I've always thought a balanced competition should include some fill-in puzzles that have a "word puzzle" like quality even if they are presented without words to be fair to all competitors. To accomplish this goal, I used number-fills on my Double Decathlon test puzzles, with two different themes represented in the numbers ( Read more... )

I haven't posted a fill-in type puzzle in awhile, so here is one with a twist: some of the entries have some unused spaces. This puzzle type should be familiar to those who competed on the USPC or OAPC in the past. This particular theme should be familiar to those who know a whole lot about the puzzles I've written, and may provide a clue to what ( Read more... )

This is part 2 of a "Better Know the USPC" preview series. The United States Puzzle Championship is scheduled for August 27th, 1PM EDT.

Type: Word Search
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Last weekend I helped run BANG 23 in Burlingame. A summary of the event and the puzzles are now available online for those who missed out and want to see what we put together. I contributed the meta, all map puzzles (themed logic puzzles around the number 23), ~5.25/8 standard puzzles, and also did the graphic design, web design, and production, ( Read more... )

(Note for next week: Friday Puzzle #63 will be constructed after the release of the USPC instructions. I will complete my USPC preview post with a poll including all the puzzle types in the morning/afternoon. The winner of a vote by ~4 PM PST will then be constructed and posted as the Friday puzzle. I'm hoping to have to draw two mice-based ( Read more... )

The USPC is coming up and one of my favorite puzzle types on it is the variety criss-cross. I don't construct enough word logic puzzles considering how much I enjoy them, so I thought I'd give this puzzle type a shot this week with an idea I had to combine a Tents puzzle with a word puzzle. Consider it practice for those getting ready for the ( Read more... )

It seems every three months or so I get the motivation to attempt a word puzzle construction. I ask you to indulge me once again with these two puzzles. They are Tile Crosswords, a variation on word squares that is the topic of the PuzzleCraft article in the Nov. 2009 GAMES by Mike Selinker and me. Here the two puzzles contain a secret message ( Read more... )

As mentioned in my last posting, I've been fascinated with vowelless crossword puzzles recently. I decided to try to make (and finally publish here) a word puzzle on one of the grid variants I use all the time for sudoku ( Read more... )

My current puzzling fascination is Frnk Lng's Vwllss Crsswrds. I must say it is taking up a fair bit of my time nowadays as I'm on a bit of a (self-imposed) break from writing/solving logic puzzles. I'm tempted to get some experience writing them myself - I know I will have a super tough time getting the wide-open fills Frank does, but it seems ( Read more... )

Bills are keeping me from being productive tonight. Still, to be -4 in turnovers and close to the browns speaks both to our team's struggles but especially Cleveland's ( Read more... )