Scott Kim is an American puzzle and video game designer, artist, and author of

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

descent. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for ''

Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine * "Discover", a song by Chris Brown from his 2015 album ''Royalty'' Businesses and bran ...

'' magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999, and created hundreds of other puzzles for magazines such as ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' and ''

Games A game is a Structure, structured type of play (activity), play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an Educational game, educational tool. Many games are also considered to be Work (human activity), work (such as p ...

'', as well as thousands of puzzles for computer games. He was the holder of the Harold Keables chair at

Iolani School Iolani is a masculine Hawaiian name meaning "royal ''hawk''." It comes from the Hawaiian words ''ʻio'', meaning "Hawaiian hawk," and ''lani'', meaning "royal." It may refer to: ;Places *ʻIolani School, a private school located in Hawaii *ʻIolan ...

in 2008. Kim was born in 1955 in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and grew up in

Rolling Hills Estates, California Rolling Hills Estates is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. On the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, facing Torrance, Rolling Hills Estates is mostly residential. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills Estates has ...

. He had an early interest in mathematics, education, and art, and attended

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, receiving a BA in music, and a PhD in Computers and Graphic Design under

Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of comp ...

. In 1981, he created a book called ''Inversions'', words that can be read in more than one way. His first puzzles appeared in ''Scientific American'' in

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

's "

Mathematical Games A mathematical game is a game whose rules, strategies, and outcomes are defined by clear mathematics, mathematical parameters. Often, such games have simple rules and match procedures, such as tic-tac-toe and dots and boxes. Generally, mathemati ...

" column and he said that the column inspired his own career as a puzzle designer. Kim is one of the best-known masters of the art of

ambigrams An ambigram is a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation. Most ambigrams are visual palindromes that rely on some kind of symmetry ...

. Kim designed logos for Silicon Graphics, Inc.,

GOES The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather fo ...

The Hackers Conference The Hackers Conference is an annual invitation-only gathering of designers, engineers and programmers to discuss the latest developments and innovations in the computer industry. On a daily basis, many hackers only interact virtually, and therefore ...

, the Computer Game Developers Conference, and Dylan. Kim is a regular speaker on puzzle design, such as at the International Game Developers Conference and Casual Games Conference. His wife,

Amy Jo Kim Amy is an English feminine given name, the English version of the French Aimée, which means '' beloved''. It was used as a diminutive of the Latin name Amata, a name derived from the passive participle of ''amare,'' “to love”. The name has ...

, is the author of ''Community Building on the Web''. He lives in

Burlingame, California Burlingame () is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame and is known for its ...

with his wife

, son Gabriel and daughter Lila Rose.

Works

* ''Inversions'', 1981, Byte Books, , a book of 60 original ambigrams * "Letterforms & Illusion", 1989, W. H. Freeman & Co., created with Robin Samelson, accompanies the book, ''Inversions''. * ''Quintapaths'', 1969 (tiling puzzle), published by Kadon since 1999. * '' Heaven and Earth'', Buena Vista / Disney (computer game) * ''

Obsidian Obsidian ( ) is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Produced from felsic lava, obsidian is rich in the lighter element ...

'', SegaSoft (computer game) * '' MetaSquares'', 1996 (computer game, created with

Kai Krause Kai Krause (born 14 March 1957) is a German software and graphical user interface designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., for his Kai's Power Tools series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design. ...

, Phil Clevenger, and Ian Gilman). * ''The Next Tetris'', Hasbro Interactive, PlayStation * ''Railroad

Rush Hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English, Indian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice e ...

'', ThinkFun (toy) * '' Charlie Blast's Territory'' (Nintendo 64 game) * ''The NewMedia Puzzle Workout'' - collection of Kim's magazine puzzles * ''Scott Kim's Puzzle Box'' (monthly Shockwave puzzles at JuniorNet.com) * ''Brainteasers, Mind Benders, Games, Word Searches, Puzzlers, Mazes & More Calendar 2007'', Workman Publishing Company,

Contributed works

* Harry Abrams. ''Escher Interactive'' (computer game) *

Elonka Dunin Elonka Dunin (; born December 29, 1958) is an American video game developer and cryptologist. Dunin worked at Simutronics Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri from 1990–2014, and in 2015 was Senior Producer at Black Gate Games in Nashville, Tennes ...

, ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles'', 2006, Constable & Robinson, * Popcap Games, ''

Bejeweled 2 ''Bejeweled 2'' (also referred to as ''Bejeweled 2 Deluxe'' in some releases) is a tile-matching puzzle video game developed and published by PopCap Games. Released as a sequel to ''Bejeweled'', ''Bejeweled 2'' introduces new game mechanics, ...

'', design of Puzzle Mode puzzles

References

Neurology Now
Biographical article from 2009.
Scott Kim: Puzzlemaster
- Kim's website * Dan Burstein, ''Secrets of Angels & Demons'', 2004, CDS Books. * ''Discover'' magazine "Boggler" column.

* Susan Lammers, ''Programmers at Work'' (Microsoft Press, 1986), 272-285. Interview with Kim.
TED Talks videoOn YouTube
at the Entertainment Gathering Conference 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Scott 1955 births American male writers American writers of Korean descent American video game designers Living people Puzzle designers Recreational mathematicians Mathematics popularizers Toy inventors Stanford University alumni People from Rolling Hills Estates, California