Puzzle Solving Resources

This is a list of resources specific to solving hunt puzzles and hunts. Community Resources gives a list of community related resources, while Puzzle Writing Resources gives resources tailored for writing puzzles; some of these resources may be helpful when solving puzzles as well.

Other Lists

These are other similar "Lists of tools".

• Enigmatics - Resources
• Puzzle Resources, by Mystery League

Cryptic Clues

These are guides for solving cryptic crossword clues.

• Cryptic Clue Guide by Deusovi
• The Atlantic's Guide to Solving Cryptic Clues by The Atlantic Monthly

Tool Collections

• Puzzlehunt.Net - Tools - A collection of useful tools for Word- or Cipher-based puzzles.
• QHex - Various puzzle tools, for both word and logic puzzles.
• Snap / util.in - Collection of tools including a word search solver, anagram solver, and regex finder
• Wikibruce Puzzle Tools - A lot of tools, including measurement conversions, steganography, ciphers, and linguistic resources.
• Red Luth Riddle Tools - Collection of tools, mostly for codes and ciphers
• Solvertools (by Rage) and Hypebot (by Galactic Trendsetters) - Github repositories of general purpose tools (installation and setup required)

Google Sheets utilities

• Google Sheet Puzzle Tricks by Softfro - Sheet containing various Google Sheets tricks, techniques and formulae.
• The Mathemagicians' Sheet Template - A template with useful resources and Sheet formulae, and custom functions

Transcription

• Xword Group - Crossword grid maker.
• Crossword Parser - Translates an image of a crossword grid to a copyable spreadsheet.

Reverse Image Search

• Huntress - Chrome browser extension

Word Finders and Pattern Matchers

• NPL Flat Solver - A collection of tools to help solve NPL-style Flat puzzles
• Nutrimatic - Regex word and phrase finder.
• Qat (Quinapalus) - Regex word finder, with multiple dictionaries. Also includes a French version.
• Onelook - Multi-Dictionary Regex-ish word and phrase finder.
• AlphaSearch! - Word finder, allows using custom word lists.
• Missing letters crossword solver - crossword solving help
• Wordlisted - Regex, wordplay, allows using custom word lists
• Phonetic word search
• 千篇国学 (QianP) - Chinese character, phrase, and idiom dictionary
• zi.tools - Chinese character search tools
• 焖肉面中文版 - Chinese wildcard character and phrase matcher

Anagram Solvers

• Anagram Solver
• Internet Anagram Server (Wordsmith)
• Iterative Anagram Solver - Helps with solving multi-word anagrams word-by-word.

Puzzle hunt codes and codesheets

• Morse Code Translator
• ASCII to Hex - Does what it says on the tin, along with other numerical encryption + Rot13.
• Monkey - Quick Morse code, Braille, Semaphore, and Amino Acid conversion
• mstang - Puzzle Tools - Braille, Morse, Semaphore (with keyboard controls)
• A Quick Guide to Codes and Ciphers - Poster by Justin Ladia

Apps

• Puzzle Sidekick (iOS)
• Puzzlehunt Assistant (Android)
• Puzzle Pal (Android)
• Puzzle Tools (Windows Phone)

Ciphers

• Quipqiup - Cryptogram solver.
• Rumkin Cipher Tools
• Rot-n Decoder - Variable caesar cipher decoding, including multiple shifts at once.
• DCode - Various ciphers.
• Cryptii - Various ciphers.

Logic Puzzle Solvers

For Nikoli-like grid logic puzzles, also see Comparison of logic puzzle solvers for a list of genres that these websites support.

• Noq - Grid-based logic puzzle solver.
• Sudokuwiki - Step-by-step sudoku solver, also supports diagonal and killer sudoku
• f-puzzles - Sudoku solver supporting many different variants
• pzprRT - Logic puzzle solver supporting Yajilin, Heyawake, Masyu, Slitherlink, Tapa, and other genres
• Nikoli Puzzle Solver - Logic puzzle solver based on Penpa+.
• PolyForm Puzzle Solver - Polyomino (and other shapes) dissection solver
• LogicalSolver - Helper for solving logic grid or Einstein riddles-like puzzles
• grilops - Library for useful constraint solving tools specifically for logic puzzles (intended for coding to solve new or variant puzzle types)

Information Repositories

• List of Lists of Lists - A lot of lists, a lot of information.
• The Eggcorn Database - A collection of idioms and Eggcorns (Misheard phrases)
• phenomist's Sets of Things and ruby's Puzzlehunt datasets- Groups of items/people that belong to groups of 2+.
• IMDb - International Movie Database, good for film lists and has some unique lookup tools.
• Letterboxd - Movie database with many lists and a lot of reviews.
• Songfacts - Music database with trivia and several lists based on song qualities (words in titles, popularity, etc.).
• Flag ID
• Cross+A Puzzles - Cross+ A list of grid constraint puzzle types (and software to solve them)
• Omniglot - Listing of different real and fictional writing systems

Team Coordination Tools

Note that unless otherwise stated, these tools typically require a team to create and manage their own instance of the service.

• Based on Codex Blackboard, a Meteor app for coordinating solving first written by Codex:
  • Codex Blackboard
  • Galackboard used by ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈
  • Wafflehaüs' Organized Workspace (WOW) used by Wafflehaüs
• Cardboard - Dashboard for managing puzzles and tracking status, used by Cardinality
• Herring - Web application for team progress tracking and task management, used by Rage
• Jolly Roger - Coordination tool for collaboratively solving puzzlehunts, used by Death and Mayhem
• Checkmate - Website to organize puzzles during Mystery Hunt, used by teammate
• BBN (Bot-Be-Named) - Discord bot that interoperates with Google Sheets to smoothen solving Puzzle Hunts, used by The Mathemagicians