Hi. I’m Cute Mage. I’ve been solving puzzle hunts since 2009, and I’ve developed some opinions about them. Apparently people like listening to them?
Here are the things that I’ve written.
Puzzles
- The 2022 MIT Mystery Hunt - I was part of the team that ran the 2022 MIT Mystery Hunt. Here are the things that I wrote:
- Wondercade - This Neil Patrick Harris’ newsletter. Ange and I write a bunch of things for it.
- Whodunit - We basically wrote the whole article into a murder mystery. This is free to view, but you will need an account.
- Audio Escape Rooms - Each of these three rooms I wrote and then ran for the hosts of Escape this Podast.
- Difficult Choices - This was my regular crossword debut, and was written for The Inkubator! You should totally subscribe, and you can request my old puzzle to be emailed to you from the archives. My puzzle is called Difficult Choices and was published on March 5, 2020.
- Various Commissioned Puzzle Hunts - Multiple people have commissioned me to write puzzles or puzzle hunts for specific events. These puzzles are private and are therefore not linked to here.
RPG Writing
- Pathfinder #140: Eulogy for Roslar’s Coffer (backmatter) - I wrote the Melacage, a giant incorporeal undead ball of confusion and depression.
- Paizo Unchained - This was a joke scenario I wrote for April Fools 2017 where you fight against various members of the Paizo staff.
- Everyman Minis: Magus Arcana - I was asked to come up with more magus arcana, a topic that has been covered a lot in a lot of different places. I found a ripe place to dig for interesting designs - asking the magus to use different weapons.
- Everyman Minis: Alchemical Power Components - This document contains more ways to use your alchemical items to power up spells. This includes the famous vomit sphere.
- Everyman Minis: Esoteric Implements - This document contains more esoteric implements for the Occultist, expanding on a class with very few additional materials.
- Redesign Rasputin Contest - This was a contest that ran on Paizo to redesign Rasputin using the Occult Adventures book that had just come out. I won with an absolutely ridiculous stat block, and this was the reason why I have a Gom-Gom avatar.
- Villain Codex II and Villain Codex IV - This was a series where multiple different designers submitted villains to form a bank of statblocks for Game Masters. In II, I wrote Prof. Laeroth Rydel, the dorkiest dhampir occultist. In IV, I wrote Groulindar, an unfettered eidolon who is fighting for the freedom of other eidolons.
- ToS 1-04 House of Mirrors - This is a module I wrote for the Legacies OP campaign, and was my attempt of making a Pathfinder murder mystery that works with the rules, as opposed to against them.
Game Design
Convention Games
- Large Group Games
- Exquisite Wordle - Work as a team to solve a Wordle puzzle, but you can only see what the person before you guessed. This was part of the official program for the 2023 National Puzzler’s League Convention. This was run for about 250 people.
- Spelling Wasp - Given a category, spell the longest word you can. Your score only counts the first word you scored, even if it wasn’t part of the category. This was part of the official program for the 2021 National Puzzler’s League Convention. This was run for about 125 people.
- Game Changer: I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends - This is a group trivia game that changes part way through. This was part of the official program for Conline 4. This was run for about 80 people.
- Five Word Alphabet - Given a category, name five objects in it that use as many different letters from the alphabet as possible. This was part of the official program for Conline 3. This was run for about 80 people.
- Smaller Group Games
- Jenpardy - This is definitely a game of Jeopardy. 100%. There is no shenanigans. The categories don’t take weird left turns part way through the game with all sorts of weird minigames. This was unofficial program for the 2023 National Puzzler’s League
- Ms. Puzzles Stabs the Consequences Button - Take the Jackbox game Trivia Murder Party, but instead the questions ask you to figure out the most common wrong answer. In addition, the minigames are happening (safely) in real life. This was unofficial program for the 2023 National Puzzler’s League Convention.
- Game Changer: Buzz Buzz - Without giving too much information, this is a game centered around the buzzer. This was unofficial program for the 2021 National Puzzler’s League Convention.
