Tools for solving and construction
Contact me with corrections or links that you'd like to see included.
Pattern searching
- OneLook — cross-dictionary searching
- Nutrimatic — useful for combining patterns
- Mystery Hunter's Word Search
- Qat Multi-Matcher — for finding pairs of words that work together
- Quinapalus Word Matcher
- Qhex multi-purpose tool
- Wordlisted — search your own wordlist
- Wikipedia Regex Search — Wikipedia titles, returned by popularity
Anagramming
- WordFinder — supports wildcards
- WordPlays
- Internet Anagram Server
- Anagram Solver by crosswordsolver.com
- util.in
Answer checker
Calling It In!
A stand-alone puzzle answer checker.
Community
The National Puzzlers’ League
Crossword clue solving
Crossword puzzle parsers
- Crossword Parser — paste an image of a grid and it parses it into a spreadsheet.
- Util.in's grid parser
Crossword construction
Getting started
- New York Times' How To Make A Crossword series from 2018
- Sage Advice on cruciverb.com
- $10 gets you the Crossword Constructor's Handbook by the king, Patrick Berry
Web-based construction software
Desktop construction software
- Ingrid, for Mac, Windows, and Linux
- CrossFire, for Mac and Windows
- Crossword Compiler, Windows-only
Clue databases
- Cluer app, which can also integrate into CrossFire and Crossword Compiler
- Crossword Tracker
- Wordplays
- XWord Info
Other crossword construction resources
- See Word Lists section below
- Crossword Collaboration Directory on Facebook
- Crosscord, the Crossword Discord server
- Patrick Merrell's rules of crossword clues
- Formatting Tools by Jin Yoon
Cryptics
- Cryptipedia's setting and solving aids
- Best for Puzzles cryptic dictionary
- Best for Puzzles cryptic tutorial
- NPL's guide to solving cryptic crosswords
- GAMES guide to solving cryptics
- WSJ Intro to Cryptics (PDF)
Cryptogram solving
Decryption / encryption
- Binary translator
- Caesar cipher
- Cryptii
- Cipher tools
- CyberChef
- Morse code solver
- Phone Spell
- Qhex multi-purpose tool
Hunt software
Codebases
- GPH — Galactic Trendsetter's open source gold standard, built on Django.
- TPH — Teammate's fork of GPH, which includes a React front-end.
- Palindrome's code base from the 2022 MIT Mystery Hunt. Also Django. Extremely well-documented.
Advice
- A Puzzlehunt Tech Checklist, by Alex Irpan, Mar 16 2020
Logic puzzles
- Simon Tatham's collection
- Krazydad's collection
- Qhex multi-purpose logic solver
- GRILOPS: (Grid Logic Puzzle Solver) — Python library
- Cross+A catalog of logic puzzles
Mobile apps
Multi-purpose tools
Music
Names
Phonetic searching
Puzzles
Reference
- Common names — first name lookup
- IMDB advanced title search
Reverse dictionary
Reverse image
Spreadsheet tips
Google Sheets Puzzle Tricks
Read Me By Jonah OstroffThis is a gallery of things you can do in Google Sheets that are helpful for puzzle hunts.The first few tabs (in gray) contain practical advice that you can implement without too much practice.The later orange tabs contain advanced examples. Don’t feel like you have to...
Yet Another Puzzlehunt Spreadsheet Tutorial
Basics Yet Another Puzzlehunt Spreadsheet Tutorialby betaverosMETA (why this exists)Compared to other puzzlehunt spreadsheet tutorials, this tutorial is an attempt to:(try to) explain spreadsheets starting from a more fundamental level and a bit more explicitlyfocus more on spreadsheets and...
Sheets plugins
Puzzle Tools - Google Workspace Marketplace
This add-on provides useful formulas, menu items, and side bars to assist in solving a variety of puzzle types.
Raw code
GitHub - mmachenry/mystery-hunt-sheets-addons: A set of useful Google Sheets functions for Mystery Hunt.
A set of useful Google Sheets functions for Mystery Hunt. - GitHub - mmachenry/mystery-hunt-sheets-addons: A set of useful Google Sheets functions for Mystery Hunt.
mmachenryWikipedia search
Word lists
- spread the word(list) — “a wordlist compiled in a data-driven way from freely available resources that new crossword puzzle constructors can use out-of-the-box for creating clean grids accessible to a variety of solvers.”
- Christopher Jones's wordlist — "Scored wordlist for use with construction software such as Crossword Compiler or Crossfire. About 170k scored entries."
- XWord Info's wordlist
- Collaborative Word List Project — public list, maintained on GitHub
- Peter Broda’s Wordlist
- A list of wordlists, by T Campbell
- crossword-wordlist by Chris Jones — also on GitHub
- The Game Gal’s lists
- Cruciverb word lists — $35 / year
- Beautiful Data ngrams
- https://github.com/rspeer/solvertools#wordlists
Specific lists
- Expanded Crossword Name Database, by Erica Hsiung Wojcik
- The Juggernaut wordlist (Google Sheet), by Sid Sivakumar, containing “words and phrases relevant to a global South Asian diaspora”.
- Raw data from IMDb
Seed lists
- Ada Nicolle’s seed lists (author)
- Brian Thomas’ seed list (author)
- Ricky Cruz’s seed list (author)
- Lyle Broughton’s seed list (author)
Word search solving
Other tools
- Nonogram solver
- Wordplays Scrabble solver
- WolframAlpha calculator
- Word and Phrase info
- MIT Mystery Hunt archive
- Alliteration tool
- X & Y pairs
Other lists like this
- Winterdragon
- Puzzle resources on Puzzles.wiki