Puzzle Writing Resources
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This is a list of resources specific to writing hunt puzzles and running hunts. Community Resources gives a list of community resources, while Puzzle Solving Resources gives resources tailored for solving puzzles; many of these resources are helpful when constructing puzzles as well. (for instance, if you want to find words that fit a certain pattern when filling out a grid)
Wisdom and Guidance
Puzzle Event Hosting Wisdom
- Suggestions for Running a Puzzlehunt by Rahul Sridhar
- BAPHL wiki
- How to Host a BANG
- A Puzzlehunt Tech Checklist
- Game Control Summit (videos from a now-defunct mini-con)
- mystery hunt timeline by Lumia Neyo, a timeline of things involved in running Mystery Hunt generally.
Puzzle Writing Wisdom
- How to write a fun puzzle, by Jay Lorch
- Introduction to Writing Good Puzzle Hunt Puzzles
- Puzzlecraft, a paid resource but contains tips on creating many specific genres of puzzles.
- How to Write a BANG Puzzle
- Foggy Brume's Blogs on Puzzle Construction - Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
- RT3 Hunt Epilogue by Jack Lance
- Brett Kuehner's list of escape room design links includes lots of general puzzle wisdom
- How to Hint, a hinting guide by Scott Handelman
Software and Websites
Standalone Answer Checker
Hunt Writing Workflow Managers
For smaller hunts, a spreadsheet may be sufficient for tracking progress.
- Puzzletron, hunt organization software used by MIT Mystery Hunt writing teams from 2011 to 2020.
- Puzzlord, an updated version of Puzzletron, written by ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ for MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 and Galactic Puzzle Hunts.
- Puzzup, a fork of Puzzlord, used by Palindrome for MIT Mystery Hunt 2022. It was forked by teammate for MIT Mystery Hunt 2023.
Hunt Website Servers
- CCXC Engine
- Ephesus by betaveros (Wiki link), a simple way to host your hunt online (without learning a full framework)
- gph-site, used by Galactic Puzzle Hunt
- hunter2
- Infinity ∞, used by InteGIRLS
- puzzlehunt_server, used by Puzzlehunt CMU
- tph-site, used by Teammate Hunt
- wizard, a tool created by weeklies.enigmatics.org for creating Discord-based unlock structures
Spoilr
- Spoilr, written for MIT Mystery Hunt 2014 by Alice Shrugged and passed down the years.
- silenda Fork of spoilr, written for MIT Mystery Hunt 2021 by ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈.
- Version of spoilr used for MIT Mystery Hunt 2022 by Palindrome
- Fork of spoilr used by teammate for MIT Mystery Hunt 2023
Grid Logic Editors/Players
Crossword Construction Tools
- Crossword Compiler (paid, Windows only)
- CrossFire (paid, runs on Windows, Mac OS, or Linux)
- Amuse Labs Creator (free, browser-based)
- Crosserville (free, browser-based)
- Crosshare (free, browser-based)
- CrossHatch (free, browser-based)
- Exet (free, browser-based)
- Phil (free, browser-based)
- Qxw (free, Linux/Windows)
Word lists
These word list resources may be helpful for constructing word puzzles (such as crosswords), as well as defining what words are legal for interactive puzzles and games.
- National Puzzlers' League Wordlists lists many, mostly unscored word lists
- An r/crossword post by Rex Parker lists many crossword-oriented downloadable scored word lists
- WordNet is a venerable word list with semantic connections between words
- Spread the Word(list) - Freely available wordlist updated quarterly
- SCOWL and friends - Various wordlists usable for word games
- [1] - Contains some additional wordlists
Other Puzzle Construction Tools
- Puzzle JS, for setting interactive JS based puzzles in HTML.
- Extraction Finder, for checking whether a target answer can be extracted by indexing into a given list of strings
