INTRODUCTION
This series is inspired by the website Kevin's Puzzles, on which Kevin Orfield, who is a regular reader of this blog, posts a puzzle-hunt-style puzzle every Monday. Kevin Orfield's puzzles usually lean towards the easy side of this genre in order to target a less experienced and/or younger audience, yet I have still found them amusing enough to solve on a regular basis. Kevin's Puzzles at Home is my markedly inferior knockoff of Kevin's Puzzles, so called because of the "we have X at home" meme:
The puzzles in Kevin's Puzzles at Home will be easier than my Wordy Wednesday posts, and hopefully at least 80% as entertaining as the real Kevin's Puzzles. Kevin's Puzzles at Home will be presented by my "we have X at home" version of Kevin:
(This illustration by Tintinabar is not part of any puzzle. Any resemblance between this Kevin and the real Kevin, or any real Kevin, is entirely coincidental.)
Kevin Edmund Kepler, the colorful and prodigious wolf depicted above with a solved 7x7x7 Awoo-bik's Cube in his paw, hopes that you enjoy the puzzles that he will be offering you over the course of these coming months!Every Monday during May and June 2022, a new Kevin's Puzzles at Home puzzle will be posted at 12:01 AM (Central); as with the real Kevin's Puzzles, the final answer will be a word or phrase. Email me (at glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com) the correct solution to this puzzle within the next week to score 50 points. Each puzzle will also have a hint posted for it one week later; solving the puzzle while the hint is up will be worth 25 points. Part 9, which will be posted on June 27, is a meta puzzle which requires the answers to all of the previous puzzles in order to be solved; this puzzle will be worth double (100 points before the hint, 50 points after). The highest possible score a solver can attain will thus be 500 points, by solving each puzzle during its first week. For every point scored by my readers by 11:59 PM (Central) on July 10, I will donate 1¢ to the Food Bank of West Central Texas, up to a maximum of $100. (Thus, each solver can contribute a maximum of $5 to this pool.)
Unlike the real Kevin's Puzzles, which posts each puzzle's solution one week after its hint is posted, all puzzle solutions will be posted simultaneously on July 11. This will make the meta slightly harder, since you can't just look up the solutions to the previous puzzles to start solving it, but will also permit latecomers to score more points (and thus raise more money) than otherwise possible.
Have fun, and remember to check out the real Kevin's creations if these fake ones are up your alley!
KEVIN’S PUZZLES AT HOME, PART 1:
SEE MONSTERS
Kevin is scared – he heard a rumor that there are monsters hiding in this puzzle!
(This illustration by Tintinabar is not part of the puzzle.)
Submit your answer to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com for 50 points, and stay tuned next week for Part 1's hint and Part 2's puzzle. Good luck!
