Happy new year! If you’re looking for a whole bunch of great puzzles to kick 2013 off right, you have come to the right place. A bunch of talented puzzlemakers have big, wonderful projects in the works, and there’s still plenty of time for you to jump on board.
Trip Payne is just a couple of steps away from funding his new Kickstarter project, which means we’ll be seeing a crossword extravaganza from him later this year. What’s a “crossword extravaganza,” you ask? It’s crosswords and then some. Each puzzle in the set will give the solver a particular answer. All of these answers will then be combined to reveal the “meta” answer — the solution to the entire extravaganza. Depending on how many backers Trip gets, one or more people who submit the meta answer will be in the running for a $100 prize. Of course, for most of us puzzle-lovers, a brand-new challenging puzzle set is prize enough. Do yourself a favor and pledge $20 so that you can get the three bonus puzzles — a themeless crossword, a great cryptic, and a one-of-a-kind “Something Different” crossword.
Roy Leban of Puzzazz also has a Kickstarter project going: Unique Puzzles for a Yankee Echo Alfa Romeo. This will be another puzzle extravaganza, stretching across the whole year. He’s promising a wide variety of puzzles, and again, if you pledge beyond the basic level, you’ll get bonus puzzles as well. Furthermore, the project itself is a mini-puzzle-hunt! There are three puzzles on the Kickstarter page itself (one of them cleverly hidden); two more puzzles were recently revealed in the updates. Solve ’em all and keep the answers handy.
Not every puzzlemaker is going through Kickstarter. Andrew Ries has been putting out a Rows Garden puzzle every week for some time. Now he’s just a few days away from launching a twelve-puzzle contest. Jump in before the puzzles are released on January 13th.
Finally, Thomas Snyder, a world-champion logic puzzle solver, launched his own new project as the New Year’s Ball dropped: He’ll be providing an original, handmade logic puzzle every day, Monday through Saturday, at his new blog, Grandmaster Puzzles. Sign up for an account so you can enter your solutions and make a run for the leaderboard.
I think one of my new year’s resolutions should be stocking up on pencils…
And if that isn’t enough for ya, I’m running my 4th annual Puzzefest through my website until February 8th. It’s a set of interconnected crosswords with a final answer and prizes! Visit http://www.patrickblindauer.com/shop.html for all the details and the all-important PayPal button.
Thanks for the mention of Puzzazz’s Unique Puzzles for a Yankee Echo Alfa Romeo campaign on Kickstarter. The free mini puzzlehunt that’s part of it is now up to 7 puzzles, 5 in plain sight and 2 hidden. And there will be more in the next three weeks, including a metapuzzle at the end.
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