Saxifrage's Puzzle Page

"The past fifteen years, for me, has been a process of sinking into, codifying, and coming to terms with the fact that this is what I do. That I'm a puzzle guy." -- Joshua Kosman, The New Yorker, March 4, 2002 (quoted with permission)

While I didn't say that, I could've. Puzzles are a big part of my life, one that's become considerably bigger in the past few years, since I joined the National Puzzlers' League. I've always enjoyed solving puzzles, but since I joined the NPL, I've begun constructing a few.

Mystery Hunt Puzzles

Every year, during January, puzzlers take over MIT for a weekend. It's called the MIT Mystery Hunt, and it happens every Martin Luther King weekend. A coin -- some small object, anyway, which is called the coin for historical reasons -- is hidden somewhere on campus. Teams of anywhere from 5 to 50 people spend the weekend solving brain-breaking puzzles to try and find it. The reward? The winning team gets to -- nay, has to! -- run the next year's Hunt.

In 2001, I was part of the team that ran the Hunt. I contributed two puzzles, one of which was among the least-solved and one of which was among the most-solved. I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.

Xenophobia (and its solution)
CPPC (solution not currently on the web, but should be soon)

IT Puzzles

Friends of mine pointed me to The Grey Labyrinth as a good site for people who like puzzles. (I agree.) One running thread is the "IT puzzle." That's IT, as in "you're it!" It's puzzle tag. One person posts a puzzle to which the answer is the password to the IT login. The person who solves the puzzle gets to be the next IT.I've been IT three and a half times now. (Once I shared the ITship.) Here are my four IT puzzles, more or less as they appeared. Each puzzle is on its own page, and each has a link to its answer.

A Strange Book Jacket
My Second IT Puzzle
A Combi-IT Puzzle (cowritten with Tahnan)
Overheard After Auditions
Strange Dreams

Comments on any or all of the above are, of course, welcome.

Miscellaneous Puzzles

Lost in Translation is a puzzle/fun handout I put together for the 2002 National Puzzlers' League convention in Vancouver.

Puzzle Links

Here are a few links that may be of interest to puzzle fans.

The New York Times crossword puzzle, considered the gold standard in the crossword world. From this link, you can solve today's puzzle online for free, or pay $20 a year to get access to archives of puzzles, printing them out, etc.
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held every year in Stamford, Connecticut.
The National Puzzlers' League, the oldest active puzzlers' organization in the world. Joining this group was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Puzzability, a puzzle site created by some of the best puzzle constructors Games Magazine ever had.
The Grey Labyrinth. See above.
Planetarium, a truly beautiful puzzle/story. Only go there if you can go back once a week for the whole twelve weeks. It's beautifully illustrated, wonderfully written, and satisfyingly puzzling. Highly recommended.

Go back to Katherine's studio.