Journal 29

Review

“Journal 29” is a series of three interactive book games by Dimitris Chassapakis, which were consequently re-released together in one premium hardcover edition. Each of the three books contains about 100 pages, full of creative puzzles and cryptic imagery. The puzzles are in the spirit of real-life Escape Rooms, mostly visual and loosely connected with an underlying story about alien encounters.

Journal 29 trailer

What made me immediate impression is the effort put into making the book resemble an actual journal. The illustrations look like they are scribbled with a pencil, the pages are yellow and have smudges all over them, the font is handwritten. There are QR codes printed on every other page that give quick access to online solution checkers, and their design fits well the Sci-Fi/mystery theme of the book.

In order to navigate the journal, the reader needs to use the official website journal29.com, so internet access is required. Each puzzle has its own unique URL, where the reader can input their guesses. If a correct answer is given, a KEY is provided which can be used for solving further puzzles. Currently, the keys need to be written down and stored manually. A nice potential feature would be if users could create accounts on the Journal29 website and have their keys stored there automatically.

While I appreciate the high quality art, the most important components of the book are naturally the puzzles. There is a great variety of them, providing a mix of both old and new ideas. The reader will encounter various cyphers, optical illusions, and classic puzzles with unique twists. In addition, a large assortment of new creative puzzles is devised.

As of writing this post, I have just finished the first book in the series. I find the puzzles so far to be very well-designed and logical, with varying levels of difficulty. Some ideas were naturally familiar to me, but there were also a lot of new, unexpected “A-Ha” moments. I particularly loved the way some of the puzzles required me to explore the book and interact with it in clever ways, like solving a mechanical puzzle.

My only criticism is that on 1 or 2 occasions I had to use Google search. Of course, this is necessary when a message in Braille or Morse code needs to be deciphered. However, I prefer that it is avoided for researching clues that are not considered common knowledge.

Above, three of the puzzles from Journal29 are presented. While many of the puzzles in the book are dependent on each other, these three can be solved separately. You can verify your answers using the official solution checkers provided below each puzzle. If you encounter difficulties, you can take a look at our hints.

This is a message written in Braille.

The code for each sector is formed by 3 pairs of digits. The first digit in each pair designates the number of skeleton parts in the corresponding group. The second digit encodes the type of those skeleton parts.

There are 3 differences between the two pictures. Find them and examine their coordinates in the grid.

Once I put my hands on the hardcover edition of Journal29, it quickly became one of my favorite puzzle books. I get back to it regularly, don’t rush it, and simply enjoy my time with it. I always pay much attention to details and I can see the author Dimitris does as well. In addition to designing 160 clever puzzles, he has also supplemented them with beautiful art, developed an accompanying website, and supports a forum where he personally helps readers. He has even built an Amazon Alexa skill that can provide hints for the puzzles if you ever get stuck. I can only appreciate all of that.

  • 160 creative puzzles that take weeks to solve
  • remarkable artwork and presentation
  • accompanying website with solution checkers and forum
  • the hardcover edition looks and feels premium

GET JOURNAL29 HERE

The Cipher Solver Series

Review

The Cipher Solver Series is a collection of cipher puzzle books, written by D. H. Bernhardt. Each of the books teaches about various cipher techniques and then provides examples that help the reader master them. So far, there are 3 volumes released, and a fourth one is on its way.

Each book in the series starts with a short history on ciphers. Then, it provides 2 chapters on how to encode and decode specific ciphers, followed by 2 chapters with puzzle-examples. Finally, the books end with hints and solutions.

Volume 1 and 2 focus on the so-called Route and Rail ciphers, while volume 3 introduces us to the Pen and Polybius ciphers. The former are examples of transposition ciphers, those are ciphers in which the symbols are preserved, but their order is scrambled. The latter are examples of substitution ciphers, those are ciphers in which the original symbols are replaced with new ones.


Rail Cipher Example

The following example of a Rail cipher is taken out of the first book in the series. Let’s say the task is to encode the phrase “Beware of the attack from the North”. To do that, we create a rectangular grid and starting from the top left corner, we enter the letters of the phrase in a zigzag manner. We add some “X” letters at the end as padding, if necessary. This results in a route-like structure inside the grid, consisting of alternating diagonal rails.

