Puzzles

When not working as a graduate student, I relax with puzzles: codes, crosswords, and so forth. I'm a member of the National Puzzlers' League under the pseudonym "Tahnan", and each year I solve in the MIT Mystery Hunt. Below are some puzzles that I've written for various venues.

I've Been Published!

A cryptic I cowrote with Katherine Bryant is one of the forty-five crosswords in National Puzzlers' League Cryptic Crosswords. Even if only 1/90th of the book is mine (and hey, that's more than 1%!), I have, in the end, been published as a puzzle author.

Amusingly enough, the book was officially released on the same day I defended my dissertation.

Occasional Occasional Puzzles

(That is, puzzles I write on occasion, for occasions.)

I'm hardly Kevin Wald, but every once in a while I'll write a puzzle for a particular event. For instance:

Sara's 32: a puzzle written for the 32nd birthday of my friend Sara
_malorm, _lagell, & _ingatent: a puzzle written for the gathering of Immoral, Illegal, & Fattening, my MIT Mystery Hunt team. No actual II&F knowledge required.

The 2003 Mystery Hunt Puzzles

I was one of the authors of the 2003 Mystery Hunt at MIT. By its nature, a lot of the puzzles ended up with a lot of contribution from a lot of people. The ones I feel I can point to and say "I wrote this" (or at least "part of this") are:

Art Gallery: idea by me, photos by Jofish Kaye
Campaign Speeches: co-written with Matt Sakai
Whoa--I Know Cartography!
Chemistry Lab: one of my favorites, in fact. No chemistry knowledge required
Dealing with Change: idea by me, grid by Francis
Dictionary: cowritten with Bridget Copley. (You won't be able to finish this, but you can get close enough, and hey, I think it's a fun puzzle anyway.)
Efficiency: cowritten with Francis Heaney
Whoa--I Know Jack!: cowritten with Bridget Copley; art by Gregg Favalora (that's Jack over there on the left, serving as the "puzzle pages" icon)
Machine Room
Mad Props to My Peeps: cowritten with Todd Radford. Yo.
Minor Edits
Paranoia: logic by Bridget Copley. This one was somewhat time-sensitive, unfortunately, and probably can't be solved now, but it's worth going to the answer page anyway.
Second Game
Set Match: cowritten with Francis Heaney
Something in Common: cowritten with Francis Heaney (his idea, my trivia)
Stained Glass: I'm sorry. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. And the testsolvers got it...
Unprecedented Discovery: cowritten with Francis Heaney

The IT Puzzles

The following puzzles were composed for an online discussion board under the shared identity "IT" (a sort of reverse tag, in which the first person to solve IT's puzzle became the new IT). In each case, the puzzle is designed to lead to a final answer expressible in thirteen characters or less (spaces included, of course). If you'd prefer, you can see all the puzzles in one long list, without links to hints or answers.

Each of the links below goes to a single puzzle, with a link for the answer and the first hint. (The hints, taking a cue from Infocom, are given on a series of pages, increasingly helpful.) All answers can be confirmed by changing the file name for the puzzle to the answer--all lowercase and, if more than one word, strung together. For instance, if the answer to a puzzle were index (or Index or, for some reason, in Dex), confirmation would be at http://www.mit.edu/~tahnan/puzzles/index.html. For some puzzles, you'll want to confirm that the word you found is the right one, and not a red herring.

The puzzles:

Please note: only the puzzles above this point currently have hints posted. You can always mail the author at tahnan@mit.edu for hints. Or you can give up and look at the answer.

The THP Puzzles

The following puzzles were designed for the same board; THP is short for "Treasure Hunt Puzzles," the image being that of a set of puzzles with a series of steps to lead one to a final answer.

THP #1: The Arts

Not a puzzle with a single unified answer, but three mini-puzzles. They can all be accessed on one page. Each has its own hints and answer (coming soon).

THP #2: (S)he Loves Me, (S)he Loves Me Not

This time, a puzzle with a single clear answer. It can be found on this page. Hints and answer coming soon.

Tahnan's Puzzles