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Wow I really thought it was super obvious, turns out to be the opposite. If this is some hitherto unresearched bias in puzzle creation, I hereby name it the Burexas bias. As for the circles, my logic was kind of like the mug/donut thing, reduction to the simplest/perfect shape. Thanks for the feedback folks!
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Feb 22, 2023 01:07
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burexas.irom posted:Wow I really thought it was super obvious, turns out to be the opposite. If this is some hitherto unresearched bias in puzzle creation, I hereby name it the Burexas bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
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Feb 22, 2023 01:35
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Another crossword submission, another rejection, so here you go if you want it. This one's a Sunday (except it isn't because they didn't want it)
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Mar 12, 2023 23:03
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burexas.irom posted:reduction to the simplest/perfect shape I don't know, that sounds pretty 1-dimensional to me
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Mar 14, 2023 00:48
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This just showed up in my email, seems pretty fun and of interest to you folks! https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/puzzles/
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Mar 20, 2023 23:23
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also i just was sent this javascript puzzle box: https://fubargames.se/%f0%9f%a7%a9%f0%9f%93%a6-%e2%9a%99/
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Mar 21, 2023 02:00
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Necroing my own thread to talk about a recent puzzle experience: Every year since 2017, a team called Galactic Trendsetters has put on a "puzzlehunt" , a series of puzzles linked by some shared mechanisms. These puzzles often have no instructions and require you to figure out the key insights of your own. The answers to puzzles can be fed into larger "metapuzzles" and even "metametapuzzles". Expect bad puns all around. Anyway, the Galactic Puzzlehunt tends to be pretty adventurous in terms of structure, including feats like playing with timed puzzles, decoding an alien language...and this year, playing a bunch of card game battles with hidden mechanisms and such. I fully admit to finding the card game stuff not to my taste, but others may enjoy them. There are some easier traditional puzzles in there too which people might find fun. Other puzzlehunts have been happening recently, such as one put on by Carnegie Mellon University, one written by a single man named Foggy Brume called Puzzle Boat, and one happening next week by a team called Cardinality. I can provide links if people want...or maybe even go more in depth on smaller hunts to explain how to tackle them. Let me know if interested.
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Nov 21, 2023 02:24
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I'm curious to hear more, those aren't something I really know anything about.
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Nov 21, 2023 03:27
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puzzmo.com
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Nov 21, 2023 06:40
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ArfJason posted:puzzmo.com i got linked to that a few days ago and it was a chess puzzle gently caress chess and gently caress chess puzzles
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Nov 22, 2023 03:02
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hexwren posted:i got linked to that a few days ago and it was a chess puzzle Skill Issue.
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Nov 22, 2023 03:29
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hexwren posted:gently caress chess and gently caress chess puzzles
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Nov 22, 2023 08:09
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my then 7 year old nephew beat me at chess lol
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Nov 22, 2023 10:32
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hexwren posted:i got linked to that a few days ago and it was a chess puzzle There are other types of word puzzles available on the full site besides chess. Including an exclusive crossword on weekdays! The site is kind of doing a gated access behind a puzzle thing at the moment, but if you go there it may not be a chess puzzle anymore.
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Nov 22, 2023 18:34
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ArfJason posted:puzzmo.com they have a thanksgiving puzzle set which will give you a key to signup pretty easy but the puzzles on the site are quite good imo
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Nov 24, 2023 03:53
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ArfJason posted:puzzmo.com This has been great since I saw it posted
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Dec 21, 2023 16:51
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nut posted:This has been great since I saw it posted seconding this I actually bought the lifetime sub while it was available and it's been great so far
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Dec 21, 2023 17:49
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I love puzzle hunts, but my real-life puzzling group is too small and inexperienced to make much headway with the really interesting ones. Here are two of my absolute favorites that we did solve (after some hints): Inscription from MIT Mystery Hunt 2023 Solution Hints available on puzzle page There was some discussion of cryptic crosswords early in this thread, and this puzzle puts a pretty wild twist on them. I liked this one because we were able to solve it having never solved a cryptic before; I'd only read how they worked and watched some Cracking the Cryptic videos. Since this puzzle was in the first round of the hunt, I think the clues were written for a more novice audience (the puzzle still requires some intensive use of spreadsheets or similar though - I think it took us about 6 hours). Dense Wordplay from Edric's 2020 Puzzle Hunt Solution Links to hints This one is a good illustration of how hunt puzzles can go down a rabbit hole with like 5 "ah-ha" moments in a single puzzle. It starts with the structure of a traditional crossword (not cryptic) and immediately gets weird. (Note if anyone tries to solve this, you need kind of need to be able to read music to get to the final answer at the end.) Notes on these for anyone who isn't used to puzzle hunts:
(If anyone were to try to put together a team for an upcoming hunt, I'd up for it 100%...)
