossword following the standard American rules that there must not be unchecked letters or two letter words, and that the grids must be connected and rotationally symmetric. This is exactly enough to publish six puzzles a week for a 52-week year.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 49ers

Alpha Sleuth

This puzzle type consists of a criss-cross-style grid with some letters pre-filled. There are exactly 26 unfilled spaces which need to be filled in using every letter of the alphabet once, forming words that have something in common. Some unfilled spaces have a number. A set of numbered spaces (possibly with repeats) below the grid uses the letters in the numbered grid spaces as a key, producing a final answer word or phrase.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Alpha Sleuth

Anacrostic puzzle

See double crostic

audio crossword

A crossword puzzle in which the clues are spoken, and it's part of the puzzle to distinguish homophones within the clues.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Fret Not!

Back and Forth (puzzle type)

In the standard form of this puzzle, a grid is provided that has spaces for three letter groups to be entered on alternate sides of a central axis. The answers are six letters long, using two consecutive groups, and read in alternating directions, so that each answer begins with the last three letters of the previous answer, reversed. Standard crossword-like clues are provided.

MIT Mystery Hunt 1995 5: Attic

barred crossword

The style of grid commonly used in variety cryptics where heavy bars rather than black squares separate words, but with straight clues (or other variants as indicated).
When this is combined with diagramless crossword it indicates a puzzle where there my be no given bars, but words may be entered consecutively with no breaks within the puzzle, and the puzle does not fit into another named type.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2004 IHS
MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 It's Still Not About the Bike
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 Tower House
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 High Rollers
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Gravitational Pull
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 It's Not Easy
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Catenoid
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Potions
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Broken Wheel
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 5D Barred Diagramless with Multiverse Time Travel

Black Box crosswords

Locate mirrors in the grid to make the sight lines connect as indicated, and then enter crossword answers along the sightlines.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Space Ghosts, Coast to Coast

block-style crossword

This is the traditional type of grid for cryptic crosswords but applied to crosswords with straigfht cluing. Typically every other row and every other column has every other square blacked in, so that the letters in these lines are unchecked. Additional black squares separate the otherwise full rows and columns into words.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Fusion
MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 Thinking Outside the Box
MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 When (Not) in Rome
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Hash
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Storybook Pals
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Pile of Tiles
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Terminal
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 How Come This Crossword Got No Grid One?

Bonza puzzles

Bonza is a puzzle app in which each puzzle consists of small segments (typically 2-4 letters) of a solved criss-cross puzzle which you have to reassemble like jigsaw pieces.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Bits of Nomenclature, Zoned Appropriately
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Protein

bullseye crossword

In this round crossword puzzle, all the words read in toward the center. Inner rings have fewer spaces and words starting in adjacent groups of outer spaces come together and share inner spaces.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Novaldex 04-Z Cryogenic Power Generator

catenoid crossword

A crossword based on a model of a catenoid. Effectively, when flattened, the puzzle is equivalent to a grid of squares which have been cut in half diagonally in alternate directions, with words reading in the rows and columns. You could think of it each square having two letters, but the squares alternate as to whether the letters are read in the same order both directions, or in opposite orders.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Catenoid

cathedral crossword

This was a unique crossword variant invented for this puzzle.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 How To Build Your Own Cathedral

criss-cross

In its standard form, this puzzle consists of a loosely interlocking grid and a list of words to be filled in. You must use logic and elimination to figure out where to place the words. A fill-in puzzle is one where the grid is dense like an American crossword. See also disconnected criss-cross and diagramless criss-cross. This category includes puzzles where the word list is clued rather than provided, but if the clues are associated with specific entries, this becomes a crossword puzzle instead.

cross-number puzzle

This is a crossword puzzle where the answers are numbers written with digits. These puzzles are usually full of cross-references and clues which limit their answers to certain subsets of integers, and usually follow the rule (as in many numerical puzzles) leading zeroes are not allowed.