Then, if we read the letters line by line, top to bottom, we get the encryption:

BOCT TXEE FAKM HRHX XWRA TFOE OXXA TRNX

To decrypt an encoded phrase, we just need to determine the dimensions of the grid and the size of the rails of the route. You can practice your route ciphering skills with the following puzzle from the book:


The transposition ciphers are fun but quite easy to solve, especially the Route ciphers. They all have been chosen with identical grid widths, so the only unknowns there are the route rails sizes. I recommend getting just one of the first two volumes, since the novelty in the second one lies mostly in the introductory chapter.

The two substitution ciphers are harder to solve and require more careful analysis. However, it is worth noting that the decoding procedure works identically for both of them, even though the ciphers use different encryption symbols.

Pig Cipher encoding of “BEWARE OF ATTACK FROM THE NORTH”
Polybus Cipher encoding of “BEWARE OF ATTACK FROM THE NORTH”

Despite the remarks above, I think the books are educational, well-structured, and would be engaging to new cipher enthusiasts. I hope once the author completes his series, he considers combining the content in one larger edition divided into sections based on cipher type, such as transposition and substitution.

  • a great presentation on various ciphers
  • engaging educational chapters in the book introductions
  • the route ciphers could have used various grid widths
  • the substitution ciphers decoding works identically

GET THE CYPHER SOLVER SERIES HERE

The Password Game

“The Password Game” is a new web puzzle/game by Neal Agarwal, a Brooklyn-based software developer, popular for various fun projects hosted on his website Neil.Fun.

pon opening the game webpage, you are given the seemingly simple task of creating a password. The password, in order to be strong enough, needs to satisfy a list of conditions. The first few of them are common; there is a minimum length and special characters should be included. However, after complying with every rule on the screen, a new one appears, more complex and bizarre than the previous one. This forces you to constantly make changes to the increasingly lengthy password, while trying to resolve any conflicts that appear.

The Password Game is quite difficult. On our first try, we failed the game after not giving in a timely manner a bug emoji 🐛 to a chicken emoji 🐔 inside our 70+ character password, while simultaneously looking for a YouTube video of the exact runtime of 19 minutes and 34 seconds. Hopefully, you can do better.

If you enjoy “The Password Game”, you can take a look at Neil’s other creations, such as “The Absurd Trolley Problems”, which offers sinister twists on the famous Trolley Problem.

Blaž Urban Gracar

Blaž Urban Gracar is a Slovenian artist. He is a musician (composing music for the theater, producing left-field electronica, playing keyboards in a rock band), writer (publishing poetry, prose and comic books), filmmaker (editing and animating short films), and game designer (mostly creating puzzly solo games). He lives by the sea with his partner, her daughter, two cats, a dog and a turtle.

Interview

Q. Hello, Blaž!

A. Hi, Puzzle Prime! Thanks for featuring me.

Q. I know you are quite a busy person, I’m glad to have you here.

A. Never too busy to talk with friends! But yes, my calendar has become quite crammed lately. I spend most of my days making music, which is basically my main source of income. I compose music for films and theater, but I also make strange electronic music and play keyboards in a rock band. Besides music and game-making, I also write – I have published a few books – and I make videos. Lately this means making animated shorts, but I graduated as a film editor, so I have made or collaborated on several films.

Q. Sounds great! I would first like to focus on your puzzles though, specifically your first published book, LOK. What was the inspiration behind it?

A. When I was making my previous puzzle book, Lineon, which is sadly still unfinished, I started corresponding with Stephen Lavelle, better known as Increpare, who made a bunch of great and acclaimed puzzle games, among them Stephen’s Sausage Roll, which is praised as one of the best puzzle games of all time. I sent him Lineon and he responded with a set of paper puzzles of his own, which were word-search puzzles using the Toki Pona language. Toki Pona is a constructed language that I don’t understand, so solving these puzzles felt very other-worldly. I started thinking how would such word-searches work if they used a completely made up set of words, which would have meaning only inside these puzzles. If we say “Apple” for example, we mean a red and round fruit. What if a word like “Lok” meant that you could erase a letter and that’s it? This idea felt very interesting to me and I quickly prototyped a puzzle which already used a lot of words that are present in the final book. It then took me about a year before I returned to this idea and saw potential for something greater.

