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Meta-puzzle
A metapuzzle, also known as a meta-puzzle or meta, is a puzzle that uses the solutions to a set of puzzles to create or provide data for a final puzzle. Overview Game designer Cliff Johnson defines a meta-puzzle as "a collection of puzzles that, when solved, each give a piece of a master puzzle." A metapuzzle is a puzzle that unites several puzzles that feed into it. For example, five puzzles that had the answers BLACK, HAMMER, FROST, KNIFE, and UNION would lead to the metapuzzle answer JACK, which combines with all of those words to make new words and phrases. A "meta-meta" can exist in larger sets of puzzles, uniting several metapuzzles. So if that metapuzzle answer JACK was alongside three metapuzzles with the answers TEN, QUEEN, and ACE, the meta-meta answer would be KING, the remaining card in an ace high straight. Metapuzzles are frequently found in puzzle hunts. The structure of a metapuzzle often makes it possible to guess, with a greater or lesser degree of certainty, ...
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The Fool's Errand
''The Fool's Errand'' is a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson. It is a meta-puzzle game with storytelling, visual puzzles, and a cryptic treasure map. It is the tale of a wandering Fool who seeks his fortune in the Land of Tarot and braves the enchantments of the High Priestess. A sequel titled '' The Fool and His Money'' was released October 25, 2012. Plot The plot focuses on The Fool card of the tarot, who is portrayed as a silhouette of a young man wearing a peaked, feathered cap, curled-toed shoes, and carrying a knapsack on a stick. The Fool is the protagonist of the story, and he encounters various other cards from the tarot. In the beginning of the story, The Sun gives him a map, which has been scrambled, and directs him to find the "Lost 14 Treasures of the World." The Fool journeys through four kingdoms (each representing a suit from the minor arcana of the tarot), where he encounters other characters, who either give him more information or provide him with addit ...
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Puzzle
A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle. There are different genres of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. The academic study of puzzles is called enigmatology. Puzzles are often created to be a form of entertainment but they can also arise from serious Mathematical problem, mathematical or logical problems. In such cases, their solution may be a significant contribution to mathematical research. Etymology The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' dates the word ''puzzle'' (as a verb) to the end of the 16th century. Its earliest use documented in the ''OED'' was in a book titled ''The Voyage of Robert Dudley (explorer), Robert Dudley...to the West Indies, 1594–95, narra ...
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Microsoft Puzzle Hunt
{{refimprove, date=January 2013 The Microsoft Puzzlehunt is a quasi-annual Microsoft tradition started in 1999. It is a puzzlehunt in the same vein as the MIT Mystery Hunt and has some similarity to The Game. The hunt is a team puzzle competition which challenges each team to solve a large number of original puzzles of all different kinds. The answers, when used in conjunction with the metapuzzle, lead to a hidden treasure concealed somewhere on the Microsoft campus. Teams spend the weekend solving original and unique puzzles, usually created by the team that won the last hunt. Puzzles may be anything from traditional puzzles like crosswords, word searches, cryptograms, jigsaw puzzles, word play and logic problems to wandering around campus to find landmarks or puzzles that have to be solved on location. Microsoft Puzzlehunt was founded by Bruce Leban, along with Roy Leban and Gordon Dow. The Microsoft Puzzlehunt takes place over a weekend at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washi ...
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The Fool And His Money
''The Fool and His Money'' is a puzzle game by Cliff Johnson. It is a self-published sequel to the 1987 game ''The Fool's Errand ''The Fool's Errand'' is a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson. It is a meta-puzzle game with storytelling, visual puzzles, and a cryptic treasure map. It is the tale of a wandering Fool who seeks his fortune in the Land of Tarot and braves ...''. Like its predecessor, ''The Fool and His Money'' contains many different types of logic and word puzzles which, although centered on a story with a medieval tarot deck theme, have added elements of the Prince, Egyptian gods, and Pirates. Release information Originally expected in late 2003, the game experienced dozens of postponements. On February 4, 2009, Johnson released a functioning preview of the game, containing the Prologue and five puzzles. The game was released on October 25, 2012, one day earlier than finally promised, having taken ten years to produce. It is written using Adobe Director wi ...
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System's Twilight
''System's Twilight: An Abstract Fairy Tale'' is a graphical interactive fiction computer game created by Andrew Plotkin and released in 1994. Summary The game is a combination of puzzle and story, combining several different kinds of logic puzzles and word puzzles. The puzzles include variations of Set, Black Box, and Sokoban, as well as many others. The overarching story is an allegory in which the player and other characters are programs in a broken, dysfunctional computer environment. Originally, Plotkin released System's Twilight as shareware. Since 2000, it has been re-released as binary-only freeware. It runs only on the Mac OS Classic environment, but can be run in emulation on other platforms. Reception ''MacAddict'' commented that ''System's Twilight'' felt similar to '' 3 in Three'', with hard puzzles, quality sound and graphics, and a witty storyline. ''Inside Mac Games'' rated the game four out of five, and also noted the game's similarity to ''3 in Three'', sayi ...