MIT Mystery Hunt 1997 Two MIT Students Claim Elvis Was Their 6.001 TA!
MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 QED
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Lost to Time

cross-stitch crossword

In this crossword puzzle, answers are entered in an X shape (with the letter at the center of the X appearing twice in the answer).

MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Cross-stitched Words

crossword puzzles

The standard American-style crossword puzzle, occasionally with a more open-form grid than usual. See crossword variants for those where words are entered in unusual ways, and cryptic crosswords for puzzles with cryptic or British-style cluing.

Modern crossword puzzles sometimes include one of a number of tricks, and naturally these show up in hunts as well. Among these are the rebus crossword in which more than one letter is written into a few squares of the crossword, and deletion or letter change themes in which the theme entries are modified in some way to fit into the grid.

crosswords on the landscape

Using the shapes of buildings, paths, etc. as crossword grids.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Hedgehogs and Flamingos
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Fun Sized
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 It's Not Easy
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 It's Not Normal
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Hockfield Court

crostic puzzle

See double crostic

crushword puzzle

See 1, 2, 3 crossword

cryptic crosswords

The standard British-style crossword or cryptic crossword, where clues usually consist of a straight definition and a wordplay clue concatenated in either order. This category includes cryptic double-crostics and the like, but see cryptic crossword clues for puzzles where the clues stand alone and their answers do not go into some sort of grid. American cryptics are defined rigidly by a set of rules from British setter Ximenes, presented to American audiences by Stephen Sondheim in 1968, while British ones are often looser in applying these rules.

diagramless criss-cross

There are two standard versions of this puzzle. In one, you're given one starting word in a big open grid, and you are given not only the word list but also the list of words that cross each word, in order. In the other, you're given the word list, and the grid is pre-filled with all occurrences of one or more letters which are frequent in the word list (sometimes rebus-style, with a word of two or more letters written into the pre-filled cells, though the other squares are normal).

MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 This Puzzle Has Been Formatted to Fit Your Screen
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Treasure Chest Meta
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Snack Bar
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Personal Connections

diagramless crossword

A crossword puzzle for which the grid is not given. In the standard form, the American crossword standards are enforced rigidly; there are no unchecked letters or two-letter words and the grid has 180-degree rotational symmetry. Numbers are sequential in lexical order.

disconnected criss-cross

This puzzle contains multiple criss-cross grids with just two words in each. Some additional relationship is necessary to constrain which two words cross in each grid.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2002 Cross Breeding
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Teller's Window
MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 Now Let's Create Melodies
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 The ___er of Men
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Missed Connections
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Crossing Your Arms
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Build

double crostic

In the standard form of this puzzle, clue answers are written on a set of numbered blanks, then transferred into a grid where words (usually spelling a quotation) read only across, wrapping around the ends of rows. Normally, each number appears only once among the answers and the grid contains the letter of the clue which uses that number, so that you can also work from the grid back to the clues. The initial letters of the answers, in clue order, spell out the source of the quotation (sometimes abbreviated).

double-or-nothing crossword

A variant of the 1, 2, 3 crossword in which each square contains 0 or 2 letters.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Emergency Deportation

double trouble crossword

See 1, 2, 3 crossword

Figure Logic puzzle

See cross-number puzzle

fill-in puzzle

This is essentially a criss-cross puzzle with a list of words to be entered into a grid, but the grid is dense like an American-style crossword or variety cryptic with few or no unchecked letters.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Pen Rose

Fit-In puzzle

See fill-in puzzle

flower power puzzle

See petal puzzle

forms (word squares and others)

Forms are small crossword-like puzzles with grids in simple geometric shapes. Today, in English, these are almost exclusively found in the National Puzzlers' League, with the exception of common types like word squares.

framelinks

In the standard form of this puzzle, a block-style crossword grid has all the unchecked letters filled in. The letters that go into the intersections are given as a bank of letters.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 When (Not) in Rome

Fraternal Twins puzzle

In this word puzzle type, two copies of a snaking path are divided into six-letter sections. Words are entered one directly after the other along each path, and corresponding 6-letter segments have the same letters, but not in the same order.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Going Too Far crossword