Q. How long did it take you to finish LOK and what was the hardest part?

A. It took me a little more than 6 months to make LOK. I thought it would take me maybe 3 months, as I saw LOK as a smaller project at first, something to make in between bigger projects, so I pushed to finish it as soon as possible and made the first draft in about 2 months. I now see this as a smart approach – to rush the first draft – as it then took me 4 more months to perfect everything and make it really shine. I think it’s really important to have everything in place and see it for what it is, even if it’s not finely tuned yet. The last 10% were the hardest, but this was expected. It took me weeks to decide on some miniature details, like the correct font for titles, or the alignment of chapter artworks. Everything needed to match the vision, and it was hard to be certain what is correct in some aspects. But I’m very happy with how it all came together in the end.

Blaž making music

Q. How do you approach making a puzzle?

A. Well, apart from some rare tributes and try-outs of some already established genres, I generally like to make up my own system of rules, within which I then create a bunch of puzzles. I rarely do one-offs. So, when I first start exploring a new system I made up, I just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. These puzzles are usually ugly, random and without any real a-ha moments, but with them, I kind of expose most of what the system is capable of. I then re-do the puzzles that have interesting interactions or ideas, try to make them more elegant, guided and beautiful, but I also retain some of these early puzzles as they were, because they already work quite fine. So, after I internalize all the ins and outs of a system and start working on proper puzzles, my process is usually thinking of an idea that I would like the solver to find out and then kind of build a pathway for them. I try to think like the solver and how they would react to certain insights and deductions. Basically, I want the solver to have fun and to blow his mind every few puzzles, haha.

Q. How does creating puzzles differ from creating in these other fields?

A. Music, films, prose, all of these art forms are kind of direct compared to puzzle-making. They communicate something in a direct way, even if they are metaphorical or dream-like. Puzzles, on the other hand, work on two levels. One is the first impression: how they look at first sight, if they are symmetrical, big or small, if they intimidate or seem easy. The second level is the hidden meaning of a puzzle, its solution and how you get to it. It feels like designing an onion, where you want to put as many surprises into different layers as possible. You also need to be a lot kinder to the consumer of your puzzles compared to other art forms. You have to respect their intelligence and patience, make the system and a puzzle as mechanically sturdy as possible, because ultimately they need to “get” your message. You certainly need to be a lot more pragmatic.

Q. You come from Slovenia. Is there an active puzzle scene in Slovenia and do you hang out with other puzzle designers?

A. There is no puzzle scene in Slovenia that I know of. It’s strange, because ever since I got serious about game design, I feel like I create in a bubble. When I make music, people around me respond to it, they come to concerts, they buy CDs. Even my books, which are a bit more niche, find some audience in Slovenia. But my games or puzzles don’t really connect with anyone around me. It’s like I live a double life, one with friends and family, and the other just on the computer, which I use to communicate with puzzle lovers from around the world. This is how I got in touch with you as well. When I published LOK, I sold 95% of books to people outside of Slovenia, people I don’t know, people from Europe, America, Asia. It’s strange, but it also feels nice to at least have an audience somewhere, even for my small and weird little games.

Lineon Puzzle Book and Sountrack

Q. What are your next puzzle projects?

A. Based on the response for LOK, I already have many ideas for the continuation of the LOK story. The main one is the digital adaptation of LOK which I’m already working on with Raindrinker, a talented creator from Spain I met online. We hope to publish the game in 2023. Besides LOK, I might return to Lineon and start working on it again from the ground up, with the experience I gained in the meantime. There are some other ideas that I’m bouncing around in my head, maybe also a continuation of my solo card game “All Is Bomb” in some form. Let’s see what happens – I love designing games, so something will probably appear in a short while.