- Game Changer: Song of Fortune - Without giving too much information, this is a game where you are asked to identify increasingly cursed songs. This was unofficial program for the 2021 National Puzzler’s League.
- Escape the Jeopardy - This is an escape room mashed together with a Jeopardy game which works surprisingly well. This was unofficial program for the 2018 National Puzzler’s League.
- Escape the Lighthouse - This is an escape room about a childhood’s memory suitcase. This room has been taken apart, but I still have some of the puzzles for those who want to try them. This was unofficial program for the 2017 National Puzzler’s League.
Classroom Games
- 2d10 Bingo - This is a variant of Bingo designed to make it mathematically interesting. This is used in lessons about probability, and can tie into life lessons about how we make choices for events with random outcomes. Also, it’s honestly a much more fun way to play Bingo than the standard method.
- Bad Settlers of Catan - This is a badly designed, stripped down version of Settlers of Catan with a terrible positive feedback loop. After a couple rounds of this, students usually identify the concept of positive feedback loops, and how where you are at the start of the game really determines where you are at the end. Then I hit them with a video about redlining.
- Steam Team - This is an analog version of the app Space Team. It’s great for when students just need to be loud. It is somewhat based off the 2015 MIT Mystery Hunt event of the same name, but with some changes to make it easier for kids.
- Pizza Shop/Strategy Games - This was an elective for 4th and 5th graders. While in the past the elective was just presenting the kids with slightly more complicated than usual board games for them to play, I decided to use this as an opportunity to actually teach the kids strategy by using games that have been pared down to exemplify what strategy you needed. We played the following four games over the course of the elective term, and then they combined in the end into a big meta game about building pizzas. Kids were divided into teams and then played the four games to earn different ingredients for pizzas.
- Card Sharks - This was a modified version of the Card Sharks TV Show, where students learned about probability, counting what’s left in the deck, and how to wager properly.
- Card Control - This was an area-control game where students learned how to manipulate a shared board state between all players.
- Hidden Memory - This was a memory game where different cards were worth different points and each player had hidden information about the board.
- Color Draft - This was a drafting game where students learned about card synergy and the politics behind drafting cards.
- Trading Market - This was a trading game where students learned about card synergy and how trading can improve both players’ score.
- Haggle - This was a fairly standard implementation of Haggle, although with a LOT of cards and rules, and made simple enough for students to understand.
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
- PACG Open 2019 - I pitched this idea, then wrote the deck set-up.
- PACG Open 2018 - I wrote the initial draft of the ACG Open for GenCon 2018.
- Paizo Unchained - Written for April Fools 2018, this is an ACG Adventure where you square off against various members of the Lone Shark staff. There may be a puzzle in it!
- ACG #5-4: Rise from the Wreckage - I wrote the story for this adventure and outlined the general mechanics which Keith implemented. This includes a scenario where all the locations are ships!
- ACG #4-5: The Pactmaster’s Bargain - I wrote the story for this adventure and outlined the general mechanics which Keith implemented. This includes a scenario where you’re activating an ancient structure to get into a pyramid!
- Friends and Enemies - This was a Paizo blog post where I walked through how I created a scenario in PACG. It’s fully playable in the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path!
- Wayfinder #17 - In this fanzine, I created a hard mode for the Skull and Shackles adventure path.
- Wayfinder #15 - In this fanzine, I created a short adventure for the Skull and Shackles adventure path meant to give you all the same rewards but in only 2 scenarios instead of 5.
Mansions of Madness (First Edition)
- The Chromatic Crackpot - This was a later fan-made scenario. This took the interesting puzzle mechanic of the game and put it on the map and made it the focus of the scenario.
- Completing the Circle - This was a very early fan-made scenario. It was one of the pioneers of non-linear Mansions of Madness scenarios.
- Playtesting Call of the Wild - I didn’t write this expansion, but we helped with so much playtesting that we pushed past playtesting and slightly into the realm of editing. This was really fun.