In this crossword variant, invented by Mike Shenk, some answers are too long for their spaces, but can be made to fit by writing a letter on a black square at the start or end of the word.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 How Far?

gryptics crossword

In the standard gryptics puzzle, you are given a 5x5 grid to fill in intersecting words, most of them extending beyond one or both edges of the grid with additional non-intersecting letters. No defintions are given, but the non-intersecting letters are all given. As a crossword variant, no letters are given but the words are clued like in a crossword puzzle.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Staggered Starts

hexagonal crossword

A crossword on a grid of hexagons where answers are entered in straight lines in three directions.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 A Regular Crossword
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Mars Rover

Honeycomb crossword

The grid for this crossword uses hexagonal cells. Numbers appear in black cells and each answer is written in the six hexes around it, with the starting square and direction for each answer left to the solver to determine based on matching letters from adjacent words. There are two variations: In one, the grid is rectangular and the numbers lie in a rectangular lattice of cells. In the other, the grid is hexagonal and the rows of numbered cells are staggered so that every pair of adjacent words shares two letters. Old Dell magazines used to run both versions, calling the hexagonal-shaped grid Inner Circles.

MIT Mystery Hunt 1995 37: Angularium
MIT Mystery Hunt 2001 A Hex on You!
MIT Mystery Hunt 2002 Piles of Hexagons (variant)

Inner Circles puzzle

See Honeycomb crossword

jumping crossword

The jumping crossword is usually not a crossword in the conventional sense at all, since the word list is given. It's more like a criss-cross puzzle but with the extra rule that some squares will be left blank, with words simply reading across whichever letters are used (as opposed to a diagramless crossword where the unused squares mark word break). If there are black squares, they separate entries in the same row or column. In the original logic puzzle type jumping crossword, blank squares are not allowed to touch along an edge. But in Mystery Hunt we have generally had jumping crosswords that are clued like crosswords.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 A Pile of Letters
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Mind the Gaps
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Labyrinth
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 It's Not Normal
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Heavenly Bodice

keyed-order crossword

This crossword variant has a rectangular grid with winding marked paths on which some answers go, but you're not told which goes on each path nor in which direction it reads. Some (but not all) rows have clues for usually two words that are entered there, but they don't go in order; instead, numbers 1 to N in the cells tell which order to enter the letters in the row. Foggy calls this a Vine Garden, but I don't see any other use of the name.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 The Enchanted Garden

kriss kross

See criss-cross

labyrinth crossword

In this crossword variant, the grid is divided by heavy bars into a single long loop. Letters along the loop for a series or words which are clued in order, and the letters in each row (going through the heavy bars) form two words which are clued in order with the row they go into identified. Answer lengths are not given.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Twists and Turns
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Ice Cream Roll

Marching Bands puzzle

In this crossword variant, clues are given for two or more words which are entered directly after one another in each row, without black spaces, and another set of clues are given for words entered similarly in concentric bands indicated by shading and a letter where each band starts. If the size of the grid is odd, the center square is usually black and, in that row only, the black square separates the two words written there.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 Ordering a Round
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Marching Band
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Marching Band
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 The Hobbit
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Football Team on the Marching Field

Mixed Doubles crossword

See Split Ends crossword

multiple crossword solutions

Crossword-like puzzles where the same clues and grid have multiple solutions, as opposed to Siamese Twins where there are two different clues for each space.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2012 Criss-Cross

New York Times crosswords

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 A Case of the Monday Crosswords
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Sunday Dinner
MIT Mystery Hunt 2024 Back to Square One

non-intersecting crossword

A crossword puzzle where crossing words don't actually share the same letter. Another mechanic is used to make the puzzle actually solvable.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Diagramless Crossmusic
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 15×15

omnidirectional crossword

In this crossword variant, you're told where each word starts, but it can go in any of 4 or 8 directions. The directions may be given, clued, or for you to figure out from matching letters in clue answers.

