Puzzling news.

[prog]

Lately I have gotten interested in word puzzles. Many, perhaps most, of my local pals are rough-and-tumble puzzlers, so there's been a lingering desire to catch up with them for a while, but more immediately I've been watching cthulhia's rather recent obsession for chomping through the crosswords found in all the local freebie rags, and so it was she who told me where I could buy a copy of good ol' Games Magazine around here. (The newsstand next to the Greenhouse at Harvard Square, aye.)

I loved this magazine during my final year or so of high school, and then it went away, and I forgot about it. I was aware of its return several years ago, but never got around to picking up an issue until a couple of weeks ago, spurred by my strange hankering to do a crossword or three myself. Except to pay $4.50 for it instead of grabbing one from the nearest subway seat like everyone else. Whatever. Anyway, I have two of them now, and it's pretty much the same magazine that I recall from more than a dozen years ago, except IIRC it was only bi-monthly before its tragic demise, and staple-bound, and now it's monthy and square-bound. And has video and computer game reviews. I dunno if it did before; it would have been when, like, Loom was brand new. (This is on my mind because I was playing Loom on an emulator today. It wasn't a very good emulator; all the verbs were invisible.)

I post this now because I think I just solved a three-star (highest-difficulty) puzzle for the first time ("On a Bender", page 40, November 2004). I'm playing a little loose with what "solved" means; the goal involved teasing a quote out of a tricky crossword variant, and I stopped once I had it. Yes, there was a little bit of backsolving, but still. I'm pretty happy with it.

On the other hand, I have yet to solve even a single cryptic crossword clue (two whole puzzles of which appear in every issue of Games). They are like mental cilantro, and I just lack the gene... but that's baloney. I'm smart, I'm flexible, I can do these! Except I can't! Grrrrr!

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I wish that each issue of Games actually contained not a spread of fun but completely unrelated puzzles, but a mini puzzle hunt -- a set of puzzles whose answers plug into a meta-puzzle, which itself can be solved for the single winning answer to the whole shebang. I suppose that would be hard to put together every single month, but, shrug.

Speaking of hunts, though: I think my rekindled interest in recreational letter-hashing will put me in good shape by the time January comes around, with my second MIT puzzle hunt (my first real hunt, by some measurements, since this year's was such a flop).

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BTW, since half or more of my teammates read this journal, here is my official team name stance:

I would be equally happy with keeping the 2004 team name, or switching it to something else. "jmac's Birthday Party" is an appropriately strange name for a team, and will in fact be completely accurate again for the coming hunt. OTOH it might be best thought of as one-time gag, and my age isn't as decimally interesting this time, and it's arguably incorrect to put my name when I'm nowhere near the center or head or whatever of the team (whatever that means). OTTH, there is fun in misdirection, so who knows.

Alls I know is, I still like "Team BÜMP" and "Known Hardware Issue".

Comments

Games puzzles

[magid.livejournal.com]

If it's like the old one, then they definitely take submissions from readers. You could make one as a feature, put a blurb with it explaining that it's all one big meta-puzzle, and hope other people would like to make them too...

[dougo.livejournal.com]

If you'd posted this sooner I'd have sent you to Andy Latto who was looking for one or two more to compete in Intercoastal Altercations 4 last night.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

At some point, I think I may try to gather people for a solving session of Intercoastal Altercations IV. It was a great deal of fun, and only about three hours.

As far as team name goes--I think I may be dictatorial this year and just name us something, and people can like it or lump it. (Though I promise, in return, not to name us "Douchebags of Liberty".)

If, at any point, you want help wading through the quagmire that is cryptic crossword clues, find me at the Diesel some evening (or, even, arrange to do so). I'm happy to help you understand. It's not that hard once you get over the rather steep learning curve.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I would certainly be interested in a solving session, and it'd be a nice midyear warmup for all of us. (Or a pre-hunt warmup, if you put it off by a couple of months.)

TDS is a rich source to mine for silly names. Mess O' Potamia, anyone?

I think, since writing this post, I understand cryptics a little better (see my most recent entry), though I'm far from understanding just how all the back-solutions I find were supposed to work. :) I'll take you up on your offer if I run into you.