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Dec 24, 2023 08:43
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Team solving is an interesting concept to me. I have no idea how it works in practice, I'm so used to doing crosswords and such on my own where I can just randomly jump around to different things on a whim without having to externalize any thought process. And that's just thinking about working with a few friends, never mind 70 people 
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Dec 24, 2023 23:24
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Surprised that noone has mentioned these already, but if you like crosswords (cryptic) and number crosswords then you’ll likely enjoy Crossnumbers Quarterly and Magpie. https://www.crossnumbersquarterly.com/ and https://www.piemag.com/ respectively. I subscribe to both and am terrible at both.
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Dec 28, 2023 22:42
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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Puzzled Pint! A monthly, international, free puzzle set that you attend in your own city (where applicable). It runs the second Tuesday of each month, and a few days before you solve a puzzle on the website to find out what bar/restaurant it's running at. Some cities run the same place over and over, some mix it up. It's a different designer each month, so you don't know what you'll be getting, but each set is usually some combination of puzzles/trivia/codebreaking, and when you solve all the puzzles you get another metapuzzle that uses your previous answers. The archives are here in case you want to see what they're like It's free, and not competitive or for prizes, and you can usually solve the puzzles in about 1-2 hours depending on group size and how drunk you get. I've been attending them for 7+ years and they're fun, next one is this Tuesday, January 9 Here's some dorks explaining how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfKqJxh7TOw
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Jan 6, 2024 00:36
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im a little pissed off at squaredle right now i had a streak of ~100 days in mid december, and when i went home for christmas i maintained it on my phone, some on my parents' computer, and now im home it just says "streak: 1 days" wtf. same login the whole way. i would have appreciated to know that streaks are machine dependent and apparently entirely divorced from you account?
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Jan 6, 2024 01:30
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Couple of things: -A few weeks ago, I went to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in-person for the first time. Think a bunch of word nerds sitting in a hotel meeting room, solving a series of American-style crosswords for speed and accuracy. It was a very fun experience, I met a lot of lovely people, and I got to see them crown a new champion, Paolo Pasco. The finals (3 guys solving on whiteboards) can be seen here: https://youtu.be/lPlR9Wgne5M -On a related note, NYT crossword editor Will Shortz had a stroke back in February, but had recovered enough to attend the ACPT and give some remarks. He got a standing ovation of course  . Seems like the torch has been passed to Joel Fagliano for the moment, but given Will is 70, who knows what will happen...-A small recommendation for a channel: Cypher House, run by Anthony Hoover covers word and puzzle hunt puzzles, especially The Listener cryptic, a British cryptic with obscure vocab and gimmicks aplenty. He also does livesolves on Twitch which might be worth your time. --A few months back, I did the MIT Mystery Hunt, a team-based puzzlehunting marathon. It was themed around Greek mythology, and was...large, to say the least. 230+ puzzles covering all sorts of types and topics. Fun, but I hope the running team for 2025 dials it back. Check out the puzzles here (click Public Access) and learn more about the general event here. That's it for the moment. Puzzles fun!
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Apr 30, 2024 01:17
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Some neat stuff there, and I'll check out the crypto crossword guy as over been toying with getting into those. somekindofguy posted:-On a related note, NYT crossword editor Will Shortz had a stroke back in February, but had recovered enough to attend the ACPT and give some remarks. He got a standing ovation of course Glad to hear Will has been recovering that much, I hope that continues. The switch to Joel editing has been interesting in the meantime. I've done close to 2000 puzzles from the archive since I subscribed to the NYT crosswords, so I had a good feel for their style over recent years. Lately, they started feeling different - they still covered a lot of the same classic clues, but it felt like there was a shift in style and a lot of the puzzles have felt like they stepped up a day in difficulty. It suddenly made sense when I noticed they switched to Joel as editor. It'll still be fun whether or not Will comes back, but I wonder if we just quietly switched crossword eras.
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Apr 30, 2024 02:53
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Carthag Tuek posted:im a little pissed off at squaredle right now I lost my solve streak a week or so ago. No matter. I'll still keep sucking on that cock full of word-crack anyway.
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Apr 30, 2024 10:46
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ynohtna posted:I lost my solve streak a week or so ago. oh for sure tried copying the webstorage from my phone to my laptop, but i must have missed something, so now i have 120 on my laptop and 170 on my phone lol
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Apr 30, 2024 11:20
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Captain Hygiene posted:Some neat stuff there, and I'll check out the crypto crossword guy as over been toying with getting into those. Without being too self-promotey, I stream cryptic crosswords on twitch at (UK) lunchtime! I've been doing it for a few years, and it's surprisingly fun - a few members of the chat have actually learned to solve them from watching, which is neat. Last year, the mods had a whip-round so I could go on a 2-day advanced setting and solving course hosted by one of the setters from the Guardian, which was both very kind and super interesting. Currently live right now! https://twitch.tv/brainmage twitch.tv/brainmage
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Apr 30, 2024 13:56
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Flint_Paper posted:Without being too self-promotey, I stream cryptic crosswords on twitch at (UK) lunchtime! I've been doing it for a few years, and it's surprisingly fun - a few members of the chat have actually learned to solve them from watching, which is neat. ... why am I not surprised that brainmage is a goon.
