What a golden age this is, at least for puzzles. As this dour decade progresses, each year brings some comfort and diversion in the form of riddles, enigmas or other intellectual pastimes. In 2022, it was Wordle, the letter-swapping game that spawned Hexordle, Octordle and Hexadecordle as well as Worldle (geography), Nerdle (maths), the Guardian’s own Wordiply and all the rest. This year, it was David Mitchell’s puzzle-minded sleuth Ludwig, in a BBC series for which I had the great pleasure of working as “puzzle consultant”. This boils down to making sure there’s nothing that will infuriate devotees of various types of puzzle, something I tend to keep in mind as the Guardian’s crossword editor. Whenever we see a puzzle in Ludwig’s lonely, unlit study, it’s a genuinely solvable brainteaser. And between Wordle and Ludwig, this paper launched its Quick Cryptic which is converting quick solvers to the cryptic side. But who creates these puzzles, and what is it like to have puzzling as the day job? Is their working environment as gloomy as Ludwig’s?
‘People assume you have to be clever to set cryptic crosswords – which is fine by me’
Victoria Godfrey/Carpathian, crossword compiler
The first cryptic puzzle I set was a surprise for my father’s 70th birthday. I went to a crossword-themed event to ask for help. One of the setters, Alchemi, helped me, and encouraged me to submit a puzzle to a newspaper. I had learned to solve them a few years earlier, as a new year resolution. Now I set as Carpathian in the Guardian, Vigo in the Independent, Butch in the New Statesman and Alex in the Times.
Setting has separate stages for me. First is filling the grid: usually I do this on a sofa with my laptop when I know I won’t have interruptions. Unfortunately our cat, Darwin, often steps on my keyboard and adds words without my noticing. The software most setters use, Crossword Compiler, is happy to suggest a word; I use it only if I know its meaning already, but Darwin isn’t that choosy. Sometimes I have to unpick entire sections when I notice it has included a Darwin word (eg “murva”, apparently a hemp used for bowstrings).
Then I write the grid’s words in a notebook. I take it with me whenever I am likely to be waiting around: at the hairdresser, picking up a child, on the bus. I need my phone with me as it has the Chambers Dictionary and Thesaurus apps, which I cannot set without.
Picking apart words to clue them has made me question so many spellings: mischievous, relieve, conscience (I can’t stop seeing it as con + science) and obviously misspelled (which to me is miss + peed over LL). I am pretty good at Wordle, though.
People assume you have to be clever to set cryptic crosswords – which is fine by me. My geographical and general knowledge is actually sorely lacking, though I am quite reliable on celebrity gossip.
Solvers always know something you don’t. I have learned a locomotive is not a train but an engine that pulls a string of carriages or wagons to form a train, and “platoon” was a British army term, later adopted in the US. I genuinely enjoy gaining new knowledge when solvers point these things out!
Crosswords can offer solace in troubled times – or a distraction. It is always a comfort to take one’s mind off things by getting immersed in a puzzle.
‘You’d be surprised how many questions have been conceived in the queue at the post office’
Abby Brakewell, TV quiz question producer
As an office assistant at a Southport law firm, I used to write “Abby’s Fact of the Day” and regularly made up riddles for my friends. While I was unsuccessfully applying for lowly TV posts, an ITV talent manager said I’d be suited to the role of question writer; I’m still not sure what that says about her impression of me, but I applied to The Chase and got the job.
It hadn’t previously occurred to me that this could be something you do full-time. I’ve always been both left- (analytical) and right- (intuitive) brained and realised this was my perfect environment: you need to be creative with language when writing clues and analytical with formats and gameplay. I work on shows including House of Games, The Weakest Link and The Wall, often from home, where I’ve got space to think and biscuits on tap. We use offices for brainstorming, hashing out formats with makeshift cardboard podiums. But inspiration can come anywhere: you’d be surprised how many questions have been conceived in the queue at the post office.
In other puzzles, players might use more logic or gameplay but quizzes are about general knowledge. We make a lot of effort to ensure it really is general and reflects all of society. A common misconception is that setters are trying to catch you out. We want players to get to the answer, otherwise it’s not much of a gameshow! The questions are crafted carefully and the information spaced deliberately: as teachers used to tell me before exams, read the question carefully.
The device I’m most proud of is adapting Answer Smash, a round in House of Games where players combine the answer to a question with what they can see in a picture – and give a silly response. When we found out the blind comedian Chris McCausland was coming on the show, we were about to drop the round when I realised we could try combining answers with the titles of pop songs. It worked, the results were funny, and it went down well with audiences, so we’ve made the music version another thing we do, a great example of inclusion elevating a show as a whole.
