Ugazon
I’m recovering from the 55-hour puzzle marathon that is the MIT Mystery Hunt. My team, Palindrome, placed 3rd, just an hour or so out of first place. I’m still processing all the production and clever puzzle design that went into the event. Once Death & Mayhem (the organizing team) posts the puzzles online publicly, I’ll link to a few of my favorites. Meanwhile, you can enjoy their Reddit AMA from last night.
Puzzler
Name a popular shopping website. Shift two of the letters forward in the alphabet by the same amount, and the result will be another popular shopping website. What sites are these?
Damn this Traffic Jam!
As a warm-up to the main event, Palindrome created a pre-Hunt puzzle hunt for ourselves, which I contributed to. We’re now releasing it for anyone to play for free. Lots of awesome puzzles in there.
Gorogoa: The Puzzle Of A Lifetime
Home
An article about the making of Gorogoa, the best iOS game … I’ve ever played? It’s the rare game that makes you rethink the limits of the medium. And it’s gorgeous to boot.
The College Student Who Decoded the Data Hidden in Inca Knots
Katherine Davis-Young
Manny Medrano cut loose on spring break by analyzing a set of khipus.
Heatmap of NYTimes Crossword grids by day of week
Source: I work for the NYT Games team and though it’d be fun to see if I could find patterns within all historic puzzles. Thought it was interesting to see the similarities between Thursday and Saturday (themed puzzles), as well as the tendency for diagonal lines to slant right.