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May 1, 2024 01:56
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Ruh roh...
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May 1, 2024 11:44
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And as a viewer and sub to his channel, I can highly recommend watching. The sense of satisfaction you receive after you solve a clue he hasn’t (yet) is enough to keep you high for the rest of the day.
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May 1, 2024 22:36
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My favorite puzzles in general are all from the same videogame, Baba is You, which I cannot recommend highly enough to puzzle aficionados. Fundamentally, Baba is You is a tile-pushing puzzle game, where the rules of each level are tiles that exist within the level. Tiles are either subjects (BABA, FLAG), verbs (IS) or attributes (YOU, WIN, STOP). When pushed together, a subject, verb, and attribute create a rule read left-to-right (or top-to-bottom), and if they're pushed apart then the rule is no longer active. If you assemble BABA IS YOU, then the Baba object comes under your control, and if you move any of those rule tiles, it no longer will be, often resulting in a loss if you now control nothing on the puzzle. If GRASS IS STOP, then you (whatever objects you are controlling) can't move over Grass tiles, nor can you push other objects on them. If FLAG IS WIN, then if an object that IS YOU comes in contact with a Flag tile, you win. If you make GRASS IS FLAG, then any Grass tiles transform into Flag tiles. Just about the only fixed rules are that neither you nor any objects can move off the edge of the stage (from the pure-black field onto the dark gray field), and that word tiles can be pushed around like objects that have the PUSH] rule, although there are exceptions in later levels. Here's a simple one, the very first level of the game, to illustrate how the puzzles work:  We have four rules: BABA IS YOU, FLAG IS WIN, WALL IS STOP, and ROCK IS PUSH. This means we have control of the white blob at the center-left, a sheep named Baba, and to win we want to navigate them onto the Flag off to the right. Baba can't move over the Walls above and below them, because the Walls are STOP, but we can move the Rocks around (because they are PUSH). (There are also a bunch of Floor tiles between the Walls, but because they don't have a rule associated with them, they have no effect, they're just decor.) How we move Baba onto the Flag with those rules in place, you can decide for yourself. Now here's one of my favorites, which IMO has the best combination of "accessible to someone not actively playing" and "demonstrates why I love this game". This is level 07, Grass Yard, another very early puzzle.  So, how do you win? Help interpreting the puzzle and the objective:Unlike the last puzzle, we see a broken rule, with Flag and Win tiles, but no verb in the middle. To win, we'll have to pair those tiles with an Is tile on the board, and the only one available is the one in BABA IS YOU. To complicate matters, there are some tiles you have to maneuver around to move the rules into position; for instance, you can't move the Flag word tile up two spaces, because you'll run into some Grass, which is STOP. Given those restrictions, how can you navigate the tiles to form FLAG IS WIN? Big hint to the solutiuon: How many kinds of tiles are there in the puzzle? How many rules are there? Bigger hint: Are there any rules that you are assuming are true, but aren't actually written down? Full solution spoiler and why I love the puzzle: The key to this is that there is no rule governing WALL, so although Gamer Brain tells you that you can't go over the walls, you actually can; they are just meaningless background dressing, like the Floor tiles in the first puzzle, and at the puzzle level, there would be no difference if they just weren't there at all. You can push the Flag word tile down over the wall, and all the way around right over the IS, without any regard for the walls. I love this because it is meta-fuckery, and teaches you an extremely important lesson for future puzzles, namely, that if a rule isn't explicitly specified, even something as fundamental as WALL IS STOP or, later on, BABA IS YOU, then it's not a rule. There are a few hundred puzzles in Baba is You, and they get to some truly batshit insane places, such as introducing Level tiles that affect how the level itself acts on the world map. Please do yourself a favor, and play this game. Muscle Tracer has a new favorite as of 20:31 on May 5, 2024 |
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May 5, 2024 19:26
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Baba Is You is great, and also a goon-made game  My one issue is that the puzzles eventually go way above my head, I just couldn't keep up with them. But that's a me problem. I also highly recommend checking it out, just seeing that type of thinking in action is really cool.
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May 5, 2024 19:41
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I got Baba a while back, and I really need to get back into it given all the good things I have heard. If you want some more from Hempuli, he has a blog with links to more games as well as some paper puzzles of his own invention. Too many puzzles and not enough time it seems.
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May 5, 2024 21:16
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