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Puzzles! Crosswords, conundrums, escape rooms, Hunt->Punt->Pun->Fun

DFalcon

DFalcon

(he/him)
This is an enormously broad category, so I'll bet there's some sort of interest, whether it's crosswords or, I don't know, blacksmith puzzles.

One thing I started doing more in the pandemic is puzzle hunts: themed collections of puzzles tackled cooperatively by a team, typically arranged so that solutions to one set of puzzles feed into a final "metapuzzle". The largest and most famous of these is likely the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, but there are a number of others. This week my team did Huntinality and enjoyed it, but it's still going so I'd better not say anything else there.

These hunts can be impenetrable to the neophyte, in part because they're multilayered and typically don't come with direct instructions. I suppose there's a comparison to escape rooms there, but escape room puzzles are meant to be solved in minutes, and without the benefit of Google or other tools, so they have to give much clearer indications.

The monthly Puzzled Pint is pretty accessible, though, and keeps archives of past puzzles online - free, like most hunts. I recommend it as a way to dip one's feet in.
 
FelixSH

FelixSH

(He/Him)
That looks pretty cool. Reminds me of puzzles from my childhood, except harder. But really harder, I looked over a few of the Puzzled Pint ones, and found them already pretty confusing. Maybe when I take a bit more time.
 
John

John

(he/him)
For books, I quite enjoyed the concept of The Maze of Games, even though I'm no good at them. It's a choose your own adventure, except you have to solve puzzles to find out where to go instead of just making random choices. Fun artwork and tough puzzles, I've only "beaten" the first chapter, but I'm not very good at puzzles.

As a kid, I really enjoyed the book Mad Mazes. It's similar, a bunch of logic puzzles and mazes with some little narrative to go along with them. A couple examples from it are on this page, including the Theseus and the Minotaur puzzle. That one has web and mobile versions, so you don't have to do the movements in your head if you don't want to.

I recommend both of those books. Mad Mazes is out of print and cheap, but Maze of Games is from a small publisher who initially kickstarted it. You can find good quality hardcovers+pdf for $50, or just the pdf for $30. Still recommended!
 
Mogri

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
On that one, the title is a significant hint.

Regarding the dates: the author is French, so that makes sense.
 
Kirin

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
My old (now sadly closed) hometown brew-pub used to run the occasional multi-layered mystery hunt, including ones where you had to travel to various locations nearby to pick up clues to other locations. I solved at least one of them fast enough to win a beer dinner, that was fun times.

The thread title was also making me think this would be about general word games, which my partner and I have been playing a lot of lately. We got really into Big Boggle recently (exactly what it sounds like, just a 5x5 grid instead of 4x4, and minimum 4-letter words instead of 3, it's been a lot more fun than the original version) and Quiddler which is a cool realatively fast-moving card-based word building game, and we also picked up Bananagrams though I think that one's probably more fun as a party game with >2 people.
 
John

John

(he/him)
Oh yes, this series got me to resubscribe to the crosswords, and to try my best at solving things before watching his solve. I haven’t internalized enough common clue/answers to do more than a handful of words on the tough puzzles, but now I can solve Mondays and Tuesdays after a bit of time, and can get a good chunk through Wednesday puzzles. I even got 90% through last week’s Sunday puzzle, which was the hardest one I’ve ever done.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Yep, we've started doing the crossword in the evenings then watching his solve in the mornings before work. Doesn't always work out timing-wise but very enjoyable.
 
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