MIT Mystery Hunt 1997 In Utopia, Nostradamus Predicts Bisexuality and Elvis Music!
MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Pen Rose
MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Safari Park
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Workshop Meta Meta
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 A Thousand Words

pathfinder crossword

A crossword variant in which words may meander around the grid on orthogonally connected paths. Conventionally, each square is used in exactly two entries. The Pipe Dream crossword is a variation on this where additionally each edge between squares is crossed once, and the words can be colored red and black so each letter is part of one red and one black word.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2002 The Path of the Argo
MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Pipe Dream
MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Pipe Dream 2: Rapid Transit
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Sage Advice
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 When All is Lost

pentagram crosswords

7-letter words are entered along the lines of pentagons, one letter on each vertex and each line segment.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Star-Crossed

petal puzzle

This crossword variant features a grid which is twisted into a flower shape, with all the words being the same length and entered from the outside inward, but some bending clockwise and some bending counterclockwise. It is equivalent to a crossword puzzle with a single stairstep diagonal which wraps around in both directions.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Crushed Petals

Pipe Dream crossword

See pathfinder crossword

Places, Please puzzle

See reverse word search

Puns and Anagrams crossword

This crossword variant usually uses a standard American-style grid, but the clues are neither standard American-style nor British-style. Instead, each clue either clues the answer in a punny way, or contains an anagram of the answer within the clue (not segregated from the clue with an anagram indicator as in anagram cryptic crossword clues).

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Safari Park

Puzzle in the Round

A round diagram has a circle in the middle and 4 rings divided into more spaces as you progress outward, with the outer ring numbered. Clue answers are entered radially at their numbers, but with the letters rearranged. You have to determine the order of the letters from the shared letters of nearby answers. Typically the outer ring spells a message.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Pie in the Sky

rebus crossword

A crossword puzzle in which more than one letter is to be written into some spaces, the rebus squares. Usually all the rebus squares are the same sequence of letters, or they are related somehow. Usually there are only a few of these (less than 5%), though they are not necessarily limited to long theme entries; if many squares contain multiple letters and there's no theme to those squares, it is a 1, 2, 3 crossword. The letters in rebus squares are usually meant to be read the same way across and down, though there can be variants where they are read one way afross and another way down. This gimmick is usually not clued; solvers have to figure it out while solving.

reverse word search

In this puzzle, you are given a mostly blank grid, a word list, and some clues to help you place the words. In the variant called Tanglewords, all the initial letters are given. In Places, Please, the words are all listed with the number of their starting cell.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2002 Adapted for Television
MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 New Zoo Revue
MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 Negative Ad Campaign
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Mos Eisley Spaceport
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 Disappearing Act
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 The Balloon Merchant's Gambit

Right Angles puzzle

A crossword variant where words may read in any of the four orthogonal directions, and each answer takes a 90-degree turn somewhere in the answer (for you to determine).

MIT Mystery Hunt 2003 That's Right
MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Sharp Turns
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Blazing Trails
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 All the Right Angles

Rows Garden

This crossword variant contains a grid of triangular cells. The standard grid size has a broken row of 9 spaces at the top and bottom, and every other row contains 21 spaces. The triangles are shaded in groups of 6 into hexagons (roses or blooms) of three different colors, no two same-colored hexagons touching. Clues are given for one word in each short row and usually exactly two words across each long row, and for the 6-letter words in each bloom. You must determine both the starting point and direction for the blooms, as well as which word goes into each bloom. The bloom clues are sorted by bloom color, and usually alphabetically by answer within each color.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 A Mind-flexing Exercise
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 Safecracking
MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 I Never Promised You a Rows Garden
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Rose Garden
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Bouquet of Balloons
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Doing Some Gardening
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Gears
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Degeneration and Regeneration

Seven Sages puzzle

Crossword variant in which all answers are seven letters long and must be entered around a numbered block in a direction and starting location which you must determine

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Sage Advice

Siamese Twins puzzle

The standard form of this puzzle is a crossword with two identical grids and two clues at each number. You have to figure out which clue goes with which grid, i.e., which clues lead to words that interlock in the same crossword. This can be extended to crossword variants and more than two grids.

