Genuinely Approachable Pencil Puzzles (GAPP) is a daily series of pencil puzzles hosted on the Cracking the Cryptic's Discord server. Each puzzle is handcrafted and tested by the GAPP team. It is designed to require little to no prior experience to solve. The series is inspired by Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS), a daily Sudoku series hosted on the same server.

Posts go up on this website one week after they're up in the Discord server. If you'd like to see the puzzles as they're posted, or if you'd like to discuss the puzzles, please head over to the #daily-pencil-puzzles page in the server.

Each puzzle comes with time standards — we reward a Speedy Sloth 🦥 for solving a puzzle very quickly, a Quick Crab 🦀 for solving a puzzle quickly, and anyone who solves a puzzle regardless of their time can claim a different bird 🐦 every day! Occasionally, we also give out otters 🦦 for additional challenges.

Mind the GAPP

Mind the GAPP is a monthly compilation of every puzzle posted in the previous month. Each volume will also contain bonus puzzles that are of higher difficulty than the usual GAPP. You can check out the archive here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1X9XrQwP70GXH4bPN5ejmmBlXmRpjNKKG

Errata and Notes

• Mind the GAPP vol. 7: If the link for the Parquet bonus doesn't work, follow this link: https://tinyurl.com/4sv9t3df
• Mind the GAPP vol. 10: There is a typo in the rules of Bonus Puzzle #2. It should read 1 - 6 as it is a 6x6 grid.
• Mind the GAPP vol. 15: A keen eyed solver pointed out that the bonus puzzle 3 (Light and Shadow by Eric Fox) refers to a wrong date for its example and rules, it should be January 22nd instead of 23rd!
• Mind the GAPP vol. 21: due to a clerical error, the Crosswall bonus puzzle has actually already appeared in last month's Mind the GAPP. Apologies!

Other packs

• Never Mind the GAS, Here's the GAPP Leap is a collaboration between the GAS and GAPP teams posted on the leap day of 2024 (29 February 2024).

Links

• Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS), the daily Sudoku series which inspired GAPP
• Invite link to the Cracking the Cryptic (CtC) discord server, where the series is hosted in #daily-pencil-puzzles

The team

• Active authors & testers: bakpao, Freddie Hand, jovi_al, Lavaloid, Rook
• Former authors: Eric Fox, Menderbug, shye, Tyrgannus, Walker
• Guest authors: Bill Murphy, clover, Philip Newman, Prasanna Seshadri, Riri, Sam Cappleman-Lynes, xoned
• Active testers: shye, Tyrgannus, Walker
• Former testers: Riri, xoned

Sharing the puzzles

You are allowed to:

• share links to the puzzles (either the online solving interface or the archive) with credits to the respective author(s),
• share Mind the GAPP files with credits to the GAPP team,
• publish recording of your solves.

For anything else, please ask for permission from the respective author(s) of the puzzle(s).

Reporting issues

For any issues or suggestions regarding the website, please message Lavaloid at the Discord server, or open a Github issue at https://github.com/lavaloid/gapp-website/issues.