The “Twelve Days of Sudoku” used our regular editorial and testing team and thanks go to them for continued support. Video additions to several of these posts are expected in the future but not this month.

“Ready Layer One” and all associated content were a production by one person and all credit/blame belongs to me for the unusual experience. While a solo work, this does not mean there isn’t a long list of people to thank for ideas and love throughout the years that inspired a lot of the connections. To everyone who ever mattered in my life, and to everyone who still might, these puzzles, jokes, and other ideas are for you from deep inside my brain. The stories you share back are the return gift to sender that I’ll await through the years when the layers finally get cracked open.

Some posts still need minor edits or addition of offline content once people verify passwords, but nothing new should appear for starting explorers for awhile. For future visitors, the best trailheads are still the two links above. Other items add into the series, such as the Motivational Posters as puzzlehunt style challenges for “Twelve Days” followers, and the story/flavor text posts add to the experience but are not starting points. All posts tagged “Puzzle” have something I expect a person could discover and might want to “submit” if they figure out what and how.

Besides puzzles and favorite books and music and science history and other things, this very personal series does include aspects of mental illness/wellness, including the stigma associated with it and not being able to convince people you are ok after they’ve seen you can sometimes be ill. These are all things I have been coming to terms with in being bipolar over the last few years after several hospitalizations and large changes in professional work life. In the altered words of Brave New World, I’m claiming the right to be manic and depressed, just not most of the time. I do not want medication that would prevent me from having the kind of brain I have. My bursts of creativity do change with my mood, even when just slightly heightened, as does my willingness to be introspective and grow by sharing thoughts. A healthy Thomas balances mood but has some ups and downs within identified bounds. That said, my rate of typing and pace of thoughts even on normal days can seem overwhelming to people observing the process. This was the first series where, despite the required content being made before anything went live, the extra touches added in the downswing phase of a short creative period revealed the artist at work and frightened several people (at least based on my ability to read into comments, discord posts, etc.). It almost certainly kept many people from going down the rabbitholes for fear they would lead to nowhere, when they always were intended to lead to 3 “first round” puzzles/stories that followed the beginnings seen here.

Be sure that if I am somewhere near “we” on the mental __llness chart below, as I am today as the series “ends” its launch phase, it is mainly because of our shared memories of community together, fun memories that cross boundaries of space and time. I do think societal impacts from COVID-19 and having to lay off some team members in my science job led directly to my first severe bipolar episode, as my community of we became a party of one. WE -> I = illness. I’ve been trying to build back friendships where geography is far apart ever since, and this series is a gift to those friends that made me feel happy before and will again. Even having someone just recognize a photo as my Hovse’s cannon and sharing a memory of recovering it from Mudd made my day, so even weak (but close) connections should reach out if they find something for them.

Soundtrack: 4th album by 💀🚕🇶🇶🇶🇶☕, and other purposefully random playlists that spin out from there.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Now that we’re approaching the end of the Twelve Days of Sudoku, I’m sure everyone is curious what went on / is going on / will go on with these puzzles. If I had not stopped blogging my thoughts (when I ended my livejournal) and continued thoughts + puzzles, would this amount of raw Snyder have felt less overwhelming? I consider the collected works in these last two weeks my best stuff in puzzles+creativity over the last decade, even if that required exposing more personal things in the making and doing that not everyone in the audience is ready to talk about yet.

For today’s extra post, we start with just a sketch of a fully completed but very weird puzzle idea like the Christmas Miracle I’d posted before the trip. I made this on the flights back to seeing my father in my childhood home, when watching Little Women on the in-flight screen was a bit too boring although something I knew I was supposed to do. If looking for places to start that should get you going with this puzzle series, consider standard puzzles, notes documents, motivational things. Ready Layer One on its own has two answers and with other content at least one more. No one has found any of those. For sure, do not start with this demotivational poster. At least until I digitize it properly. Even then, here is a Knowledge Bomb squared: You aren’t ready for it.

Soundtrack: This, or I guess if younger in heart, this is sufficiently cool and different for a new generation.

Update (1:37, 1/2/25): Our AI-Chemist reports success with turning this morning’s vision into a real power. It took a little more upfront mana than the first sketch, but we can now get rid of something old and find more leadership by completing our summons for 19.

With this, the party has achieved all important objectives on this campaign; unfortunately we haven’t run into either interesting flora or intelligent fauna, so we are beginning to pack up for the move.

Update (1/3/25): This work has been approved to replace one of the earlier motivational posters, and all answer links and rewards have been updated appropriately. Contact leadership if any questions.

