It’s the most wonderful time of the year — that is, time for the Confounding Calendar! Here for its second edition, the Confounding Calendar greatly improves on the tradition of advent calendars by swapping bite-sized chocolates for bite-sized puzzles. Each day of December, wake up to one or more thinky delights as you count down the remaining sleeps until Christmas.
Submissions to this year’s Confounding Calendar are being accepted throughout November, so why not have a go at creating a puzzle yourself? Small, simple puzzles are encouraged, so if you’ve never designed a puzzle before, this could be the perfect opportunity to give it a try. The rules are simple but encourage creativity through restrictions: your puzzle must have only one screen and one level, it must be playable on itch.io, and it must only use colors from this year’s palette. Within these limitations, you’re invited to be as experimental and creative as possible!
These few, simple rules result in a wonderful selection of stylized and inventive puzzles, as you can see from last year’s entries that are all still available to play on the itch.io page. Perhaps they might also provide some inspiration if you’re short of ideas.
Submissions are open until 30th November, so you’ve got a couple more weeks to put your tiny puzzle together! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our team member Corey Hardt who is co-organising the Calendar! In the meantime, why not join the Confounding Calendar thread on the Thinky Puzzle Games Discord server to discuss your progress with other puzzle developers?
Disclaimer: Thinky Games is part of the Carina Initiatives and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.
