Puzzles Archive
Here is a collection many of the puzzles I've written for the public over the years. -Sandy
Hey Riddle Riddle
I've appeared on the Hey Riddle Riddle podcast a few dozen times, presenting original puzzles for the three hosts.
Sandy Weisz
NPR Sunday Puzzle
My puzzles have been featured on the NPR Sunday Puzzle over a dozen times over the last 15 years.
Sandy Weisz
Pilcrow Bar puzzle hunt
I built this hunt with Matthew Stein for Alinea in the early days of the pandemic. The hunt had 10 puzzles, all of which were gorgeously illustrated by a team we hired for this project. A few of the sillier ones:
Space Bar
To solve, you had to consider the name “Space Bar”, which is a clue about a keyboard. Take the first letters of each item, trace the path from one letter to the next on a QWERTY keyboard, and it spells English letters. Solution here.
FoodStock
An absurdly large collection of music and food puns. Solution here.
The Gallop Pole
This one involved a fictional merry-go-round. Solution here.
MIT Mystery Hunt 2022
I was on the construction team for this hunt, and wrote several puzzles. Below are some examples. The link to each puzzle’s solution can be found near the top of the page.
The Salt-N-Pepa Diner
A puzzle inspired by the famous John Mulaney routine, complete with a working jukebox.
Sorcery for Dummies
This one is a “blackbox” puzzle, where you type in an input, and the machine spits out an output, and you have to deduce the rules within.
My Dinner With Big Boi
A very silly video puzzle featuring my daughter.
Curious and Determined
To explain what's going on in this puzzle is to give it away, but it's a good one. And it's a beast.
The Times They Had
A set of strangely worded epitaphs. This one is also a lot of work. It was a hell of a lot of fun to construct.
Puzzled Pints
I've written lots of puzzles for Puzzled Pint, a free monthly puzzle get-together that happens in dozens of cities, across the world.
Full sets
The following are full puzzle sets. Each PDF contains 4-5 feeder puzzles and a meta.
- May, 2017 — Pintopia Press
- June, 2016 — Pintopia Brewery Tours
- August, 2015 — Semaphore Sailors
Bonuses
In addition to the full set, I often write a bonus puzzle. (All links are PDFs.)
Individual puzzles
Some months feature collections of puzzles made up by different authors. The following are my contributions to those sets. (All links are PDFs.)
November, 2016 — Campaigns
February, 2016 — Shel Silverstein
June, 2015 — TV
February, 2015 — Phobias
December, 2014 — Reason’s Greetings
November, 2014 — Ancient Egypt
October, 2014 — Back to the Future
April, 2014 — Mix Tape
Other original puzzles
- Against the Tide — a crossword puzzle
- Take an Extra Base
- Blue Screen of Death
