OFFICIAL HOME
of the
Created by 
Alan
Bostock
The
ALPHANUMERIC PUZZLE was designed
with the logical puzzle enthusiast in mind.
Each puzzle has a theme, and should
take up to 30 minutes to solve.
However, if wrong assumptions are
made, some backtracking may be required.
Each letter of the alphabet is
assigned a number from 1 to 26, but the number given to only one
letter is disclosed. The letters of
the words are transcribed into these numbers, and the resulting
sequence of digits for each word is
entered into a grid in a straight line, which can be vertical,
horizontal, or diagonal, and the
sequence may appear either forwards or backwards.
The digits representing one word
may not share more than one digit with another word;
thus, no sequence may be contained
nor partially contained within another, except for one crossing digit.
The most popular grid sizes are
14*14 and 16*16 which use 20 and 24 words respectively.
The puzzle is to find the number
assigned to one particular letter, which does not appear in any of the words:
it is necessary to deduce the numbers assigned
to the other 25 letters before the puzzle can be solved:
there is only one solution to an
Alphanumeric Puzzle.
(Text above first published in MAGIGRAM
March 1993 Vol.25 No.7 p31)
Happy Solving
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