BBC MindGames is a British magazine devoted to puzzles, brainteasers and articles concerning the mind. It is published every four weeks. BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. ... ISSN, or International Standard Serial Number, is the unique eight-digit number applied to a periodical publication including electronic serials. ...

It was launched in 2006 by Cam Winstanley, who was Launch Editor for the first three issues. From issue four (September 2006), Cavan Scott took over the editorship. In common with other magazines in the BBC Worldwide stable, it has a glossy cover, extensive features and interviews, and a witty tone. Cavan Scott is a British writer of science fiction audio plays, best known for his collaborations with Mark Wright. ... BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. ...

It takes its name from the BBC 4 show, MindGames. BBC Four is a BBC television channel available to digital TV (Freeview, satellite and UK. Contents // Categories: Stub | BBC television channels | British TV channels ...

Regular content

• Warm-up - Including The News Quiz, a "trawl through some recent unlikely news", based on the BBC Radio 4 game of the same name. Another BBC Radio programme included in this section is Round Britain Quiz, a series of cryptic clues linked by a common theme.
• Japanese Puzzles such as Su Doku, Kakuro, Hutos"iki, Nurikabe. A new Japanese puzzle is introduced each issue.
• Traditional Puzzles such as crosswords, wordsearches, chess and Scrabble.
• Moral Dilemma - A discussion of a moral hot potato.
• Great Philosophers - A monthly examination of a famous philosophical saying.
• Puzzles by Chris Maslanka.
• Mind Matters - Articles about cognition.
• QI - facts and questions on general ignorance, based on the BBC Two programme of the same name.
• Global Hide and Seek - A puzzle where you have to track down a celebrity by solving visual clues.

The News Quiz is a topical comedy quiz broadcast on British radio BBC Radio 4. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Round Britain Quiz (or RBQ for short) is a panel game that has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 since 1947, making it the oldest quiz still broadcast on British radio. ... A Sudoku puzzle (image hyperlinked to solution) Sudoku (Japanese: 数独, sūdoku), sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a logic-based placement puzzle, also known as Number Place in the United States. ... Easy Cross Sums puzzle The Cross Sums is a very common type of logic puzzle that is often referred to as a mathematical transliteration of the crossword. ... Moderately difficult Nurikabe puzzle (solution) Nurikabe is a binary determination puzzle. ... Crossword is a game. ... A word search, word seek or word sleuth puzzle is a generic word game that consists of seemingly random letters arranged in a square or rectangular grid. ... Chess (from Sanskrit Chaturanga[1]) is an abstract strategy board game and mental sport for two players. ... Scrabble is a popular word game and board game in which 2-4 players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a 15×15 game board. ... Christopher M. Maslanka (born 27 October 1954) is a British writer and broadcaster, specialising in puzzles and problem solving. ... QI, standing for Quite Interesting, is a comedy panel game television show hosted by Stephen Fry and shown on BBC Two and BBC Four. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC and Europes first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour (from 1967), envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming. ...

Hidden Features

The magazine contains a number of hidden puzzles, known as Easter Eggs. These usually lead to a coded message or word for the reader to discover. Issue 1 included a hidden URL for a web site concealed in an Acrostic style form. The first easter egg For the decorated eggs given out to celebrate the Easter holiday, see Easter egg. ... A Uniform Resource Locator, URL (spelled out as an acronym, not pronounced as earl), or Web address, is a standardized address name layout for resources (such as documents or images) on the Internet (or elsewhere). ... An acrostic (from the late Greek akróstichon, from ákros, extreme, and stíchos, verse) is a poem or other text written in an alphabetic script, in which the first letter, syllable or word of each verse, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message. ...

The spine of the magazine includes an anagram of the current issue in some form or another. For example:

 1. Omen Disguises Name = MindGames Issue One 2. Men Do Disseminating Code = MindGames Second Edition 3. I Sleep with Imagery Unto Madness = MindGames Issue four - Play to Win! 

Other easter eggs have included using dice printed on each page indicating the number of eyes visible on that page's spread, having differences between images of the front cover and the actual front cover, and hiding related words within articles.

Global Hide & Seek

This puzzle is the brain-child of Cam Winstanley. The premise here is that a photograph is shown of a series of props, images and text, all of which will lead the solver to identifying a famous person (living or dead) hiding somewhere in the world, carrying out some activity or other. This puzzle is the cause of much frustration and enjoyment amongst the readers of the magazine, who will either work alone or in groups on the magazine's forum page to try and solve the clues.

Regular Characters

The magazine includes a number of characters who provide assistance, clues and additional puzzles for the readers. These characters were named by the readers of the Forum pages (see External Links) in weekly competitions.

Recent cover articles

Vegas or Bust - Or should that Vegas and bust? The desert city created by gangster Bugsy Siegel plays it straight these days. But, as Robert Matthews explains, a straight casino still tips the odds in its favour — #1 July 2006 This article is about the city of Las Vegas in Nevada. ... Benjamin Bugsy Siegel (February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American gangster, popularly thought to be the impetus behind large-scale development of Las Vegas. ...

Can you keep a secret? - Forget guns and bombs, it's codebreaking that wins wars. And as Robert Matthews explains, human fallibility means that this dark art has a bright future — #2 August 2006

External links

• Official home page
• Origin Publishing
• BBC MindGames Online Forum Community