(download directly for a larger image)

Add to protect the innocent: gur ubhfr vg frrzf V nz jnyxvat gbjneqf vf abg zl ubhfr be ba gur fnzr fgerrg. V unq n zntvp zbzrag va gur cnex jvgu gur fbat “Ab Fhecevfrf” naq n fcrpvny guvat ybbxvat va guvf qverpgvba ba Ebhgr Svir.

(download directly for a larger image)

Note: All of these photos were taken on or around Dec. 28th when I was spending time in Boston area. Lots of familiar memories and some new ones, merging with different ideas on my brain around this time.

Museum Note from 2080 centennary exhibition: Unfortunately, the answer to this amazing 18-digit puzzle was not found until well after the crowd’s loud voice had silenced the artist’s pen. Their well-intentioned but not fully accurate cries of mental illness were too focused on a specific aspect of his more logical past. Thankfully these notes were found after the artist’s death so later generations could reassemble his vision here and across other master works (but not the Christmas Miracle puzzle, that seems to just be a countdown 54321 as the author said).

“Note” A. Clear starting points
“Note” B. A splash of color, not always visible with how artist sees to how audience sees

A+B. Exercise for the Reader?

Finished work (Warning: can not be unseen by the mind once clicked!)

Update (1/3/25): Given the degree of hinting needed to make this work, this is now considered an “example” in the Motivational Poster series.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

(Thanks to FoxFireX for sharing an observation on this Latin phrase as being perfectly suited for a sudoku. While implemented differently here, FoxFireX will get a prize at the next leaderboard update for forecasting the future.)

(Takes off helmet.)

Dear fans, young and old, I hope you are as mystified yet confused by the start of “Ready Layer One” and the “Twelve Days of Sudoku” as I am. This work and the notes on “unfinished” puzzle ideas that we are producing **as needed** day by day has a lot of potential for a multi-week+ experience that is customized to solver’s interest level in the puzzles and the connection with their designer. Think The Game meets Dungeons and Dragons. While the initial layer only features things that interest me, the thought was some community connections would plant ideas and even puzzles to expand further in particular play sessions. We aren’t there yet. We’re still at the point where we are dealing with doubt on the work given lack of instructions, and with fear about my genius/mania with psychosis (an important conversation to have and part of the RLO experience but I’m doing ok and “Still Alive” and “No Surprises” are happy songs in my formulation). Please don’t try to race to beat mars (not an important goal as mars was a nickname I used on crocopuzzle when I wanted to stay anonymous in chasing uvo but my secret identity was stolen from me because I was obviously a cheater or someone special).

We recognized after launch that we should have put some labels on the Ready Layer One box, to make it clear that only those who have known me for 18 years or more can do the launch puzzle on their own and not with a small team and willingness for creative research. If you don’t know all of the puzzle tropes or have familiarity with my old writings, publications, …, it will be tricky in a small number of places. But the first gate has been available since day one for those with the desire to cross it. For those who are still wondering what they get for hitting the solve button and haven’t gone to see covfefe yet, you should wait for a more guided experience later with warm-up puzzles. I may even join in on those play sessions directly to make sure nothing really crazy is coming up while you get your bearings as that helps us know how to edit. For those who have submitted covfefe, I expect to give the first year prize to NAMI (general) and NAMI (San Mateo County) since no one is on track to claim it. The prize in 2024 being to give away $10,000 to do most good, with winners submitting a proposal for evaluation as it is a hard problem to give purposefully.

For the next couple days we will be slowing down and not releasing progression puzzles, just doing more fun things with the Twelve Days of Sudoku posts (but not the extra parts). We are waiting to at least see some people commenting on interesting things or submitting new ideas / challenges for constructors as the TDoS is a course to open the mind, not a competition even if it also works within RLO. We meant these ideas to be a blossom of creativity not a blue screen of death. There still isn’t even much consideration on CtC Discord, so I think the world is sleeping on (classic) Sudoku. If you aren’t asleep, contact me.

Let’s go slow for a bit within this community to make sure everyone is seeing the experience we’re building together at the right time. Great job team. Seven days to go.

(puts on helmet, game back on.)

(view directly for a larger image)

(Congrats to Mars on their recent progress finding the first “key” word. This is a stand-alone puzzle, but may fit thematically within or lend connections back to the world of Ready Layer One. Solutions (with explanation) or any kind of new puzzle using the grid to the right are welcome at ads@gmpuzzles.com, best options each of next three mornings will appear here, or something else an AI generated if nothing qualifies.)