By Sandy Weisz in Monthly newsletter — May 31, 2022

Jolt Vibing Raven

Games Magazine feature; two new puzzles; new PostCurious game; The Puzzler book by A.J. Jacobs; Knot Words; and a whole lot of puzzle-making and -solving resources.

I grew up on Games magazine. I got it all throughout my teen years, and while I wasn't sharp enough to do all the crosswords yet, I did as many of the Pencilwise puzzles as I could, and devoured the bite-sized Wild Cards in the back. It’s no exaggeration to say that my time as a Games subscriber paved a path to current career. So you can imagine how thrilling it is for me to be able to announce that the May issue of Games has an article about me and The Mystery League!

(I'm stopping short of inserting jonah_hill_screaming.gif, but that's a pretty accurate assessment of me right now.)

If you can't get your hands on a meatspace copy, you can download a PDF of the issue for free here, or view a copy of the article here:

May Puzzler

Every month I offer a new, bite-size puzzle, called The Puzzler. Here is the one for May.

Change one letter in the name of an NFL team. Do it again for their main rival. These two words are synonyms of the name of a third NFL team (in the other conference). What teams and words are these?

Submit your answer here 🗳

April's solution — and list of solvers — is below.

May Mystery

Every month, I also publish a bigger, complex puzzle. I just published the second one, called Off The Wall, which you can find here:

Thank you to the 112 Signals Members whose membership makes it possible for me to spend time building out puzzles like this. These Mysteries will remain accessible to all Signals readers, but hints, solutions, submission forms, and leaderboards are only accessible to Members. To gain access, and to support the creation of more puzzles, please consider becoming a Member:

Become a Signals Member 🎉

Thank you! 🫶

Adrift, a new puzzle game by PostCurious

At our house, we've been devouring The Emerald Flame, the awesome puzzle box by PostCurious. (Review here.) They're back with a new game, Adrift, currently available for preorder. And it looks glorious.

The Puzzler, by A.J. Jacobs

At the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt, I attended an event where I ended up at a table with the author A.J. Jacobs, who I knew of from having read one of his previous books. Turns out, he was there researching a new book about puzzles and puzzle hunts. Two years later, that book is finally here — along with (naturally) a puzzle hunt contest to go along with it:

The hunt is almost over, with the final metas being released on Saturday, but as long as you can get all the puzzles solved by then, you'll be able to compete for the grand prize. These puzzles have all been super solid, and with a nice range of difficulty. My favorites are A Curious Pairing (tough, with a lot of fun layers) and Digital Gaming (clever twist on some standard logic formats).

Knot Words

Ken Ken + Crossword = Knot Words, a new game by Zach Gage and Jack Schlesigner. Download it here:

Knotwords

Here's a preview:

Warning: very addictive. Available on iOS, Android and Steam.

Puzzle resources

I've posted a new Resources section on Signals, which contains three collections of links:

Tools — for building puzzles and for solving them
Crosswords — links to lots of crossword sources, including indie publishers
Puzzles & hunts — where to find hunts and hunt-style puzzles

If you have any suggestions for more things to add to any of those pages, please let me know.

Solution to the April Puzzler

The rest of this post is for Signals subscribers. It's free to join.
Here are some reasons why you might want to.

Already have an account? Sign in.