Stick Word Grid

This puzzle arranges the letters of a message in a grid. The words read, naturally enough,¹ from left to right. However, the grid is written on sticks or other skinny objects oriented vertically so the message can only be read when the items reform the grid.

The puzzle starts with the players finding a collection of sticks with letters on them. They may all be provided together or, for an added challenge, distributed among multiple boxes to keep the players guessing when they have them all. Unarranged, the sticks look like a hodgepodge of letters.

In the easiest form of this puzzle, at the top of each stick is a highlighted letter that is used as a key to arrange the sticks in the appropriate order. The word can be anything recognizable, but it is helpful to have it related to the objects being used or the location they are found.

With the sticks in the correct order, the letters can be read tor form words: LOOK UNDER CHAIRS.

For a bit of an extra challenge, you can leave out the key word at the top. Players should still be able to arrange the sticks to form the actual words.

To make this puzzle really challenging, have the sticks arranged unevenly. Provide a clue that suggests a sequence of letters (each uniquely listed). The players have to find not only the order but also the vertical positions. In this example, a separate clue gives a sequence of elements (Vanadium, Indium, Carbon, Iodine, and Cobalt). With the help of a periodic table, these element symbols (V, In, C, I, Co) are found on these sticks and lined.

Now in the proper orientation, the letters of these elemental symbols form a message.

Group and Count

This puzzle uses a collection of items that are clearly similar but have an attribute that is clearly different. In the example below, a gaming table setup provides expected items like cards and chips.

All of the chips come from the same set and are easily recognized as related. However, it is also obvious that the chips come in different colors. The first step of the puzzle is to collect the chips by color.

We can now count the chips of each color. There are 6 red chips, 5 green chips, and 9 blue chips. These numbers form digits of a code. The only remaining task is to determine the order of the digits. This is done by providing a sequence of colors. If you happen to have a lock with different colored dials, you could match the chip color with the dial color.

If you don’t happen to have such a lock, you can easily create a sequence of colors by drawing with markers/crayons or, like here, just some dot stickers I picked up.

You may notice that in the example above is a dot sequence blue-red-yellow-green, but there are no yellow chips. That is partially because I had yellow stickers but no yellow chips. But this adds an interesting challenge to the puzzle. There are zero yellow chips, so that digit is 0. This makes the code 9605.

Other collections of items with different properties could similarly be used. For example, you could have a collection of coins of different denominations. You could have playing cards from different suits. You could get a book of stickers with 4 or so different patterns.

Water Rings

The water rings puzzle makes use of common objects, scraps of paper and drinking glasses, to work backward to find an original arrangement. This is a good puzzle to match theming in spaces involving entertaining, drinking, or cleaning up.

The setup for this puzzle starts with scraps of crumpled paper strewn around the room.

When players unfurl these scraps, they will find that they are torn pieces of paper. On each there will also be a circular mark.

The next step of the puzzle is to notice that the paper scraps are ripped from the same sheet of paper. By matching rips together, the players reconstruct the original sheet.

To complete the puzzle, players surmise that these circular marks were created from water rings left by glasses that were placed on them. The players find the glass with a base that matches each mark.

Each glass has a number on it, and the arrangement gives the code.

Note: When creating this puzzle, make sure to select glasses with very different bases (probably more distinct than that shown here). Consider using a shot glass, pub glass, oversized mug, and/or glasses with a non-circular base. This puzzle can be altered to use silhouettes from other types of objects.

Creating this puzzle is straightforward. Start with a collection of glasses with distinct bases (or throw in other objects if necessary). Get a large enough sheet of paper and make some marks that trace the bottom of these glasses/objects.

There are numerous ways you can make these marks. One way is to trace around the glass bases with a pen or pencil and then fill in to make it more noticeable and stylish. However, the way I did these is slather some acrylic paint on the glass bases and stamp them on the paper. The paint can be easily rinsed off the glass as long as it is done before the paint dries.

After that, rip the paper to have each mark on its own piece. Make sure each of the rips are unique so that players can match them up. Then, crumple up the pieces and scatter them around the room when you set it up.

Card Edge Message

The setup for this puzzle is a deck of cards spread out decoratively.

The cards look ordinary. The order may be conspicuous but has no special meaning. The players can pick up one of the cards and see nothing special about it.

The solution is simply to move the cards back into a stack. Once they do that, the players simply have to observe that there is a message or code written on the side of the stack.

This message is only visible when the cards are stacked in the correct order. The cards should be spread in the order they need to be in so players just need to scoop them up in a pile in the correct order. That said, you should make note of the correct order to help players arrange them back in case they happen to shuffle the cards before noticing the message on the side.

Groovy Blocks

This puzzle starts with a collection of blocks. The blocks have some grooves cut into opposing ends.

Players will probably quickly realize that although there are several different patterns, some of the patterns line up. Players will probably try to line up the blocks to make the grooves continuous, but this will not work for more than a pair of blocks.

The trick to this puzzle is that the blocks need to be stacked vertically rather than arranged horizontally. When stacked, the groove patterns can be matched up. More importantly, the holes formed by the grooves form a pattern of numbers.

Looking at the side of the blocks, the code is 8347.

This code was chosen because it results in a different groove pattern between each pair of blocks, and none of the patterns are palindromes. This means that there is only one way to arrange the blocks where all the patterns match. Also, viewing the numbers upside down or inverted does not show all proper numbers, so there is only one way to interpret the numbers from the side.

Solving the groovy blocks puzzle can be tricky and might take the players some time. I recommend providing the groovy blocks well before their code is used so that the players have other puzzles to work on while they figure this out.

The groovy blocks in the examples above were created with a 3D printer. If you have a 3D printer, you can use this STL file.

If you don’t have a 3D printer, there are other ways to make matching grooves. One way is to use a table saw if you have one. Cut up a 2x4 into equal blocks of an appropriate length. Then set the blade low so that the wood can be passed over the blade to cut a groove but not all the way through the wood. Set the fence to guide a block to cut the groove the appropriate distance from the end of a block. Keep the fence in place to cut each groove that matches opposing blocks.

You can use this pattern to guide the placement of the fence and where to cut the blocks.

If you don’t have a way to make precise grooves in blocks, an alternate approach would be to draw lines instead of grooves. Use a square tool and a pen to draw lines perpendicular to the edge of the block. Hold two blocks together to make sure that the lines match up. Make sure the lines spill over the edges so that the locations, and hence numbers, can be seen when the blocks are stacked correctly.

Cup Cryptex

A cryptex is a device that contains a sequence of cylinders with letters on them. The cylinders are rotated to form words and unlock the device.

Don’t happen to have a cryptex lying around your house? No problem. You can easily fabricate one with a few Styrofoam cups. The point of using Styrofoam cups is to use some that have thick lips so that when they are stacked, a region of the cup is still visible.

The cup cryptex is created by writing letters around the lips of the cups. The letters should be spaced evenly around the lip. When the cups are stacked (in the correct order), the cups can be rotated to form words.

A typical cryptex device will unlock and open with the correct code. A cup cryptex will obviously not do that. Instead, the players will arrange the letters to form a key word presented to them, and elsewhere that arrangement will show the code word(s) they need.

A cryptex often has 26 letters on each cylinder. Your cup cryptex does not need that. Instead, you will probably have 4 to 6 letters per cup/cylinder. When arranged correctly, each row will form a word.

You may or may not provide the order in which the cups should be stacked. If the order is not provided, make sure that there is enough context to reasonably figure out the order based on the words formed.