Oct 2024
Birthday puzzle for Diyang
I wrote my first (very small) cryptic crossword!
These are puzzles I've written.
If you want to get into writing puzzles, I can highly recommend Puzzlecraft. See Puzzle resources for resources I use to both solve and write puzzles.
Sep 2024
Birthday puzzles for Robin
- Alphabetween alphabox
- Characters anagrams
- Paraphrase quote box meta
- For You Page matching
- Tawaun Says simon says
- Legalese anagrams
- Fossil Hunting word search
- A Stitch in Time wordoku
- Six Corners maze
- Happy birthday Whitney! meta
Aug 2024
Reflector 0x1
Part of my friend's zine for Defcon 32. This was not released.
- Time to burn scramblegories
- Mark II scramblegories
- Cramped tile crossword
- A magical education matching
- Program instructions simon says
- Decompile anagrams
- Go and git it word search
- Propagation wordoku
- Thinking cap maze
- Happy birthday Julia! meta
- Words are blunt instruments isis
Aug 2021
Defcon 29 Crypto Privacy Village Gold Bug contest
Part of the CPV Gold Bug contest. Solutions provided are from the CTF write-up.
- Lobster Quadrille sudoku cipher
- Knave of Hearts cipher
- Caucus-race cipher isis
- Pig and Pepper cipher
Dec 2020
Kawaiicon cookbook SALT HASH AC1D HEAP
Recipe published in Kawaiicon's SALT HASH AC1D HEAP pandemic cookbook.
- The Five Pips
2020
Quote box
A little quote box puzzle for my friend's mom.
- In the hand quote box
2019
Work swag
I ordered a mug as swag for our team that had a little secret message.
- PM team cipher
Puzzle
Solution
It says STCURITY in Morse code. (It should have said SECURITY, oops.) Aug 2019
Defcon Rootz puzzles
- Big Bad Wolf cipher
- Night Mare cipher
- Frankenswine cipher
Jul 2019
Submission to Mission Street Puzzles
I submitted this puzzle to season 5 of Mission Street Puzzles, but it was not accepted.
Apr 2019
BSidesSF 2019 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest
I wrote all of the puzzles for a mini puzzlehunt for CPV at BSidesSF.
- AppleWorks
- Finder
- Claris Resolve
- Typestry
- Taste
- WriteNow
- MindWrite meta
My puzzle writing drastically improved in ~2019, and so I would not recommend doing my older puzzles. But maybe seeing where I started will inspire you to write puzzles too!
- Minipax: Code Black
- Minipax: Hut 8
- Minipax: How about a nice game of chess
- Miniplenty: Your privacy is our priority
2017
Work stickers
I made a few stickers for security conferences that had little secret messages in them. Sadly, I can't seem to find any images of these.
- iOS
- ZX Spectrum
- Atari 2600
- Nintendo 64
- Apple II
- Playstation 2
2016
First adult puzzle
This is around the time that I started to do a lot of puzzles, and I thought, "I'd love to try my hand at that!". This was my first real attempt.
- Brexit and Brentrance
2006
Mayday crosswords
I wrote crossword puzzles for several issues of Mayday magazine, which was a free monthly circular in Hamilton, Ontario. It no longer exists and I have not been able to find archives.
2005
Shad Valley application
I think this is the first puzzle I ever wrote! I wrote a short puzzle as part of my application to Shad Valley summer camp. This isn't the original, but what rendered in a modern pdf reader.
- Creative page