Puzzle Events
National Puzzle Day
National Puzzle Day is an unofficial holiday dedicated to the celebration of puzzles. See the dedicated page about National Puzzle Day for more info.
EnigMarch
EnigMarch is an annual puzzle-design prompt challenge during the month of March. Each day, a prompt is released and puzzlers are tasked with creating a puzzle based on the day's prompt. During the first two years of the event, I started trying to write daily puzzles to keep up with the challenge, but for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to finish. It's still going on, and someday I may try the challenge again.
Archives
Puzzled Pint May 2023
Puzzled Pint is a monthly puzzle event that takes place at pubs in a number of cities around the world. The event takes place on the second tuesday of each month, with a location puzzle released the prior friday for players to solve to unlock the location.
I wrote the puzzle set for May 2023 with the theme Taco Tuesday. While every month's event takes place on a tuesday and wouldn't make any particular tuesday any better or worse for "Taco Tuesday", I was especially pleased to snag May 2023 because it meant the day of the location puzzle launch was Cinco de Mayo.
Downloads
Design
The design was heavily inspired by classic Tex-Mex aesthetic from the 70's and 80's, especially the use of the typeface Davida, which was an inside joke/nod to a friend obsessed with it. I really wanted everything in the packet to fit that vibe and drafted customer versions of many of the instructional guides, answer sheets, and ancillary graphics for my packet instead of using the standard versions provided by the Puzzled Pint organizers.
The photo used for the faux-laroid on the Puzzled Pint website was my photo on the birria quesatacos from my neighborhood gas station taqueria, Taqueria Cuautehmoc, on the west side of Fort Worth, Texas. They were the 567th unique taco experience I logged over on my taco blog All The Tacos and achieved a full five stars.
Puzzles
I think every puzzle was adjusted or rewritten to some extent, but a few of the puzzles were substantially rewritten or changed completely. Eventually, I'll update this page with polished versions of a few of the puzzles that were cut/reworked completely.
Puzzler Pride
Puzzler Pride is an annual showcase of puzzles created by LGBTQIA+ puzzle authors, co-organized by Jamie Hargrove and myself. The first two showcases were exclusively launched here on The Griddle. Starting in 2025, there is now a Puzzler Pride website, although the puzzles are still released here as well.
Downloads
Crossword Puzzle Day
Crossword Puzzle Day is an unofficial holiday dedicated to the celebration of crossword puzzles. See the dedicated page about National Puzzle Day for more info.
Black-Out Friday
For a few years, I held an annual protest of consumerism on the Friday after Thanksgiving titled "Black-Out Friday". The idea was to encourage solvers to stay home and solve puzzles instead of going shopping. The puzzles all had a shading mechanic to fit the theme. After the first year, others contributed puzzles to the packets for the second and third years.
Archives
Puzzle Advent Calendars
For several years in this site's history, I made a Puzzle Advent Calendar event that included a piece of a puzzle, partial puzzle, or mini puzzle each day from December 1 through 25. Some years formed one large puzzle made of each day's piece. Other years were more like a puzzle hunt with mini meta-puzzles or clues to push toward some sort of unclear goal.