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Showing posts from July, 2021

Mystery Puzzle History: The Progenitor Age: Cipher Stories Puzzle Book

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Cipher Stories Puzzle Book is a collection of 25 unrelated short story puzzles that all use a similar mechanism to solve.  It was first printed on February 28, 1928, published by Lewis Copeland Co. (1)  It was written by Kenneth S. Cooper and Illustrated by Olin Wakefield.  We cannot find any other works by either man at this point, so must think this was their first and only book, or that they were pseudonyms of others at this time that may not have wanted to be associated with this genre.    The short story puzzles are also called Cipher Stories and are actual stories that reach a point where a Transposition Cipher must be solved in order to progress.  To solve the bigger puzzles, the reader must first learn the key in a mini puzzle which is based on a hint in the story itself.  Most stories have two puzzles and have clues to assist you in solving them.   The primary cipher to solve is generally set up to look like a crossword puzzle in layout (boxes with numbers in them).  A clue in

Product Review: Funny Pages!

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  Funny Pages by Enigma Emporium Funny Pages -- Comically Perplexing! (Spoiler free review) This Mystery Puzzle Game is mind-bogglingly, laughably, mind-twistingly difficult, fun, and amazing! Now, this isn’t difficult in the way that hand decoding a 17-page hand-written Vigenere cipher is (we all need hobbies), although at times you may wish to do that instead...it is difficult in a brilliantly constructed, downright fun, and oft-times comically twisted sort of way! Now, while this is one of the toughest games I’ve ever played, it was always* fair.  I felt really smart at first, breezing through several puzzles, thinking that this will take no time at all and that I was, of course, a puzzle-genius of the utmost levels….until...until...well, over half the puzzles slapped me in the face and shoved their puzzleyness down my gullet until I choked on my own hubris…(laughing at the jokes during said process) and it was amazing! I had to spend time on these puzzles...not just take 10 minutes