Q. Thanks you Blaž.

A. Thank you, Puzzle Prime!

LOK

Review

LOK is a new original puzzle book, created by the musical and visual artist Blaž Gracar. It is his first published work in this domain and considering the attention to detail put into puzzle design, solutions system, and illustrations, I would say that’s an impressive start, and I am looking forward to his future endeavors.

The puzzle mechanics of LOK are quite innovative, and despite my long-time puzzle history, I cannot relate them to anything I have seen before. Each puzzle consists of a grid partially filled with letters and the goal is to black out all cells by marking certain words and then triggering their effects. For example, if one has the letters L, O, K in consecutive cells and marks the resulting word LOK, then they must black out the cells of all three letters plus an additional cell by choice.

There are 5 more trigger words that appear in the book, but since it is the solver’s challenge to figure out what their effects are, I will not spoil them for you. All I can say is that each of them works uniquely and sometimes solving the puzzles gives the feeling of planning ahead the moves of a chess game.

In addition to the funny-sounding trigger words, new chapters introduce various other mechanics, building upon the previous ones and making the puzzles progressively more complex. You will encounter ”conductors“ that let you connect separated letters, “clouds” that let you black out a given configuration of cells, and other interesting concepts.

The book is split into 12 parts: 8 chapters with a total of 80 puzzles, 2 expansions with 10 extra puzzles, Rules that explain all the concepts in the book that have been left to the solver to discover, and Solutions that provide the answers to all puzzles. The parts are separated by beautifully illustrated pages of cute worm-like creatures, called ”Loks”, performing various activities, such as flying in space or working in a factory, on 10 additional solvable grids. Of course, the author could assemble the book just with all the 100 puzzles inside, and it still would have been great, but that extra touch of art is what makes LOK even more special for me.

While the market is currently flooded with all kinds of derivative logic books filled with computer generated Sudokus and Kakuros, LOK differentiates itself as an ingenious passion project of someone who simply wants to contribute to the world of puzzling. You can get the digital version of LOK for free from the author’s website by clicking the button below. If you like, there you can also purchase the physical edition and solve the puzzles the way they are intended to be solved, with pencil and eraser on paper. For those who prefer to keep their puzzle books in immaculate condition, a transparent draw board is included in the package. Thanks!

  • appropriate for all ages
  • more than 90 carefully hand-crafted puzzles
  • surprising mechanics taught through practical solving
  • explained rules and solutions included
  • free e-book version available to download

GET LOK HERE

Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse

Review

With the huge success of real-life Escape Rooms all around the world, more and more puzzle manufacturers have been trying to recreate the experience with their solve-at-home kits. ThinkFun‘s latest offering, Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse, is possibly the closest you can get to the real thing, so far.

The setup of “The Cursed Dollhouse” is quick and simple. Within a few minutes you get to build a cardboard model of a dollhouse, turn on the recommended soundtrack of creepy music, and light up a few candles to get into the right mood. Once you do this, you can start reading the story of the house and unravel its mysteries.

You begin the adventure in the living room, where you have to solve several puzzles, involving a broken bookshelf, a dusty carpet, and a spiderweb on the wall. Then, you make your way through the rest of the house: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, until you get to the attic. Each of the rooms you visit contains multiple objects, including hidden ones, which you need to use in order to solve its three challenges. Once you solve a challenge, you get a cryptic symbol which you must enter in the “solution wheel”. Get the three symbols correctly and proceed to the next room.

As you progress, you will encounter various puzzles, including many mechanical ones. You will have to cut, fold, entangle, and do all kinds of fun activities. The puzzles are logical and satisfying to solve. There were one or two which my group found a bit confusing, but fortunately, ThinkFun has created a website, where players can get small hints without spoiling the entire puzzles. In the end, all participants were very happy with the time we spent playing together.

While the price of “The Cursed Dollhouse” is a bit steep, the game provides a lengthy and immersive experience which justifies the cost. It also can be replayed by another group of people using the provided printable forms from the official website.

