Vanished?
Any time I go two weeks without posting anything here, I feel a little guilty. No matter how busy I get, there’s always time for just a little bit of sharing, even if it’s an abbreviated update. But here I am, back among the living.
Articles by Brian Gondek
Back from Vegas!
David Copperfield. Cirque Du Soleil. Gordon Ramsay’s Pub & Grill. Going to the top of Stratosphere and the Eiffel Tower. Touring the Avengers and Hunger Games exhibits. Eight escape rooms. Yes- we had a full week!
Las Vegas Update: Five ERs and a Bunch of Caches
I can’t believe I’ve only been in Las Vegas for just over two full days. Five escape rooms, a bunch of caches, and a whole lot of exploring the Vegas strip.
Vegas: Tough Start
I’ve flown a lot over the past few years, and my flight to Vegas edged its way into my top 3 awful experiences. Story time!
Puzzle Boat 4: Smooth Sailing
3 people. 9 days. 174 puzzles. 0 hints. It’s safe to say our attempt at Puzzle Boat 4 was a success!
Roundup of the Week
I usually have a bad track record of posting updates while I’m in the middle of something, and right now is no exception. Puzzle hunts, online escape rooms, physical escape rooms, mystery projects, new areas of study- it’s been busy. But time for an update!
Advanced Puzzling: Math Imitates Puzzle
One thing I’ve seen that seems to be mostly loathed by lovers of escape rooms is the math puzzle, or worse, puzzle-free math computation. Though I love math, I get it- you sign up for Indiana Jones-like adventure, not arithmetic class.
Huntinality 2021
I found out about the Huntinality puzzle hunt about a week before the contest launched, but any thoughts of participating were squashed when I had a major family event happen the day I would have been working on it. I was thankful when a friend suggested we go through the hunt a week late- better late than never!
My Brief Adventure in Competitive Jigsaw Puzzling
I read an article recently about a tournament in which a roomful of contestants race to solve a jigsaw puzzle. It sounded like a lot of fun, and with Christina and I doing a fair number of jigsaw puzzles recently, I decided to try it out.
Anatomy of a Puzzle Experience: Measuring the “Aha!” Moment
I’ve been putting together a whitepaper on the mathematics behind what makes a puzzle fun to solve. What started as a simple model has evolved into something more akin to a PhD thesis, so I’m going to slow down and outline a few of the basics of the experience of solving a puzzle.