One of my hobbies is puzzle design. My first MIT Mystery Hunt was in 2005. After years of helping with Different Area Same Hunt (DASH), Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League (BAPHL), and The Game (Wartron East), I started constructing puzzles in 2018.
If you have a paying gig in puzzle design, let me know.
Puzzled Pint Boston 10th Anniversary Swag
I was asked to come up with a design for the front of a credit card-sized code sheet. On a lark, I dashed off something that played to Boston sports fan stereotypes, and it was the winning design.
2023 BAPHL (Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League)
A location puzzle in [Powderhouse Park] required creating a map that was simple enough for people to find the locations, yet still be legible and reasonably to scale. I compiled resources for several other location puzzles that were remotely constructed by others.
2023 BAPHL (Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League)
Adding themed flavor text can unintentionally mislead players. I was mostly limited to the round intro pages, which are clearly labeled: “This is Not A Puzzle”. I referenced the erstwhile MBTA excuse generator, and that teacher who wore the same outfit for decades of yearbook photos. I am particularly proud of how professor-like Larry Bird looks with Big Bird “hair”.
2023 BAPHL (Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League)
No one had run a BAPHL since 2019. I wanted to promote the Green Line Extension, and I am also a big fan of the sitcom Community, which takes place in Green-dale, thus we had a theme. The Greendale Flag logo was reinterpreted in the style of an MBTA map. A final diploma puzzle was modeled after the prop diploma from the show.
Pride Flag Semaphore
I had developed my own style of semaphore for personal art projects (Pysanky, decentralized Ignite event). When I noticed the newer pride flag with the wedge in it, this inevitably happened.
Stylized Semaphore art
Inspired while creating paper bag lanterns for the decentralized Ignite event in 2020.
Miskatonic University Game
I was part of the brainstorming crew who constructed this puzzle. I ended up drawing cartoon chalk outlines in the parking lot of a Gun Club on a Saturday night. The solutions are not yet public – sometimes Games are re-played.
2019 MIT Mystery Hunt
A puzzle based on Kitten Academy family trees was presented in a different format for the 2019 hunt. The KA community liked it so much that I have updated and maintained it ever since. Later versions has more data added that was not needed in the original puzzle.
2019 MIT Mystery Hunt
According to the known Hunt archives, there had never been a puzzle that used Tarot as a data set for anything other than the numbers, and canonical names. I wanted something that focused more on the artwork.
Another puzzle was inspired by discovering a friend actually owned an atl-atl. I’d only seen those in crosswords. So I had to use it in a puzzle, which ultimately required learning at least a rudimentary level of video editing.
2019 MIT Mystery Hunt
When teams solved the earlier portion of the Hunt, the run team visited them to celebrate their birthday, including a wordplay variant of pin the tail on the critter.
2018 BAPHL (Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League)
While researching the Greenway Armenian Labyrinth, I couldn’t help but notice the unusual carousel nearby. Some teams read “sea lions” and beelined for the Aquarium before noticing the non-aquatic animals in the puzzle.
The other constructors requested that location puzzles not involve too much walking, and necessary data had to be legible from several feet away. But solvers did not know that.
2018 BAPHL (Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League)
I had helped with previous BAPHLs, run by people who, unlike me, were not enthusiastic about location puzzles. I offered to construct at least one, based on the Greenway Labyrinth. The result was four.
The art I created for this puzzle was also used in the Miskatonic University Game.
2010 BAPHL (Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League)
BAPHL hunts almost always re-interpret the acronym. This theme was to figure out where to host the next BAPHL. I did the graphic design, but did not construct any of the puzzles.
2010 DASH (Different Area Same Hunt)
Proposed luggage decals for the different cities in the hunt.
The extra background color is #dec0de because I am a giant puzzle nerd.