In the studio, it’s vital to listen to what players are saying. In my first job as a producer, watching the quiz play out from the gallery, I worried a contestant might say “Sigmund Freud” when the answer was “Lucian”. As it happened, they said “Lucian Freud” but even so I yelled “Stop!” bringing the timed, quick-fire round to a premature halt. A Freudian slip, perhaps?
‘I once got locked inside my own escape room’
Mink Ette, escape room designer
As a teenager I was blown away by idea that you could have a job “making” reality: that people design door handles and forks, and imbue them with subliminal messages as to how to use them. I studied product design as my degree back in 2001, or, as I’d explain it to people, “the design of stuff and things”. Everyday items are full of clues, we just don’t think about them – unless they don’t work well enough.
One summer, a year after I graduated, I discovered alternative reality games, immersive theatre and pervasive games, which combine the real world with a fictional one. The immersive theatre company Punchdrunk was looking for design volunteers: I’d work in a furniture shop during the day and build town-sized sets after work. I learned that I could give people permission to play. But it would be another 10 years before escape rooms became “a thing”.
Escape rooms are distinct from most other puzzles because they have to be completed under extreme time pressure. With most puzzles you play at home, you can spend hours or even days solving them. And to keep a sense of immersion, players are likely to have no internet access, which makes for more self-contained challenges that don’t use knowledge external to what’s provided in the room.
Typically I work from home and go into the office (at games studio Preloaded) once a week. An escape game designer often works with a client, initially in their offices when shaping the brief, then from home while developing the puzzle. We make as many set pieces and props as we can beforehand. Paper prototypes and play-testing happen as early as possible, often in a space that can be got quickly and cheaply. I recently worked on a puzzle for the Golden Hinde, a replica version of Francis Drake’s ship in London. We obviously couldn’t test on the actual ship, so we played it at a convention, using the venue’s corridors and staircases as the decks of the ship.
There have been more puzzles ever since smartphones became ubiquitous: people who got hooked on Candy Crush on Facebook got used to playing a puzzle every day. I feel as if people have been comparing Wordle scores as a morning ritual since for ever, but it’s only existed for three years.
I always keep a copy of the escape code in a prop in the room. I once got locked inside my own room when interviewing for a new games master: I left the control room and accidentally closed the door behind me.
‘Logic puzzles don’t require an extensive vocabulary, just a pencil and some time’
GT Karber, inventor of the hit book series Murdle
There were a bunch of moments when I should have realised Murdle was going to be a hit: when my friend really liked the first puzzle, say, or when my now-agent asked to represent me, or when the wonderful TikToker MysteryManon made a viral video about it. But I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Honestly, it wasn’t until it was the No 1 Christmas book in the UK that I really understood. When you make something, you so want it to be a hit that it’s hard to really let yourself go and accept that it is.
I’ve loved mysteries my whole life and have been inspired by so many things, from Cluedo to The Name of the Rose. My biggest influences were Agatha Christie, Columbo and GK Chesterton. Columbo, to me, is the great American answer to Sherlock Holmes.
I wrote about 30 one-night-only whodunnits that were performed in theatres in Los Angeles, and got a lot better at understanding what people like in a mystery. And when I was working on Murdle, I watched Columbo on a loop, sometimes the same episode four or five nights in a row. Just absorbing all their choices was inspiring.
I joke that my mother was from law enforcement and my father was from a family of criminals. My mom was a judge and later a prosecutor. And my dad was a civil rights lawyer and defence attorney who alienated every judge in town, because he could be pretty argumentative in support of his clients. All of this taught me that there are two sides to every case.
Uncertainty in society has typically coincided with a rise in mysteries, and especially with the kind of mysteries that I Iove: the fair-play, super-detective-solves-it-all type. The golden age of mystery writing was in the wake of the great war, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Puzzles give you a bite-size piece of order in a chaotic world.
Pretty much every morning I walk down to the local coffee shop and try to read. Having some quiet time is so important to get my thoughts in order. The coffee shop closes at 3pm and that’s generally when I’m really getting started. I’ve rented a small, brightly lit room above a dry cleaner’s: very bad ambience to relax, but great to work with no distractions.
Logic puzzles don’t require an extensive vocabulary, just a pencil and some time. It’s hard for me in Los Angeles to solve a British crossword, because I don’t understand the references, but a logic puzzle can be solved by anyone in the world. Murdle is now published in about 30 languages because it can be enjoyed by anybody, regardless of their cultural background, age or anything else.
