Puzzle Maker’s Dictionary — Practical Puzzle Design and Player Understanding
Look for the owl mark beside a passage to read or begin a discussion.
Authorial Inference and Curatorial Puzzles: Let Solvers Think About the Setter's Thinking
Technical terms: Authorial inference, Setter-solver communication, Curatorial puzzle, Theory of mind, Pragmatic inference
In authorial inference, a solver reasons about the human mind behind the puzzle: Why did the setter choose these words, this clue, this grouping, or this exception? A curatorial puzzle makes deliberate selection and arrangement part of what must be understood. This creates setter–solver communication through the artifact.
The reasoning uses theory of mind—modeling another person's beliefs and intentions—and pragmatic inference—inferring meaning from why something was expressed in this particular way.
See it in Connections and Wordle
Connections asks which relationships a human editor intended among deliberately selected words, including traps and overlapping associations. Wordle normally asks for a system-held word through letter feedback; solving does not usually require wondering why a particular human chose those five letters or what alternate category they were trying to suggest.
What you can do with it
Make human selection consequential and provide enough evidence for a solver to distinguish intention from coincidence. Afterward, reveal or discuss the setter's thinking without pretending other interpretations are worthless.
Ask a player
At what moment did you stop asking only “What fits?” and begin asking “Why would this maker have put it here?”
Maker's note — reveal intention after interpretation.
Same Circles editorial synthesis from puzzle setting, theory of mind, pragmatics, and curatorial play. This term names a distinction the source dictionary did not capture directly.