The (Puzzle) Hunting of the Snark

The Hunting of the Snark campaign logoThere are many interesting crowdfunding campaigns going on at the moment, but here’s an unusual one for a puzzle publication that deserves a wider audience. Puzzlebrains presents The Hunting of the Snark will be a printed and digital edition featuring the “full text of the poem combined with a collection of specially-written quirky puzzles and, if we raise extra funding, a whole new set of equally quirky illustrations too“. The campaign has a week and a half to run and is currently only a few hundred pounds short of its goal.

Behind the scheme is David Brain of Puzzlebrains, which has been mentioned in passing in the comments to a previous post; it’s an online magazine published as a .pdf file, that has been running since 2008 and is full of puzzles of many different styles, often (pop-)cultural requiring investigation and research, with each issue also featuring a metapuzzle. Compare to P&A magazine, perhaps.

It’s clear that David has copious puzzle-setting experience; you might also have encountered him as part of the excellent Game Control team for the London leg of DASH 7 in the Spring. As well as being able to reserve your copy of the new edition of Snark, you can also subscribe to the four issues of Puzzlebrains planned for 2016 at the same time. The most inexpensive reward in the campaign is a back number of Puzzlebrains, so you can get a sample of the house style for a single pound and find out whether it floats your boat or not.

History does not judge author Lewis Carroll without reservations, but considering his known penchant for wordplay – he’s strongly associated with the style of puzzles known today as word ladders – then it’s tempting to believe that he would have approved. Callooh! Callay!

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