These are puzzles I’ve written.
If you want to get into writing puzzles, I can highly recommend Puzzlecraft. See also puzzle resources for resources I use to both solve and write puzzles.
Birthday cryptic for Diyang (Oct 2024)
I wrote my first (very small) cryptic crossword!
Birthday puzzles for Robin (Sep 2024)
I made a few little puzzles (and solutions) for my friend:
- Alphabetween (alphabox)
- Characters (anagrams)
- Paraphrase (quote box / meta)
Birthday zine for Whitney (Sep 2024)
I made another zine based off of the Puzzlecraft workbook.
The zine includes puzzles (and solutions):
- 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)
Reflector 0x1 (Aug 2024)
Part of my friend’s zine for Defcon 32. This was not released.
Birthday zine for Julia (Jul 2024)
I made a zine for my friend based off of the Puzzlecraft workbook.
The zine includes puzzles (and solutions):
- 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)
Reflector 0x0 (Aug 2023)
Part of my friend’s zine for Defcon 31 (solutions not provided).
Defcon 30 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Aug 2022)
I wrote some of the puzzles for the CPV Gold Bug contest (solutions not provided):
Defcon 29 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Aug 2021)
I wrote some of the puzzles for the CPV Gold Bug contest (solutions from CTF write-up):
- Lobster Quadrille (solution)
- Knave of Hearts (solution)
- Caucus-race (solution)
- Pig and Pepper (solution)
Kawaiicon cookbook SALT HASH AC1D HEAP (Dec 2020)
I wrote a puzzle recipe published in Kawaiicon’s SALT HASH AC1D HEAP pandemic cookbook:
- The Five Pips (puzzle and solution not provided)
Defcon 28 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Aug 2020)
I wrote some of the puzzles for the CPV Gold Bug contest (solutions not provided):
Quote box for a friend (2020)
A little quote box puzzle for my friend’s mom:
- In the hand (solution not provided)
Work swag (2019)
I ordered a mug as swag for our team that had a little secret message.
Solution
It says STCURITY in Morse code. (It should have said SECURITY, oops.)Defcon Rootz puzzles (Aug 2019)
A sheet of puzzles for kids at Defcon 27 (no solutions provided):
- Big Bad Wolf
- Night Mare
- Frankenswine
Defcon 27 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Aug 2019)
I wrote some of the puzzles for the CPV Gold Bug contest (solutions not provided):
Submission to Mission Street Puzzles (Jul 2019)
I submitted this puzzle to season 5 of Mission Street Puzzles, but it was not accepted:
BSidesSF 2019 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Apr 2019)
I wrote all of the puzzles for a mini puzzlehunt for CPV at BSidesSF (puzzles and solutions not provided):
- 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. Maybe seeing where I started will inspire you to write puzzles too!
Defcon 26 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Aug 2018)
I wrote some of the puzzles for the CPV Gold Bug contest (puzzles and solutions not provided):
- Minipax: Code Black
- Minipax: Hut 8
- Minipax: How about a nice game of chess
- Miniplenty: Your privacy is our priority
Work stickers (2017)
I made a few stickers for security conferences that had little secret messages in them. I can’t seem to find any images of these sadly.
Defcon 25 Crypto & Privacy Village Gold Bug contest (Aug 2017)
I wrote some of the puzzles for the CPV Gold Bug contest (puzzles and solutions not provided):
- iOS
- ZX Spectrum
- Atari 2600
- Nintendo 64
- Apple II
- Playstation 2
No reason (2016)
This was one of the first puzzles I made as an adult, when I decided I wanted to try writing more puzzles.
- Brexit and Brentrance (solution not provided)
Mayday crosswords (2006)
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.
Shad Valley application (2005)
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:
- Creative page (includes solution)