Holiday Puzzles Zine 2024

A scavenger hunt for friends and family

Growing up, I consumed an abundant stack of puzzles, riddles and joke compilation books. One lucky haul at a Scholastic Book Fair during middle school sustained me across countless lazy weekends and summer holidays. The words ‘math’ and ‘logic’ convinced my parents of their academic value. While I never encountered any matchstick or coin puzzles in math class, those books grew for me a fond affection and inclination towards the math and sciences.

There’s something reassuring about having a collection of puzzles on hand. Forget scrolling reels or catching up to social media updates - I want a crunchy puzzle to chew on in the spaces of my day. So when I was asked to run games at my neighbourhood holiday party this month, I decided to put together a short zine that both kids and adults would enjoy.

I structured the zine as a Scavenger Hunt crossed with a Bingo card and asked players to complete all the challenges in a row AND column from the table. I wanted to give them freedom to choose what they wanted to engage with during the party and also potentially have unfinished puzzles they could take back home and savour later. Each row and column was balanced with a mix of mental and physical challenges so that there wasn’t an obviously easy and quick way to win. It was important to me to have challenges that encouraged players to help each other out - I wanted to encourage a friendly atmosphere and interactions between community members.

I’m glad to report that the zine was a success at the holiday party. I had intentionally designed it run asynchronously so that folks could start playing as they trickled into the event without feeling they had a time disadvantage. It was also popular with kids and adults, as I hoped. The only flaw in my first version was choosing a fifteen by fifteen nonogram puzzle! As a big fan of picross, I forgot that the puzzle isn’t obvious or easy at all for beginners. I’ve replaced the original puzzle in the zine with a smaller set of easy puzzles that you can solve even if you aren’t a nonogram black belt.

I’m excited to share this zine with all of you! Once you’ve downloaded the PDF, print it double-sided and fold it in half. I hope it brings some joy and merriment to you and your loved ones this holiday season.

Happy Holidays!

warm wishes,
srg