David J. Bodycombe (born 1973 in
Darlington, County Durham) is an English puzzle author and games consultant. He is based in London, and his work is read by over 2 million people a day in the UK, and is syndicated to over 300 newspapers internationally. He devises puzzle for the ''
Daily Mail'', ''
Daily Express'', ''
Metro
Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to:
Geography
* Metro (city), a city in Indonesia
* A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center
Public transport
* Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urb ...
'' and ''BBC Focus'' magazine.
Bodycombe consults on television game shows, including ''
The Crystal Maze
''The Crystal Maze'' is a British game show devised by Jacques Antoine, based upon his format for the French game show ''Fort Boyard (game show), Fort Boyard'', and produced for Channel 4 Television Corporation, Channel 4. The programme focuses ...
'', ''
The Krypton Factor
''The Krypton Factor'' is a British game show produced by Granada Television for broadcast on ITV. The show originally ran from 7 September 1977 to 20 November 1995, and was hosted by Gordon Burns and usually broadcast on the ITV network on ...
'', ''
The Mole'' and ''
Treasure Hunt''. He was the question editor for the first 8 series of BBC Four's lateral thinking quiz ''
Only Connect''. On BBC Radio 4 he appeared on the quiz ''
Puzzle Panel
{{Use dmy dates, date=July 2014
''Puzzle Panel'' was a light-hearted, though cerebral BBC Radio 4 panel game that was broadcast between 1998 and 2005. An additional series was broadcast over the winter-spring of 2011, and a further series was broad ...
'' and devised the cryptic clues for ''
X Marks the Spot''. He has written and edited over forty books, including ''How to Devise a Game Show'' and ''The Riddles of the Sphinx'' – a history of modern puzzles.
In 2005 he started to devise
sudoku
Sudoku (; ja, 数独, sūdoku, digit-single; originally called Number Place) is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. In classic Sudoku, the objective is to fill a 9 × 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row ...
puzzles, and was the first person to have sudokus published in several major territories, including India and Scandinavia. As well as the classic 9x9 puzzle, he pioneered a number of alternative designs. His games, puzzles and questions also appear in magazines, and on websites, advertising campaigns, board games and interactive television.
He edits
UKGameshows.com, a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
-based web site cataloguing UK television and radio game shows.
Main credits
Television series
*''
The Crystal Maze
''The Crystal Maze'' is a British game show devised by Jacques Antoine, based upon his format for the French game show ''Fort Boyard (game show), Fort Boyard'', and produced for Channel 4 Television Corporation, Channel 4. The programme focuses ...
'' (1991–1995) – games devisor
*''
Sub Zero'' (1999) – games devisor
*''
The Mole'' (2001) – games devisor, UK series 2
*''
Treasure Hunt'' (2002–2003) – clue writer
*''Mind Games'' (2003–2004) – puzzle writer
*''Starfinder'' (2003–2004) – games devisor
*''Inside Clyde'' (2004) – games devisor
*''
Codex'' (2006–2007) – games designer
*''
Only Connect'' (2008–present) – question writer/editor
*''
The Krypton Factor
''The Krypton Factor'' is a British game show produced by Granada Television for broadcast on ITV. The show originally ran from 7 September 1977 to 20 November 1995, and was hosted by Gordon Burns and usually broadcast on the ITV network on ...
'' (2009) – games designer
*''Panic Attack'' (2009) – question writer
*''
Fifteen to One
''Fifteen to One'' is a British general knowledge quiz show broadcast on Channel 4. It originally ran from 11 January 1988 to 19 December 2003 and had a reputation for being one of the toughest quizzes on TV. Throughout the show's original run ...
'' (2017) – question writer
*''Armchair Detectives'' (2017) – plot producer
*''The Family Brain Games'' (2019) – games devisor
Streaming series
*''Game On'' (2016) – Game Producer
*''Lateral'' (2018) – Question Editor
*''The Game Garage'' (2019) – Producer
*''DISCONNECTED'' (2020) – Question Producer
*
Tom Scott Presents: Money (2020) - Game Producer
Radio series
*''
Puzzle Panel
{{Use dmy dates, date=July 2014
''Puzzle Panel'' was a light-hearted, though cerebral BBC Radio 4 panel game that was broadcast between 1998 and 2005. An additional series was broadcast over the winter-spring of 2011, and a further series was broad ...
'' (1998–2005) – panellist/contributor
*''
X Marks the Spot'' (1998–2006) – clue writer
Books
*''The Mammoth Book of Brainstorming Puzzles'' (1996)
*''The Mammoth Puzzle Carnival'' (1997)
*''Lateral Puzzles'' (1998, reprinted in the US as ''Mind Benders: Adventures in Lateral Thinking'')
*''Optical Illusions and Picture Puzzles'' (1998)
*''Codes and Ciphers'' (1999)
*''Reader's Digest Compendium of Puzzles and Brain Teasers'' (2000, consulting contributor)
*''How To Devise A Game Show'' (2003)
*''Number Crunchers'' (2004)
*''Visual Vexations'' (2004)
*''SU DOKU for alle'' (Denmark, 2005)
*''SU DOKU for alle 2'' (Denmark, 2005)
*''SU DOKU Classic'' (Denmark, 2005)
*''SU DOKU Classic, English version'' (Denmark, 2005)
*''SU DOKU Classic 2'' (Denmark, 2005)
*''Master SU DOKU'' (Denmark, 2005)
*''Sudoku Classic 2006 Calendar'' (2005)
*''Penguin 2006 Sudoku'' (2005)
*''Penguin Holiday Sudoku'' (2006)
*''Master SU DOKU 2'' (Denmark, 2006)
*''SU DOKU Classic 3'' (Denmark, 2006)
*''SU DOKU Classic 4'' (Denmark, 2006)
*''SU DOKU for alle 3'' (Denmark, 2006)
*''Penguin 2007 Sudoku'' (2006)
*''Hyper Su Doku'' (Denmark, 2006)
*''Sudoku Classic 2007 Calendar'' (2006)
*''The Riddles of the Sphinx'' (2007)
*''SU DOKU Classic 5'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''SU DOKU for alle 4'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''SU DOKU Classic 6'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''Master SU DOKU 3'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''SU DOKU Classic 7'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''SU DOKU for alle 5'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''Penguin 2008 Sudoku'' (2007)
*''SU DOKU Classic 8'' (Denmark, 2007)
*''Sudoku Classic 2008 Calendar'' (2007)
*''Penguin Pocket Sudoku'' (2008)
*''Penguin 2009 Sudoku'' (2008)
*''Penguin Pocket Sudoku 2'' (2008)
*''Penguin 2010 Sudoku'' (2009)
*''Penguin Pocket Sudoku 3'' (2009)
*''Penguin Sudoku Challenge Vol. 1'' (2010)
UKGameshows.com
Bodycombe co-founded and still runs the website
UKGameshows.com.
References
External links
Labyrinth Games David J. Bodycombe's official website
UK Gameshows website*
Danish publisher of David J. Bodycombe's sudoku
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bodycombe, David
1973 births
Alumni of Trevelyan College, Durham
Living people
Puzzle designers
People from Darlington
People educated at Barnard Castle School