These are the resources I tend to use when solving or making puzzles.

See also puzzles I’ve written.

Word things

• OneLook: words matching a pattern
• qhex: various kinds of wordplay
• Quinapalus and Qat: wordbanks, limited letter selection, words that can be reversed
• Nutrimatic: pattern search
• Related Words
• Wordle Solver

Anagrams

• qhex wordplay allows for transdelete and has a wider vocabulary list
• Internet Anagram Server uses full phrase
• Scrabble Solver only up to 12 letters
  • See also Scrabble Score Calculator

Cryptanalysis

• A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia
• Secret Ada: common letters, short words, double letters

Cryptograms

• quipqiup: cryptogram solver for substitution ciphers
• Cryptogram Solving Tool: interactive letter selection

Ciphers and codes

Puzzled Pint Code Sheet:

• dCode
• Rumkin
• Cryptii: common historical ciphers including an Enigma machine
• Boxentriq: historical ciphers and cryptanalysis tools, including steganography

Digital

• ASCII table
• CyberChef: ‘recipes’ including base64, hexdump and many compression algorithms
• Regex tester

Crosswords

• Crossword Parser: Generate spreadsheet from crossword image

Crossword solvers

• Crossword tracker: both clues & answers
• Wordplays: Generate crossword clues
• Wordplays: Guess crossword answers

Cryptic crosswords

• Anagram indicators
• Answer notation

Logic puzzles

• LogicalSolver grid

Other

Specific searches

• RhymeZone: rhyming dictionary
• BrainyQuote: quotations
• People by initials
• Pun generator
• TinEye: reverse image search
• Google Books Ngram Viewer: popularity of phrases over time
• Interactive clock: useful when trying to map clocks to a specific time
• Musipedia: search music by entering tune
• The Oracle of Bacon: find movies in common, Bacon number
• Ptable: interactive periodic table

Spelling with a limited alphabet

• Phone number spelling tool
• ChemSpeller: spell words with chemical elements

Geography

• US zip codes
• SunCalc: sunrise by location and time
• Shadowmap: shadows by location and time

Puzzle types

• Nikoli puzzles
• Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzle Collection

Collaboration tools

(beyond Google Sheets)

• Excalidraw
• Figma
• Felt: detailed map making and marking tool

Puzzles

Roughly in order of difficulty, easiest to hardest:

• Puzzled Pint
• Puzzlesnacks
• P&A (Panda)
• Galactic puzzlehunt
• Mark Halpin
• MIT Mystery Hunt Puzzle Index

Cryptic crosswords:

• Hex (Cox & Rathvon)
• Cryptic All-Stars

Escape rooms:

• Room Escape Artist’s Golden Lock Awards

Physical game reviews and gift guides:

• PostCurious’s What are we playing?
• Art of Play
• Room Escape Artist’s recommendations

Novel formats:

• Regex crossword
• Spreadsheet escape room
• LLM murder mystery: suppressing pink elephants

Puzzle creation tools

• Sudoku setter
• Word search generator
• Oh My Dots: mazes, connect-the-dots, and word searches