There’s an article in the Times Online about an art installation going in at the Stanmore Underground station in northwest London.  The installation is part of an Art On The Underground project that is sponsoring installations in a number of stations around London.  What’s interesting about the Stanmore station is that it focuses on crossword puzzles.

Serena Korda, the artist behind the installation, chose crossword puzzles as a theme because the Stanmore station is near where code breaking computer were housed during World War II.  Solving a Times crossword puzzle in less than 12 minutes was a requirement to join the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.  The installation was also inspired by information leaflets handed out in the underground during World War II.  These leaflets featured a crossword on the back.

Along with installation, there are a number of crossword puzzles themed around Stanmore.  The installation itself provides clues for the puzzles.  The installation is called The Answer Lies at the End of the Line.  And, apparently, this is also true for any who can’t solve the puzzles.

There’s a nice video on the Britannica Blog about a new digital puzzle.  The puzzle is four blocks with a grid of LEDs on top.  The LEDs light up in specific patterns and the object is to arrange the blocks so that all of the edges match up properly.  The puzzle is timed and can also tell when it has been correctly solved.

Andrew M. Greene emailed me a link to some puzzles that he made up for the Jewish holiday of Purim, which is today.  Enjoy!

I have a thing for puzzles based on games where knowledge of the rules of the game help you to solve the puzzle. I’ve been trying for a while to come up with a good puzzle based on Texas Holdem Poker. (For Texas Holdem neophytes, instructions for the game can be found at the previous link.) The idea that kept coming to my mind was the climactic poker scene in Casino Royale when James Bond wins all of the chips. There are four or five players left at the time and they all have cards that make up good hands with the common cards, and still they are all hands of very different values. I wondered if you could figure out what the four common cards were if you were shown each players individual cards and given the final rankings. As a proof of concept I came up with the puzzle below. There are six hands. Hand 1 ranks highest with the common cards and hand 6 ranks lowest. The object is to determine the common cards.

I this puzzle is fairly easy and, of course, the idea would be to provide as little information as possible and still have a unique solution. I’m not sure yet if really challenging puzzles can be made, but I think there is potential here.

Oh yeah, and here’s the answer.

A new puzzle game has been launched to promote the upcoming sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight.  The puzzle begins at a site called whysoserious.com and it seems to involve finding and photographing actual locations around the country.  Enjoy!

Wei-Hwa Huang who wrote the puzzles for the first US Sudoku Championship has posted two puzzles on his blog that were not included in the competition.  The two puzzles were rejected, it seems, because they were a little bit too tricky.  Try them out and see what you think.

Yahoo is promoting their new search engine with a crossword puzzle. The crossword is presented in conjunction with the New York Times and was written by Will Shortz and Fred Piscop. The puzzle is incorporated into Yahoo’s search so that if you get stuck and need a clue, it’s only a click and a Yahoo search away.

It’s a small puzzle (9×9 grid) and it’s not terribly difficult. Expert cruciverbalists probably won’t need the clues. It’s worth noting here that “clues” here actually give you the answer. The real motivation is to show how effective Yahoo search is. When you click to “get a clue”, you are shown how easy it is to use Yahoo search to come up with the answer. It’s actually worth trying on some of them just to see how well it works. Also, any letters that you enter immediately come up in red, allowing the puzzle to be solved by trial and error.

The puzzle has a Hawaiian theme and if you finish the puzzle, you are given the option to enter a drawing where you can win a trip for two to Hawaii. So, there may be more to gain here than a few minutes of fun.

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution

There’s a cute story on Boston.com about Aric Egmont who proposed to his girlfriend Jennie Bass in a Boston Globe crossword puzzle.  For any who are interested in solving the puzzle you can find it here.  A word of warning though… the article above does reveal the answer for at least one of the clues.

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution

Here’s a new puzzle. Enjoy!

pdf solution