PuzzleFilter

June 26, 2007 2:22 PM

Puzzability is a puzzle writing company created by three former editors of Games Magazine. Start with their puzzle sampler and come back for a set of regularly updated games. Puzzability is also responsible for creating the New York Times' intricately crafted Op-Ed Puzzles. Unlike the Times' daily crosswords, these wonderfully elaborate puzzles are available in a free archive.
posted by lalex (8 comments total)

Hmm, fun. Thanks.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:44 PM on June 26, 2007

nifty! thanks!
posted by Quietgal at 7:02 PM on June 26, 2007

I'm surprised that Puzzability hasn't been linked before! I used to visit this site daily, and that must have been six or seven years ago. It's great that it's still around.
posted by painquale at 9:43 PM on June 26, 2007

I'm surprised that Puzzability hasn't been linked before!

Heh, I actually searched the archives extensively but was still quivering in fear that I'd posted a double.

I visit their website frequently, but I'm always particularly excited for their occasional NYTimes Op-Ed puzzles - they are truly works of word-art. I take the daily Times crossword for granted, but it makes me realize how difficult it must be to craft clues with all those clever puns and themes. I can't even imagine how the biweeky Sunday acrostic puzzles are constructed!
posted by lalex at 9:58 PM on June 26, 2007

Times:

Barbara Hall, 84, the Sunday Times puzzles editor, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours for services to crosswords and newspapers. Hall’s puzzles have graced the pages of The Sunday Times for 32 years. Her career began when she was paid two guineas for a puzzle published in 1938.

She worked with codes in the WRNS, based on the east coast in the second world war, and since then has compiled crosswords on “every subject imaginable”. After nearly 70 years devising puzzles, she believes she has had “several thousand” published. “I like to keep going,” she says. “I think it keeps the Alzheimer’s away.”

For services to crosswords!
posted by pracowity at 7:04 AM on June 27, 2007

pracowity, that is awesome.

lalex, if you're a fan of the NYT puzzle pages, you should try out an issue of P&A magazine. These too are works of art.
posted by painquale at 9:27 PM on June 27, 2007

Painquale, thank you! I've never seen that site - those look wonderful.
posted by lalex at 6:22 AM on June 28, 2007

Pracowity, that is indeed awesome and well-deserved. The U.K. cryptic crosswords are the toughest puzzles for me to solve, although I like to tell myself that my difficulty is partly due to the spelling variations between British and American English.
posted by lalex at 10:06 AM on June 28, 2007