May 2025
Word ladder maze
Playing with new formats.
These are puzzles I've written. (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!)
If you want to write puzzles, I can highly recommend Puzzlecraft. See Puzzle resources for resources I use to both solve and write puzzles.
Oct 2024
Birthday puzzle for Diyang
I wrote my first (very small) cryptic crossword!
Sep 2024
Birthday puzzles for Robin
- Alphabetweenalphabox
- Charactersanagrams
- Paraphrasequote boxmeta
- For You Pagematching
- Tawaun Sayssimon says
- Legaleseanagrams
- Fossil Huntingword search
- A Stitch in Timewordoku
- Six Cornersmaze
- Happy birthday Whitney!meta
Aug 2024
Reflector 0x1
Part of my friend's zine for Defcon 32. This was not released.
- A magical educationmatching
- Program instructionssimon says
- Decompileanagrams
- Go and git itword search
- Propagationwordoku
- Thinking capmaze
- Happy birthday Julia!meta
- Words are blunt instrumentsisis
- Chemistrycryptic
- Geometrycipher
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.
Dec 2020
Kawaiicon cookbook SALT HASH AC1D HEAP
Recipe published in Kawaiicon's SALT HASH AC1D HEAP pandemic cookbook.
- The Five Pips
- Computer Lab
- Prime Time
- The Secret Life
- Infectedmeta
2020
Quote box
A little quote box puzzle for my friend's mom.
- In the handquote box
2019
Work swag
I ordered a mug as swag for our team that had a little secret message.
Aug 2019
Defcon Rootz puzzles
- Big Bad Wolfcipher
- Night Marecipher
- Frankenswinecipher
- Snapper
- Transfer
- Dancer
- Plunder
- Hoardermeta
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
- MindWritemeta
- 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.
- Stickers
- 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.
- Crosswords
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