Archive • Occasional Puzzles • Buttondown

Occasional Puzzles - 📆 Dizzying Days

October 22, 2024

You and seven friends have booked a “spooky” themed Airbnb in the woods for a cozy fall getaway. When you booked, you figured the hosts meant a secluded...

Occasional Puzzles - 🍽️ Rational Rations

October 7, 2024

Today’s Puzzle - 🍽️ Rational Rations Your puzzle-loving friend had you over for dinner back in February, and now it’s your turn to host. Brace yourself: she...

Occasional Puzzles - 👑 Adventures in Puzzlevania 3

August 31, 2024

Today’s Puzzle - 👑 Adventures in Puzzlevania 3 It’s been a long time since your last journey to Puzzlevania. Fortunately, this time you don’t have any cake-...

Occasional Puzzles - ✏ Drawing the Line

Today’s Puzzle - ✏ Drawing the Line Can you connect all nine dots in the grid below by drawing exactly four straight lines, without lifting your pen from the...

Occasional Puzzles - 🍞 Challah if you knead a puzzle

Here at Occasional Puzzles and Starchy Food Products Incorporated, we love to bake. In fact, turning FLOUR into BREAD is one of our favorite pastimes!...

Occasional Puzzles - 🤔 Odd, one out

Another puzzle about odds and evens? Thats......weird. (We promise this one is solvable.) Thanks to reader Dan in San Jose for sending us this puzzle!...

Occasional Puzzles - 🕶️ Shaded Squares

Today's puzzle was sent in by reader Justin in Richmond, VA. He also happens to be the founder of Buttondown, the newsletter service through which you're...

Occasional Puzzles - ❌ Xs Mark the Spot

Today's Puzzle - ❌ Xs Mark the Spot Find words to fit the clues below. In all four answers, the "X X X" must be filled in with the same three letter word. _...

Occasional Puzzles - 🍰 Let Them Eat (Ice Cream) (Wedding) Cake

Happy wedding week to New York readers Tessa & Dan! We can't wait to celebrate with you in a few days 🥂 Today's Puzzle - 🍰 Let Them Eat (Ice Cream) (Wedding)...

Occasional Puzzles - 🔀 Tangled Up In Clue

This is a new type of puzzle for us, sent in by reader Alberto in Mountain View. You can read more about it, and its very nerdy inspiration, at The Guardian....

Occasional Puzzles - ➕ Mix and Match

APRIL FOOLS!! Okay, okay, we couldn't resist. 😈 As you may have discovered, yesterday's puzzle was actually impossible. Scroll down to the solution for a...

Occasional Puzzles - 🔢 Breaking Even

Occasional Addendum - A Better Solution to 🍪 Cookie Conundrum! Before we get into today's puzzle, we wanted to share an update on the hourglass puzzle....

Occasional Puzzles - 🐟 Fishy Fish

As much as we love elaborate puzzles involving poorly equipped kitchens and puzzle-obsessed friends, sometimes you just have to keep it simple. Today's...

Occasional Puzzles - 🍪 Cookie Conundrum

You might notice something new under the GIF today - you can now tell us how much you like a puzzle! Click the emoji that matches your feelings about today's...

Occasional Puzzles - 🍎 Food Groups

February 27, 2024

Today's puzzle is inspired by the New York Times's Connections, which debuted last year and quickly became one of our favorite NYT games. Here, we try to...

Occasional Puzzles - 💝 Truffle Trials

February 14, 2024

Today's Puzzle Happy Valentine's Day! This year, your dear partner has thoughtfully (and diabolically) presented you with a box of nine chocolate truffles....

Occasional Puzzles - 🌍 International Intrigue

February 6, 2024

While over for dinner at your puzzle-loving friend's house (yes, the same one who had a logic-themed birthday and then wouldn't let you into her house until...

Occasional Puzzles - 🔒 Locker Logic

January 26, 2024

Note: If you didn't get our previous issue about the victorious return of this newsletter, we're sorry. The email service we use flagged some of your...

Occasional Puzzles - What, we said they were occasional!

January 14, 2024

After a long hiatus, we're back! Scroll down to skip straight to today's puzzle. If you've forgotten about us, Occasional Puzzles is a newsletter that...

Occasional Puzzles - Let's shake on it

Today's puzzle is from a dedicated Occasional Puzzles reader and tortellini lover from Silicon Valley. Today's Puzzle In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,...