  • 1-4 players, 13 years and up
  • over 30 puzzles to solve within 2.5 hours
  • realistic small-scale Escape Room experience
  • puzzles are re-printable from the official website

GET ESCAPE THE ROOM HERE

Topple Magazine

Review

Topple is a new online magazine that can be printed out and solved with pen and paper, the old-fashioned way. The price of each issue is just a meager $1, and for that amount you get a PDF of about 10 pages and up to 20 puzzles.

The authors of the magazine have put efforts to provide a large variety of puzzles, so that everyone will find something they like. There are interesting trivia questions, rebuses, grid logic puzzles, as well as some unique challenges I have never encountered before. The number of puzzles in the magazine keeps increasing with each next issue:

Issue 1: 7
Issue 2: 7
Issue 3: 10

Issue 4: 10
Issue 5: 10
Issue 6: 12

Issue 7: 16
Issue 8: 18
Issue 9: 18

The quality of the puzzles keeps improving as well, as you can see from these two identical puzzles, second one of which has updated artwork.

Before you purchase the magazine, you can take a look at the 4-page sampler we have provided below.

If you enjoy the Topple puzzles as much as we do, we recommend you to get the latest issue and then keep buying the older ones in a reverse order. At just $1, it will be hard to find something that provides better value for the money.

  • appropriate for all ages
  • PDF booklet for easy printing
  • about 10-20 puzzles per issue
  • fun old-school vibes
  • just $1

GET TOPPLE MAGAZINE HERE

Brain Drop Podcast

Brain Drop is a new puzzle podcast by Brian Hobbs, released on a (mostly) weekly basis. In each episode, Brian presents 3 new puzzles and shares the solutions of the puzzles from the previous week. He uses professional voicework, music, and sound effects, to set up the mood and make his show more entertaining. Click the banner below to check out Brain Drop and see if you can answer Brian’s latest set of puzzles!

Is This Prime?

In the past few days, I, my friends, and a whole lot of Twitter people have been trying to beat each other’s scores in the game “Is This Prime?”.

The game itself is simple; you are shown random integers on the screen and you need to guess whether they are prime or composite. Since most presented numbers are between 1 and 200, after a couple of games, players naturally memorize them. However, this is a good opportunity for students to review some main number division rules.

  1. Numbers that end with an even digit are divisible by 2. If the number formed by the last 2 digits of a number is divisible by 4, the original number is also divisible by 4. If the number formed by the last 3 digits of a number is divisible by 8, the original number is also divisible by 8.
    • 536 is divisible by 2 because 6 is an even digit
    • 1348 is divisible by 4 because 48 is divisible by 4
    • 71824 is divisible by 8 because 824 is divisible by 8
  2. Numbers that end with 5 are divisible by 5. Numbers that end with 25, 50, 75, or 00 are divisible by 25.
    • 45 is divisible by 5
    • 675 is divisible by 25
  3. Numbers whose sum of digits is divisible by 3 are divisible by 3. Numbers whose sum of digits is divisible by 9 are divisible by 9.
    • 144 is divisible by 3 because 1+4+4=9 is divisible by 3
    • 1638 is divisible by 9 because 1+6+3+8=18 is divisible by 9
  4. If the difference between the sum of the digits in odd places and the sum of the digits in even places is divisible by 11, the number is divisible by 11.
    • 121 is divisible by 11 because 1+1-2=0 is divisible by 11
    • 209 is divisible by 11 because 2+9-0=11 is divisible by 11
    • 1628 is divisible by 11 because 1+2-6-8=-11 is divisible by 11
  5. If the number before the last digit minus twice the last digit is divisible by 7, the original number is also divisible by 7.
    • 161 is divisible by 7 because 16-2×1=14 is divisible by 7
    • 371 is divisible by 7 because 37-2×1=35 is divisible by 7
    • 1589 is divisible by 7 because 158-2×9=140 is divisible by 7

All the rules above apply in both directions, e.g. if the sum of the digits of a number is not divisible by 9, then the number itself is also not divisible by 9. There are more complicated rules that apply to larger numbers but the chances are you will never get to use them. If you are curious to learn more about them, go to the bottom of this article.