skipping crossword

As opposed to the jumping crossword in which some spaces are left blank and answers skip over them in both directions, in this puzzle all the squares are filled, but answers only use some of the letters in each line and skip over others.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Ocean's Eleven Meta

Some Assembly Required

In the standard form of this crossword variant, clues are given for two or more words that read across each row, without any black spaces between them, and for a set of snaky jigsaw pieces, where the clue for each piece is given but you must determine how to arrange the pieces to fill the grid.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 Picture Puzzle
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 Picture Puzzle 2
MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Build Your Own Acrostic (double-crostic variant)
MIT Mystery Hunt 2013 Password Reminder (Meta) (variation)
MIT Mystery Hunt 2017 Changing Rooms
MIT Mystery Hunt 2018 Voltaik Bio-Electric Cell
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Sage Advice
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 How To Require Some More Assembly (Picture Puzzle 3)
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Narnia Beeswax (variation)

something different crossword

A something different crossword looks like a standard American crossword puzzle but the grid is usually wide-open with few black squares, and the entries are usually contrived phrases (with equally contrived cluing). The NPL prints word square versions of these with no black squares at absurdly large sizes that would never allow a proper word square.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Erraticism
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Far Out
MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Alloy of Words

spherical crossword

MIT Mystery Hunt 2011 Clues and Coordinates

spiral puzzle

In the standard form of this crossword variant, a set of clues is given for words to be entered from 1 to 100 along the spiral, without skipping any spaces, and for another set of words to be entered from 100 to 1. Thus, the second set of answers is collectively a reversal of the first set of answers.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2002 The Spiral
MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 Spin Control
MIT Mystery Hunt 2010 This is a Recording
MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 Snake

Split Decisions puzzle

This is the standard puzzle type where you have to fill in a criss-cross style grid with words you have to figure out on your own, based on bigram changes where both versions of the changed letters are given beside each other in the grid.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2006 Data Analysis
MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 Split Second Decisions
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Send Yourself Swanlumps

Split Ends crossword

In this crossword variant, usually using a criss-cross or block-style grid, each clue is split into two pieces which are numbered separately, usually using each number from 1 to N once. The numbers in the grid don't follow any order; they are the sum of the numbers for the two halves of the answer. A variation called Mixed Doubles splits the clue halves into across and down sections.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 La Ronde

starfish crossword

Original crossword variant where words are entered bending along two arms of a starfish.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Starfish

tanglewords puzzle

See reverse word search

Tetracross puzzle

A tetracross is a crossword puzzle which, like the jumping crossword, skips over some squares. In this case, the skipped squares form tetrominoes.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2016 Triptychs

variogram forms

See 1, 2, 3 crossword

whirlwind puzzle

This puzzle is similar to Marching Bands with clues for words in each row and clues for words that go around the grid, but instead of forming separate bands, there are two spirals, one reading inward and one reading outward.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2008 At the Beach
MIT Mystery Hunt 2015 Dr. Nautilus's Secret Notes (one-spiral variant)

Word Games puzzle

This puzzle has clue answers written on labeled blanks which are transferred into a grid in the style of a double crostic, but usually the cells are labeled by letter-and-number coordinates. A message is spelled out in the grid when the puzzle is finished, but black squares between words are not given. The clues are traditionally divided into 4 groups, with each group having its own unique clue style explained or hinted at by a title for the group.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 Word Play
MIT Mystery Hunt 2005 Vanna's Nightmare

wormhole crossword

A one-off crossword meant to resemble the shape of a Schwarzchild wormhole.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2009 The Buzz-Cut Man in a Leather Jacket

wraparound crossword

A crossword puzzle that wraps around the edges of the grid, so that there are no true edges. A petal puzzle is effectively such a crossword which has been twisted into a circle.

MIT Mystery Hunt 2007 Thinking Outside the Box
MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 Something in Common
MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 Squaring the Circle
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 Called Onto the Carpet

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