This pages contains links to puzzles I have created.
Pythagorean puzzle: Arrange 9 3-4-5 triangles and 2 unit squares into the shape of the familiar Pythagorean Theorem proof diagram. Board Pieces (this contains 2 sets of pieces and printing on card stock is recommended) Solution
Suntrapment (My design, based on an idea by and manufactured by Alexandre Muņiz)
See my NPL page for links to my puzzles published in The Enigma and other similar puzzles.
On April 1, 2010 I wrote a joke set of Nikoli-style grid puzzles.
Some of my gift exchange contributions for the Gathering for Gardner have been puzzles.
Each of these puzzles has a final answer which is a word or short phrase.
For the 2008 MIT Mystery Hunt:
This is a non-competitive puzzle hunt Boston-area NPL member Alf
started ages ago. I've been attending since 2000 and I have
written puzzles a few times.
For the Decathlon in Alf's Hunt 2012, Puzzle
A. (A crossword variant which was supposed to be a
minipuzzle, a quickie to solve along with other puzzles in the
time of one full size puzzle.) At the end of solving this puzzle,
you should know the 8-letter final answer and also which Decathlon
event this represents. Solution
For the 2013 hunt, I also wrote a minipuzzle, a cryptic Shikaku puzzle.
(solution)
The 2015 hunt was held on Pi day and was themed around pi and
pies. I wrote the puzzle Π is
for Product (solution)
which combined a cross-products puzzle with a set of cryptic
division problems.
The 2016 hunt was themed around the 400th anniversaries of
Shakespeare's and Cervantes's deaths. I wrote the cross-number
puzzle Pericles, Prince of Tyre. (solution) Some of the Shakespeare
and Cervantes trivia in these clues was available in a handout
during the event, but you may have to look it up on the internet.
One clue which depended on an attendee's private information has
been changed for this public version.
For the 2017 hunt I wrote a split puzzle, Blizzard. Version 1. Version
2. (Solution for both
versions)
2018's hunt has a theme based on Amherst, Massachusetts, where
the hunt was set. Amherst is the home of Hampshire College, which
I have long known was the home of professor David C. Kelly, famous
for his obsession with the number 17 (the "most random" number
according to him), so I gave teams a set of trivia involving the
number 17 encoded as cryptograms. A split puzzle again, but only
extracting different letters. Version 1.
Version 2. (Solution for both versions)
2019's hunt was based on the calendar, very loosely. Each of us
wrote a puzzle that was tied to a month in some way, and concealed
an extra word that was not meant to be hard to find, in addition
to the usual info to find the next puzzle; these words were used
in a calendar-based metapuzzle at the end. This is a split puzzle,
and solvers would end up on one of three teams in addition to
getting one of three locations depending on which page they
picked. The puzzle packet includes
all the different versions. The souvenir book contained a version with no cutting so you did not
have to cut the book. The solution
applies to either version.
2020's hunt was held on Leap Day and was themed on that day, and on the US Census, and punnily on the five senses as well. I fit in two of the three themes with my Leaping Crossword which was an evening split puzzle, so there are three versions of the puzzle in this document. The solution document has all three solutions.
I was on the Plugh team who constructed BAPHLs 5 and 8. BAPHL
always comes in two difficulty levels, the easy or normal version
being meant for newcomers to puzzle hunts and the hard or advanced
version for those who have solved puzzle hunts before.
For BAPHL 5, I wrote:
For BAPHL 8, I wrote:
For the inaugural Caltech puzzle hunt in fall 2018, I wrote these
puzzles:
