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A new plan for me and GMPuzzles

Dear fans and subscribers: I’m just back from a fun trip to the World Puzzle Championship in Kirchheim, Germany. It was a successful trip in many respects (the US team was victorious for the first time since 2013, the last year before I took a three-year break off the team, and I was the 7th place individual). And it was good to see many friends in puzzles including regular subscribers and contributors to GMPuzzles.

This WPC followed an incredibly busy three month stretch for me in science (and I’m already right back into it as I write this morning). And without much time on weekends, I have been doing just enough to keep the web-side of this site going but have fallen pretty far behind on book editing and other tasks. This recent stretch has forced me to rethink how I should be spending my time in life, including what are the most critical pieces to make Grandmaster Puzzles into a successful company. So I have a five point update for you. While #1 may be tough to accept, I hope the promise of #2-5 keep you all as fans and subscribers as we move forward on a new plan for our publishing.

1. For at least the next 3 months, and possibly longer, we will not have any more free web weeks of puzzles on the site and we will be pausing subscription rewards in their current forms.

2. We will continue to release new books of puzzles; I will take advantage of some of the extra time from not having to do web posting to catch up on old titles like The Art of Sudoku 2 that are still unfinished, and also launch a new Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly series that will be released every 3 months.

3. The most important and new change is tied to me rethinking how I focus my time and money with GMPuzzles. I am going to seriously invest my money in GMPuzzles over the next couple years, with an immediate plan within 3 months to hire a Managing Editor and then eventually part-time or full-time help in graphic design, web design, and software engineering to advance the work we can do.

4. This new team — particularly me and the Managing Editor — will define an updated business plan for GMPuzzles. This will likely include making the website much easier for new customers to find and get into our puzzles (an early concept, far from a finished design, to introduce an unfamiliar person to Tapa is here — we will do much better, but even this demo is 1000% better than the experience of landing on gmpuzzles.com/blog today). This business plan will almost certainly also include a digital plan to distribute our puzzles for a new generation of puzzle solvers via an enhanced web or app experience. Our audience is small but all of you are passionate, loyal, and dedicated fans of our puzzles. We need at least 10x if not 100x this audience to be a successful business, and we will try to crack more into the mainstream while not losing any of the quality and originality of our puzzle design that has grabbed your interest.

5. A big milemarker for us will be the 2021 World Puzzle Championship. I have co-organized a bid to host this tournament in Toronto and, if accepted, we will dedicate part of our Grandmaster Puzzles work both before and around the championship to bringing more attention to logic puzzles and competitive puzzling.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring a variety mix of puzzles can be found in this PDF.

This next week features a set of Sudoku variations — as well as some “Sudoku hybrids” with other puzzles using the terminology from this “What is a Sudoku?” report in progress. Several of the puzzles are connected to the upcoming World Sudoku and Puzzle Championships (WSC and WPC) happening in Germany next week. We will taking a couple of weeks off around this event, and will have news on our return in October.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Sudoku by Tom Collyer and an Arrow Sudoku by Murat Can Tonta, as well as access to the puzzle solutions. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring a variety mix of puzzles can be found in this PDF.

This next week features a set of Masyu puzzles and variations, several more difficult/interesting than you might expect for such small grids and for this puzzle style.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Masyu by Grant Fikes and another by Ashish Kumar, as well as access to the puzzle solutions. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring Tapa puzzles can be found in this PDF.

Our next week is a variety mix with several interesting puzzles from our puzzlemasters as well as four guest contributors.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Kakuro by Serkan Yürekli and a Star Battle by Murat Can Tonta, as well as access to the puzzle solutions and a video walkthrough of the Friday puzzle. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring Fillomino puzzles can be found in this PDF.

Our next week features the fun shading puzzle style Tapa including a few variations.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Tapa by Ashish Kumar and another by Prasanna Seshadri, as well as access to the puzzle solutions and a video walkthrough of the Saturday puzzle. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring a variety mix of puzzles can be found in this PDF.

Our next week features a favorite region-division puzzle style, Fillomino, including a few variations.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Fillomino by Thomas Snyder and another by Murat Can Tonta, as well as access to the puzzle solutions and a video walkthrough of the Saturday puzzle. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring Star Battle puzzles can be found in this PDF.

After a couple weeks off, we are back with a variety mix, possibly a little harder than our usual difficulty. We have six puzzles from different authors, one from each of our six main categories.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus TomTom by Murat Can Tonta and a Castle Wall by Serkan Yürekli, as well as access to the puzzle solutions. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

GMPuzzles in a Humble Bundle

While waiting for our next week of web puzzles (planned for August 11th), we did want to tell you about an exciting project running right now. Alongside my co-author Mike Selinker and Lone Shark Games, Grandmaster Puzzles is part of a Humble Book Bundle. Benefitting Maker Ed and Khan Academy, you can donate to charity while getting a large number of puzzle books including Puzzlecraft by Mike and me, Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli, and Logic Puzzles 101 by Grant Fikes. Check it out!

Humble Book Bundle with GMPuzzles books

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring Skyscrapers puzzles can be found in this PDF.

This week we are featuring one of the solvers’ favorite styles: Star Battle. We’ll have puzzles from several of our puzzlemasters as well as two guest contributors, as well as one or two surprises.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Star Battle by Thomas Snyder and another by Murat Can Tonta, as well as access to the puzzle solutions. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Schedule for Next Week

Our last week featuring the debut of Ashish Kumar as a contributing puzzlemaster here with a lot of doubled puzzles can be found in this PDF.

This week we are featuring the genre Skyscrapers with some classic puzzles and two variations. If you enjoy this style and want to see more, we recommend you purchase our latest collection Skyscrapers by Ashish Kumar.

Our master+ subscribers will be receiving a bonus Skyscrapers puzzle by Murat Can Tonta and another by Thomas Snyder, as well as access to the puzzle solutions and a written walkthrough of the Saturday puzzle. Our grandmaster level subscribers are also receiving a 30×30 Giant Kurotto puzzle by Thomas Snyder. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.