The most important thing about puzzles is that they bring people together. Parents tell me they solve Murdle with their children. Younger people solve them with their grandparents. Newlyweds solve them together. You might not like the same movies or the same music, but you can come together and do a puzzle.
We live in a more atomised and isolated world than ever. If Murdle helps people find their community, all the hard work will have paid off..
‘Imagine a room that feels more like a detective’s lair than an office’
Aaron Hutchens, treasure hunt designer
Our company, Treasure Trails, creates treasure hunts where players use information in their local area – from signs, statuary and so on – to solve a fictional mystery. In 2005, founder Steve Ridd crafted a trail for charity in his home town of Polperro in Cornwall. He wanted to give people a fun way to explore the area, connecting clues to landmarks and weaving local history into each step. It was a success and Steve created more trails, selling them at craft fairs and local events. He then saw the potential to turn a passion into a full-time venture. I joined in 2008. We’ve grown from a few trails to more than 1,200 across the UK.
To picture my workspace, imagine a room that’s more detective’s lair than office. Maps, notepads and clippings are scattered across the desk, alongside my trusty computer, where the final puzzle pieces come together. I shift between physical documents and digital tools, tweaking clues and planning routes. It looks chaotic, but there’s method in the madness.
My job is to balance the needs of hardcore puzzle fans with those there for a fun day out. This means I need to layer the complexity in each step. While one person may solve a clue with straightforward logic, a more devoted puzzler might also notice a hidden detail that adds another level of satisfaction.
In challenging times, people crave the sense of control and closure a well-crafted puzzle provides. Unlike so many things in life, puzzles have solutions, and there’s a special satisfaction in following clues that lead to a clear and rewarding outcome. And a treasure hunt is a chance to unplug from screens.
There’s something almost nostalgic about heading outdoors and engaging with our curiosity, patience and teamwork. Sometimes the best puzzles are the ones that make you work a little harder. A recent trail involves finding a historic building with a series of numbers etched into the stone. Players have to rearrange those numbers in a certain order to unlock the next clue. It’s one of our biggest challenges and seeing people put their heads together, then experience that “aha” moment, is brilliant.
Once I was out with my family when I noticed a man struggling with one of our trails. I tried to resist jumping in, but I couldn’t help myself. He excitedly started explaining the challenge to me, unaware that I had any involvement in it. When I revealed my role, he looked at me like he’d just bumped into a celebrity!
‘I was delighted to find you could get money doing something I’d gladly have done for free’
David J Bodycombe, format deviser and puzzle setter
As a teenager in the early 90s, I devised games for the original version of The Crystal Maze. I was delighted to find you could get money doing something I’d gladly have done for free. That led to some book deals and a few magazine articles. Around 23, at a party, I was talking to someone in magazine publishing about how viable it was to freelance; she said, “Go for it.” So I handed in my notice as a management consultant and took a job on a puzzle compendium for Reader’s Digest.
Sudoku arrived from Japan in 2004. By 2005 the media were full of articles about sudoku mania. I was able to get a slice of that action with an agent selling my puzzles around the world to at least a million readers. That allowed me to establish a bedrock of income and be more choosy about what projects I did. I think the appeal of sudokus lies in their partially solved initial state, begging solvers to fill in the gaps. It can take hours to devise a custom sudoku by hand.
I’m unusual in this field in that I have a wide range in both the types of puzzle (words, logic, lateral-thinking) and the places they’re used (gameshows, escape rooms, podcasts) as opposed to, say, a cryptic crossword setter. With school runs, dog walks and meals, the bulk of the day is unproductive. Around 9pm, I settle in front of my PC with two monitors and work until the small hours. A bookcase of trivia books from the 80s and 90s, and sentimental titles I read as a schoolboy – by Gyles Brandreth, Johnny Ball, Clive Doig – lies to my right but gets used less as the years go by.
As for puzzles now, it’s hard to imagine a video of someone solving a ridiculously complex sudoku for two hours would have been as popular without the pandemic, but it happened on Cracking the Cryptic, a YouTube channel featuring champion solver Mark Goodliffe, with more than 600,000 subscribers. It’s all a far cry from my teenage years when a Letter Fit or Logic Problems magazine was a niche purchase.
I’m currently occupied with Lateral, a panel-game podcast and book. A representative question is: how did a broken extractor fan cause 250,000 Americans to get married last year? It seems so unlikely they’re connected. But you can guide people to the answer: a man’s bathroom mirror fogged up, he wiped it with his hand and was inspired to devise the “swipe right” gesture for his employer Matchbox (now Tinder).
