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New York Times

How New York Times Game Designer Heidi Erwin Creates Variety Puzzles

Claire Merchlinsky By Heidi Erwin Most of my work as a Senior Game Designer at The New York Times is oriented around the design and development of larger puzzle games, but one unexpected and delightful part of my job for the past two years has been writing variety riddles for The New York Times Gameplay newsletter. As someone who loves to see the process behind the scenes of the media I enjoy, I wanted to share the experience of creating Brain Ticklers. What are Brain Ticklers? 'Brain Ticklers' is inherited from Will Shortz, and how his variety puzzles have run over the years. Will's variety puzzles are typically word puzzles, and ask solvers to anagram phrases or build words from other words, for instance. In fact, I sometimes catch myself writing 'Brian Tickler' by accident in my TODO list; I guess Brian's a hidden fictional character associated with these puzzles who exists only in my mind. Brain Ticklers are variety puzzles that could run in print (do not require a digital interactive format to be solved), whether that puzzle asks the solver to use deductive logic, wordplay, lateral thinking, visual analysis, or something else. We run one each week in The New York Times Gameplay newsletter, as well as in other parts of the print paper. Here's one that ran shortly after my puzzles began running in the newsletter in January of 2023: Move the following five letters into the grid below, such that you spell two words that form a phrase meaning 'personal perspective.' Be creative! The answer to this one is at the end of this blog post! Process Overview The end-to-end process for creating a Brain Tickler generally involves the following: A source of inspiration A first draft Editing A final graphic. More on each of those steps… Inspiration Inspiration could be anywhere! One of my favorite parts of writing these puzzles is that I feel encouraged to look at the world through different lenses when I'm out and about. Inspiration could come from a sign on the street in the real world (that's right gamers, I'm touching grass), a format restriction, a puzzle I play online — the world is full of puzzle potential. Three contexts in which ideas for Brain Ticklers spawn for me are 1. Being out and about interacting with the world, 2. NYT Games team activities that prompt thinking about puzzles, and 3. other media (art, books, games, puzzles). For example, here's a Brain Tickler from 2024: What item might be seen with each of these five shapes? Solution: A bicycle. They're all bike rack shapes! This puzzle was inspired by the bike racks I was seeing on runs around Queens. I started photographing them for reference; you can tell that the puzzle graphic pulls pretty directly from these! There are several opportunities to participate in new game ideation within The New York Times Games team. One of these is the game jams the team hosts, where people on the team put aside their other work for a couple days to ideate, prototype, and pitch. At one point, some work friends and I pitched a Venn diagram puzzle game during game jam, which did not turn into a full game, but did inspire this Brain Tickler (solution at end): I've also been inspired by the formats of other cool puzzles out in the world. In March 2023, we ran 5 puzzles for a 'March Matchsticks' puzzle series (like March Madness). These puzzles riff off of the classic matchstick puzzle format. Here are two from our month of matches (answers at the end of this blog post): In the puzzle below, 18 matches spell out the word 'sled.' Rotate one thing to 'make friends.' Editing Every few weeks or so, when I have anywhere from three to eight new puzzles drafted, I hop on call with our Puzzle Editor Sam Ezersky, where he plays the puzzles in real time. Watching someone else solve a puzzle in real time is helpful in shaping it further: Sometimes it becomes immediately obvious that the setup of a puzzle is unclear if I observe Sam heading down an unintended path. But on top of that playtester feedback, it's awesome to witness Sam's puzzle brain in action. A recent example: I proposed a Brain Tickler where solvers were asked to untangle letter sequences to reveal four phrases of the format '____ in ____.' Sam took one look at 'TJIUMSTE' and said, 'Just in time.' This was followed by seeing 'WLAIAITIDNYG,' immediately thinking out loud, 'Lying in wait? No! Lady in waiting!' and then rapid-fire recognizing 'CEDHITIOERF' and 'LSOANW' as 'Editor in chief' and 'Son in law.' Sometimes I wonder if Sam solving a puzzle really says anything about whether the puzzle is fair to the average solver, but fortunately he definitely also has puzzle design sensibilities tailored to a general audience. Reviewing puzzles with Sam is a moment to test the accessibility of a puzzle so we can adjust the framing, presentation, or even concept, as needed. Here's another recent puzzle that became more elegant during the editing process. What I initially presented to Sam: [Spoiler Warning] The solution is that Marie likes Juliet, because Marie likes words that start with a shortened month name: aprons (Apr), mayonnaise (May), jungles (Jun), and Juliet (Jul). He noticed that April, May, and June were all consecutive, and offered up 'Romeo and Juliet' as an alternate fourth pair to continue the consecutive months using the 'Jul' in 'Juliet' for July. This is the kind of small adjustment that makes a puzzle that's mostly solid feel tighter and more elegant. For this type of puzzle, I include an easter egg where the character's name hints at the quality of words they like. In this case, Marie also begins with a shortened month name: Mar. Here are two more of this puzzle format for you to solve. In terms of graphics, the Brain Tickler graphics are fairly simple, and typically I make them in Figma. For some puzzles, being precise with graphics matters more: My younger self would be in awe at the opportunity to work with so many brilliant puzzle minds, all in one place. Working on these puzzles has made me a stronger designer and solver, and I feel gratitude for all of the thought that goes into puzzles across the team, and all of the thought solvers put into playing our games: Humans make our puzzles what they are. Below is the answer to the puzzle from the start of this piece: And here are other answers to puzzles in this post: Rotate the image 180 degrees. It now reads as 'pals.'