So, I did a thing

So, I did a thing, that honestly sounds a bit backwards as I write it.

I started Apophenia Apotheosis first as PodcastsandPuzzling, way back when on blogspot, because I loved solving puzzles. I moved it to Apophenia when I wanted to think more about the how of puzzles. I created Wren’s Cipher Room when I was curious about the intersection of puzzles and cognition, and wondered what an AI would make of it all.

All of that was about solving puzzles. The process of making puzzle hunts, logic grids, physical puzzles, and even occasionally cryptic crosswords finally make sense. That click is one of my favorite feelings in the world. I have chased it since I was a kid.

And lately my brain has been refusing to give it to me. I wrote about it awhile ago in February, but puzzles I would have finished over coffee, from Jack Fallows’ reimagining of Cryptogram Puzzle Post into the Stormlamp Rituals (seriously good puzzles), to the book of NYT crosswords sitting by the fire, they all just seem out of reach right now. I’ve still got a gorgeous copy of Tangible Narrative’s The Great Tea Robbery sitting half-finished on my dining room table, because it is the kind of puzzle that deserves my full and undivided, relaxed attention to dive into the narrative and the delicious tea and all the care the creators clearly put into it. I can’t get into the headspace to solve it, as the global situation deteriorates along with my brain power, but nor can I bear to put it away just yet. So it sits there, reminding me that there used to be a quiet place in my life for just doing puzzles over tea on a rainy Saturday.

Fortunately (or not?) for both of you and I, my brain, while refusing to engage in the puzzle solving mode, is still wired for puzzles. So, I’ve decided build the idea that had been knocking around my head for years. The same energy that used to go into cracking the puzzles, I’m now putting into designing long-form narrative logic puzzles. The kind of puzzles I would have loved to have played as a kid. Not just take a list of clues and do the logic, but find the clues themselves in the narrative, and apply them to the grid. Playtesting them can be tricky for me, as the ‘refuse-to-solve’ brain pattern does click on, but it’s been cathartic to get the stories out of my head and on to paper.

So I made a place to put them. It’s called PuzzleLore, which now also has its own Substack, and Etsy store.

I’ve launched the Substack this past weekend with Chapter One of a TTRPG-themed adventure, The Sunken Sanctum. You read the chapter, notice the small thing the story slipped past you, and work out who did what. The chapter’s answers are found at the end of the next chapter. A new chapter goes up every Saturday, and Chapter One is live right now. Four adventurers answer a strange summons to a tavern called the Drowned Anchor, and by the end of the chapter you should be able to name each one’s role and the reason that brought them. Every clue you need is in the story. No list. You just read closely. It’s the gentlest possible way to see whether this kind of thing is for you, and it costs nothing but a quiet half hour.

So, if you’re here on Apophenia because you like puzzles, and the patterns the brain finds that may or may not exist, you might like what I’ve created. I hope you do. There are packs of varied difficulty, narrative and standard, available for everyone on Etsy, from a bookstore to a garden party to a night at the museum. There’s also Puzzlelore.fun, the website where I’ll be cataloging the packs, and creating a little clickable solver-grid for those who don’t feel like printing out the puzzles. And, of course, the substack, free for everyone forever, where the tale of the Sunken Sanctum is just getting started. And if you would, please tell your friends — a long-abandoned ruin beneath the waves is best braved with a party. PuzzleLore

• M

Originally published at https://apopheniaapotheosis.substack.com.