About the Puzzlers

Paladin Puzzlers

The Paladin Puzzlers are a group of faculty, students, and (now) alumni dedicated to developing interactive puzzle hunts for the Furman community.

Background and History

The broad idea of pursuing such a project initially came from Professor Christian Millichap (mathematics) who loves creating codebreaking scavenger hunts for cryptology classes but wanted to build something for a more general audience that implemented artistic work from the Furman community. It wasn’t until a Cothran Center Faculty Seminar in Ireland and Northern Ireland in summer 2022 that connections were made to get the ball rolling.

Through this seminar, Professor Millichap shared his ideas with Professor Michael May (art) and Professor John Harris (mathematics), which also led to bringing Professor Sarah Archino (art history) into the group. The following academic year, these four professors applied for and received a Furman Humanities Center Collaborative Fellowship to learn about best practices for developing interdisciplinary narrative artwork that uses mathematical systems of embedded and connected puzzles, codes, and ciphers to visually present a mystery to be solved or story to tell.

Students Jordan White, Grace Houser, Sophie Ngo, and Sam Schaich joined the fellowship. During the 2023–2024 academic year, the group built off the faculty’s expertise and those of two visiting experts (Professor Lindsay Morse in Escape-the-Room design and Professor Beauvais Lyons in artistic storytelling) to start developing an initial story framework and plans for what ultimately became our "Back to the FUture" hunt.

Building "Back to the FUture"

The bulk of the work on "Back to the FUture" was done in 2025 and 2026. Professor Harris and Professor Millichap worked on designing and testing the puzzles. Professor May worked on the drawing designs for the three campus maps, while Natalie Davis did the coloring for these maps.

Sophie Ngo provided the main ideas for the story framework and designed the "Damsel with Scroll" artwork on the homepage. Some of the additional artwork, such as INSERT, were completed by INSERT. Sam Schaich developed our Paladin Puzzlers logo design and built the website.

Everyone from the original fellowship contributed in meaningful ways by providing inspiration, ideas, and feedback, even from students well after they graduated.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank several corners of the Furman community for supporting this project: the Furman Humanities Center, the Cothran Center, the Furman Art Department, the Furman Mathematics Department, and all the members of the Furman community that served as puzzle testers!

Members