Once we know the main number division rules well, we are ready to play the game! Here are a few tips for getting high scores:

  1. Memorize as many numbers as possible. Knowing the multiplication table up to 10×10, it should be easy to learn by heart whether each number up to 100 is prime or composite.
  2. Pay attention to the last digit. If it is 5, then the number is composite (unless it is =5).
  3. Check whether the sum of the digits is divisible by 3. If it is, then the number is composite (unless it is =3).
  4. If the number is between 100 and 300, check whether the sum of the first and the third digits equals the second digit. If this is true, then the number is divisible by 11, and therefore it is composite. 209 is the only other number in this range divisible by 11.

Good luck playing and let us know if you beat our personal record of 67 points!

Primes between 1 and 300:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97

101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 127, 131, 137, 139, 149, 151, 157, 163, 167, 173, 179, 181, 191, 193, 197, 199

211, 223, 227, 229, 233, 239, 241, 251, 257, 263, 269, 271, 277, 281, 283, 293

Sneaky composites:

51, 57, 87, 91

119, 133, 161, 169

209, 217, 221, 247, 253, 259, 287, 289, 299

Some Math

Some of you may be wondering why the rules listed above work and whether we can create similar rules for larger numbers. Here are some explanations for the curious among you:


Rule for division by 3

Consider the 5-digit number ABCDE. It can be written as:

ABCDE = 10000A + 1000B + 100C + 10D + E

Since 10000 = 3 × 3333 + 1, 1000 = 3 × 333 + 1, 100 = 3 × 33 + 1, and 10 = 3 × 3 + 1, we can see that:

ABCDE = 3 × (3333A + 333B + 33C + 3D) + (A + B + C + D + E)

Therefore, ABCDE is divisible by 3 if and only if (A + B + C + D + E) is divisible by 3.


Rule for division by 11

Consider again the number ABCDE. Since 10000 = 11 × 909 + 1, 1000 = 11 × 91 – 1, 100 = 9 × 1 + 1, and 10 = 11 – 1, we can see that:

ABCDE = 11 × (909A + 91B + 9C + D) + (A – B + C – D + E)

Therefore, ABCDE is divisible by 11 if and only if (A – B + C – D + E) is divisible by 11.


Rule for division by 7

Once again, consider the number ABCDE. Notice that it can be written as:

ABCDE = 10 × ABCD + E

Now, let us find a number X such that 10X gives remainder 1 when divided by 7. Such number is X = 5. Indeed, 5 × 10 = 50 = 7 × 7 + 1. Therefore, the following statements are equivalent:

  • ABCDE = 10 × ABCD + E is divisible by 7
  • 5 × ABCDE = 49 × ABCD + ABCD + 5E is divisible by 7
  • ABCD – 2E is divisible by 7

Rules for division by 13, 17, 19, etc.

The idea of the rule for division by 7 can be applied to rules for divisions by higher numbers. For example, here is how we can find a rule for division by 13:

  1. Find the smallest positive integer X, so that 10X – 1 is divisible by 13. Such number is X = 4. Note that ABCDE is divisible by 13 if and only if 4 × ABCDE is divisible by 13.
  2. Rewrite 4 × ABCDE as:
    4 × ABCDE = 39 × ABCD + ABCD + 4E
  3. Conclude that ABCDE is divisible by 13 if and only if ABCD + 4E is divisible by 13.

As an exercise, try to deduce a similar rules for division by 17 and 19! Note that for 17, instead of finding X, such that 10X – 1 is divisible by 17, you may get a simpler rule by finding X, such that 10X + 1 is divisible by 17.


For deeper understanding of how division of integers works, we recommend our more enthusiastic readers to look into Modular Arithmetic.

The Puzzle TOAD

The Puzzle TOAD is a website, created by four Carnegie Melon professors (Tom Bohman, PO Shen-Loh, Alan Frieze, Danny Sleator), where you can find a growing collection of ingenious math brain teasers. Unlike Puzzle Prime, The Puzzle Toad is targeted exclusively towards math and computer science majors. Students who are preparing for college Olympiads will find the problems particularly useful. Check out The Puzzle TOAD by clicking the banner below.