Trevor Truran (born 1942) is a United Kingdom former

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

teacher, best known as the creator of many

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

s and

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

s. Truran began making up games as mathematical teaching aids. At one time his entire mathematics course for 9-13 year olds was based on games, puzzles and story situations. Early games were published in '' Games & Puzzles Magazine'' and he became Puzzles Editor of that magazine and later of '' Top Puzzles''. For over 13 years he wrote for '' Computer Talk'' magazine and included many new games and puzzles as well as early articles on the Rubik's Cube. A nine-part puzzle Treasure Trail appeared in the ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegr ...

'' and he freelanced for many magazines and newspapers before taking up puzzling full-time in 1985 with the publishers now called Puzzler Media Ltd. In that time he has created and edited a wide variety of magazines from Wordsearch to mathematical but has largely concentrated on logical puzzling, providing much of the content to magazines such as ''Logical Puzzles''. He is the inventor of the logical puzzle now known as

Mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

(1980s) which was developed by Conceptis Ltd. and which had its first success on Japanese telephones. He is credited by some as a possible founder or early creator of what might be called cross-referencing or row-and-column puzzles, where numbers outside a grid give information as to what to put inside the grid. An early example is Whittleword (1979) which was followed by Domino Deal, Ace in Place and others. He is currently a Managing Editor at Puzzler Media Ltd. and edits

Sudoku Sudoku (; ; originally called Number Place) is a logic puzzle, logic-based, combinatorics, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. In classic Sudoku, the objective is to fill a 9 × 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and ...

and

Kakuro Kakuro or Kakkuro or Kakoro () is a kind of logic puzzle that is often referred to as a mathematical transliteration of the crossword. Kakuro puzzles are regular features in many math-and-logic puzzle publications across the world. In 1966, Cana ...

magazines as well as Hanjie, Hashi, Super Hanjie, Mosaic,

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York–based data-technology startup *Enigma machine, a famil ...

and Colour Hanjie. He also contributes to other magazines such as ''Tough Puzzles'' and has created the "Squiffy Sudokus" for a

Carol Vorderman Carol Jean Vorderman (born 24 December 1960) is a Welsh broadcaster, media personality, and writer. Her media career began when she joined the Channel 4 game show ''Countdown'', appearing with Richard Whiteley from 1982 until his death in 2005, ...

book. A chance meeting with

Bernard Pearson Bernard Stanley Pearson (born 13 September, 1946)"Pearson, Bernard, 1946–"
Library of Congress Authorities (lcc ...

led to an involvement with

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English author, humorist, and Satire, satirist, best known for the ''Discworld'' series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983 and 2015, and for the Apocalyp ...

's ''

Discworld ''Discworld'' is a comic fantasy"Humorous Fantasy" in David Pringle, ed., ''The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (pp.31-33). London, Carlton,2006. book series written by the English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a fl ...

'' fantasy setting, and the game Thud was the first result. A second edition followed in 2005 to tie-in with the novel inspired by the game, ''

Thud! ''Thud!'' is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 34th book in the ''Discworld'' series, first released in the United States on 13 September 2005, then the United Kingdom on 1 October 2005. It was released in the U.S. three wee ...

'', which also features a faster, shorter game, "Koom Valley Thud", reflecting incidents in the book. A third edition of the game is still in print, and it has also been translated into Dutch. Truran also designed another Discworld game, Watch Out, another two-player game pitting members of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch against members of the Thieves Guild. It was publicly tested in 2004 but not eventually published, as according to Bernard Pearson it was not thought to be "sufficiently Discworld".

Publications

He has published two books: *''Masterful Mindbenders'' (puzzle collection) *''Hanjie Solved'' (A guide to Japanese logic picture puzzles - 2005)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Truran, Trevor Puzzle designers People associated with the Discworld series Living people 1942 births