WORD WEDNESDAY - The good, the bad, and the weird friend who keeps throwing parties

Today's Puzzle Your very quirky friend (yes, the same one who made you solve logic puzzles at her birthday) has invited you over for a dinner party. You are...

Math Monday - Adventures in Puzzlevania 2

Today's Puzzle You find yourself, once again, in the magical land of Puzzlevania. This time, you are here to purchase some baked goods from the famous...

Occasional Puzzles - Tipping the scales

Today's Puzzle You have ten bags of coins, each containing 1000 coins. One of the bags, though, is full of counterfeit coins - instead of weighing 1 gram...

Occasional Puzzles - Three logicians walk into a bar...

Today's Puzzle Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "Do all three of you want a drink?" The first logician says, "I don't know." The second...

Occasional Puzzles - Oaky, with a hint of...poison?

Reader Raphaël graduates from Harvard University this week with his PhD in Applied Mathematics. Congratulations, Raphaël! Today's Puzzle As any good...

Occasional Puzzles - Adventures in Puzzlevania

Today's Puzzle In the magical land of Puzzlevania, you are on your way to visit your friend Theo for his 10th birthday. As is tradition in Puzzlevania, you...

Occasional Puzzles - Give this one a tri

Today's Puzzle Ten circles are arranged in a triangle, as above. Turn the triangle upside down by moving just three of the circles (and no, just turning your...

WORD WEDNESDAY - What's the name of the game?

Today's Puzzle Name a well-known game that's eight letters long. Drop the fifth letter. Move the first letter into the vacated spot and you'll spell a part...

MATH MONDAY - Evapoweight

Today's Puzzle Suppose you have 100 pounds of cucumbers that are 99% water by weight. You leave the cucumbers out in the sun until they're 98% water (again,...

Occasional Puzzles - Let them eat cake

Occasional Puzzles readers across the country wrote in to report that yesterday's Word Wednesday was too easy, with feedback ranging from "on par with my...

WORD WEDNESDAY - Put. A. Word. On. It.

Today's Puzzle What one word can you put at the end of each of the following to make new words? a back down for in on out to up wind To be clear, you're...

Occasional Puzzles - You need braiiiins for this one

Today's Puzzle It is nightfall, and you and three of your friends are being pursued by hideous, brain-hungry zombies (seriously, how did you get yourself...

Occasional Puzzles - Pronouns for pro moms

Happy Mother's Day! In honor of the authors' wonderful moms, who both majored in English (and definitely swiped left on last Monday's puzzle), here's a bonus...

WORD WEDNESDAY - Three of a kind

Today's Puzzle What do these three words have in common? JOB POLISH HERB Source: Giphy Monday’s Puzzle - Swipe left if you hate Math Monday Find a six-digit...

MATH MONDAY - Swipe left if you hate Math Monday

Today's Puzzle Find a six-digit number with all unique digits such that, if you take the last digit and move it to the front (i.e. take the rightmost digit...

Occasional Puzzles - Does your answer hold water?

We were thrilled to receive so many responses to Wednesday's puzzle! Thank you to everyone who wrote in. We love hearing from you. All in all, we counted 11...

WORD WEDNESDAY - Quadruple or nothing

This week's Word Wednesday comes to us from reader Steve Cowan. Today's Puzzle Our puzzle today is all about homophones. You probably remember these from...

MATH MONDAY - Easy as 1-2-3 (4-5-6-7-8-9)

Okay, yes, we hear you - the locker puzzle was really hard. This week's Math Monday is a little less diabolical (but it's not, like, easy or anything...where...

Occasional Puzzles - 🤖💰🔥

Our puzzle today comes from Theo, who was our 9th subscriber and who also happens to be 9 years old, which makes him our youngest reader by far! Today's...

Occasional Puzzles - Who let the dogs out?

Today's is our first reader-submitted puzzle! Do you have ideas for puzzles, or just want to say hi? We'd love to hear from you! Today's Puzzle In the...

WORD WEDNESDAY - A tale of two synonyms

Our puzzle today comes from NPR's Sunday Puzzle segment, in which New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz challenges a listener to solve a puzzle live on...

MATH MONDAY - Lockers in lockdown

Occasional Puzzles Schools may be closed, but these lockers are open...or maybe closed? But that's for you to figure out! Today's Puzzle A high school has...

Occasional Puzzles - Feel the burn

Today's Puzzle You have two ropes that each burn for one hour. Given these two ropes and a way to light them, how do you measure 45 minutes? Do not assume...

Matchstick made in heaven

Today's Puzzle Move one matchstick to correct the equation: Source: Reddit