a great example of a word puzzle that’s hard & puts barriers in the way that are fun is The Librarian’s Almanaq
https://www.almanaq.com/librarians-almanaq
probably the best non-videogame puzzle I’ve done. US-centric but I knew that going in
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I really just have a bunch of Martin Gardner and Raymond Smullyan books and that is generally my source for IRL puzzlin’. I used to like those metal puzzles and still have a couple, but they no longer appeal to me that much. A christmas or two ago my parents got me one of those big wooden ones like @username posted above and I almost didn’t have the heart to tell them I just wasn’t into that kind of thing…
Except…
I decided, for the sake of the gift, to give it at least a considered attempt, and even though I didn’t solve it, I did find some of the logic of actually working out the potential setups more interesting than I expected. Matching up the pieces by similar shape and finding unique ones, determining the pattern they need to end in and seeing how that could be possible, I found a bit of compelling logic out of it.
Maybe I’ll come back and consider it more some time.
Anyway, @falsedan , that Almanaq is instantly going on my wishlist.
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it rules, but ideally you want to do it with a group that’s a multiple of 4
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Now that’s an interesting statement. Hypothetically (but not very hypothetical at all), if I had a group of five people, how much of an issue would that cause?
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none, for context I did it solo. there’s one puzzle that has a lot of friction with <4 (I roped in my family to help) but I see no problem if you have a larger group
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OK - saying “Multiple of four” sounded oddly specific where I was like “would one person have to be left out” or something but now I think you just phrased it unusually 
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I am a numbers kind of guy
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