Lost puzzles and recovered instructions
Archive Detectives
Follow the evidence used to identify discontinued puzzles, trace lost instruction pages and verify recovered solutions.
Open sectionMore than a solution archive
Discover the wider world of puzzles
Play original challenges, print activities, explore puzzle mechanisms, use classroom resources and follow investigations into lost instructions.
Choose your route
Explore, learn, play and preserve
Each section links naturally back to the puzzle archive and solution library.
Interactive challenges
Play Puzzles Online
Try original browser-based puzzles with move counters, hints, keyboard controls and explanations of the underlying ideas.
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Free print-and-play resources
Printable Puzzle Library
Print original tangram, pentomino, matchstick and puzzle-history activities with separate hints and answers.
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Teacher and club resources
Puzzles for the Classroom
Ready-to-use activities for algorithms, coordinates, decomposition, design, testing and puzzle history.
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Puzzle types and mechanisms
Mechanical Puzzle Encyclopaedia
Learn how major puzzle families are classified, recognised and solved, with examples from the Crafty Puzzles archive.
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Inside the puzzle
How Puzzle Mechanisms Work
Animated explainers show how key pieces, sliding panels and disentanglement moves create apparently impossible challenges.
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Collector resources
Collecting and Preserving Puzzles
Practical guidance for cataloguing, photographing, handling and preserving puzzle collections and instruction sheets.
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Safe workshop projects
Build Your Own Puzzles
Create simple original puzzles from card and paper, then test and improve them using a structured design process.
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Community research
Mystery Puzzles
Help identify unknown puzzles and contribute evidence, photographs or missing instructions.
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Collection catalogue
Digital Puzzle Museum
Browse the archive as a collection, understand catalogue records and learn how each object is documented.
Open sectionDesigned for different visitors
New puzzlers
Start with an online challenge, learn the main puzzle types and use progressive hints before opening a full solution.
Start playingTeachers and clubs
Use printable activities and structured lessons covering algorithms, coordinates, decomposition, design and testing.
Open education resourcesCollectors and researchers
Catalogue, photograph and preserve objects while helping identify missing or discontinued puzzles.
Open collector resources