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3 In Three
''3 in Three'' is a 1989 metapuzzle video game designed by Cliff Johnson (game designer), Cliff Johnson and published by Cinemaware and Inline Design. While bearing some similarities to his previous game, ''The Fool's Errand'', ''3 in Three'' took place inside a computer. The game is about a number 3 (number), 3, lost in the innards of the computer by a Voltage spike, power surge. The 3 attempts to repair the damage caused by the power surge and make her way back to the spreadsheet, providing the background story for the game. Gameplay The game consists of many separate sections, each of which contains one puzzle. However, unlike Fool's Errand, each section may need to be visited multiple times, as it may carry along part of the story at times when it does not contain a puzzle. Each puzzle (upon completion) places one Letter (alphabet), letter in the Letter Legislature. When the entire legislature is in place, a logic puzzle (see below) is used to properly order them, at which ...
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College Puzzle Challenge
College Puzzle Challenge was an annual puzzlehunt hosted by Microsoft from 2003 to 2018, inspired by the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt or the MIT Mystery Hunt. However, several key features differentiate College Puzzle Challenge from these events. College Puzzle Challenge is a timed event, and while it does have a meta-puzzle, if no team has solved the meta-puzzle at the end of the allotted time, the event is declared over and alternate means are used to determine winners. Registration is limited to current undergraduate and graduate students and those who have graduated in the last year before the event, and team size is strictly regulated to four students. Instead of the winning team hosting the next event as with the Microsoft and MIT hunts, the event is always hosted by Microsoft employees. Since College Puzzle Challenge takes place at multiple locations simultaneously, events are coordinated by a puzzle control team at Microsoft's corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. Ground teams ...
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Microsoft Puzzle Safari
Puzzle Safari is a one-day team letterboxing event held annually on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. There are a maximum of four participants per team. The event takes place over the course of two rounds. Each round, the teams receive a batch of puzzles and a logbook, each of which may be solved to a location on the Microsoft campus. By taking the logbook to that location, the team can find a unique rubber stamp with which they may stamp their logbook. The logbook is turned in and scored at the end of each round. Puzzles may be anything from traditional puzzles like crosswords, word searches, cryptograms, jigsaw puzzles, word play and logic problems to wandering around campus to find landmarks or puzzles that have to be solved on location. When arriving at a stamp location, the team may find information about a challenge event. Each year the distribution method for these challenge events change slightly. One common distribution method is a ticket at the stamp locatio ...
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MIT Mystery Hunt
The MIT Mystery Hunt is an annual puzzlehunt competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is one of the oldest and most complex puzzlehunts in the world and attracts roughly 120 teams and 3,000 contestants (with about 2,000 on campus) annually in teams of 5 to 150 people. It has inspired similar competitions at Microsoft, Stanford University, Melbourne University, University of South Carolina, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and University of Aveiro (Portugal) as well as in the Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio metropolitan areas. Because the puzzle solutions often require knowledge of esoteric and eclectic topics, the hunt is sometimes used to exemplify popular stereotypes of MIT students. The hunt begins at noon on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when the teams assemble to receive the first puzzles. It concludes with a puzzle-guided journey (a "runaround") to find a "coin" hidden on MIT's ...
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Puzzlewright Press
Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. is a publisher of a broad range of subject areas, with multiple imprints and more than 5,000 titles in print. Founded in 1949 by David A. Boehm, Sterling also publishes books for a number of brands, including AARP, Hasbro, Hearst Magazines, and ''USA TODAY'', as well as serves as the North American distributor for domestic and international publishers including: Anova, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Carlton Books, Duncan Baird, Guild of Master Craftsmen, the Orion Publishing Group, and Sixth & Spring Books. Sterling also owns and operates two verticals, Lark Crafts and Pixiq. Sterling Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, which acquired it in 2003. On January 5, 2012, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that Barnes & Noble had put its Sterling Publishing business up for sale. Negotiations failed to produce a buyer, however, and Sterling is reportedly no longer for sale as of March, 2012. In January 2022, Sterling rebrand ...
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The New York Observer
''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainment and publishing industries. History The ''Observer'' was first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, as a weekly newspaper by Arthur L. Carter, a former investment banker. The ''New York Observer'' had also been the title of an earlier weekly religious paper founded by Sidney E. Morse in 1823. In July 2006, the paper was purchased by the American real estate figure Jared Kushner, then 25 years old. The paper began its life as a broadsheet, and was then printed in tabloid format every Wednesday, and currently has an exclusively online format. It is headquartered at 1 Whitehall Street in Manhattan. Previous writers for the publication include Kara Bloomgarden–Smoke, Kim Velsey, Matthew Kassel, Jillian Jorgensen, Joe Cona ...
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Matt Gaffney
Matt Gaffney is a professional crossword puzzle constructor and author who lives in Staunton, Virginia. His puzzles have appeared in ''Billboard'' magazine, the ''Chicago Tribune'', the ''Daily Beast'', ''Dell Champion Crossword Puzzles'', ''GAMES'' magazine, the ''Los Angeles Times'', ''New York'' magazine, the ''New York Times'', '' Newsday'', ''The Onion'', ''Slate'' magazine, the ''Wall Street Journal'', the ''Washington Post'','' Washingtonian Magazine'', ''The Week'', and ''Wine Spectator''. Gaffney was thirteen when his first crossword puzzle was published in Dell Champion Crossword Puzzles, and has gone on to create more than 4,000 crossword puzzles over the past 25 years. His puzzles have been published in the ''New York Times'' 58 times. He has served as judge for Will Shortz's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and won the Junior division as a contestant in 1997. He has created puzzles for Lollapuzzoola and guest-constructed for Brendan Emmett Quigley. He ...
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