Scott Kim is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 puzzle and computer game designer, artist, and author. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for Discover

Discover (magazine)

Discover is an American science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was sold to Family Media, the owners of Health, in 1987. Walt Disney Company bought the magazine when Family Media went out of...

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

Scientific American

Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...

and Games, as well as thousands of puzzles for computer games. He was the holder of the Harold Keables chair at Iolani School

Iolani School

Iolani School, located at 563 Kamoku Street in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a private coeducational college preparatory school serving over 1,800 students. Founded in 1863 by Father William R. Scott, it was the principal school of the former Anglican Church of Hawaii. It was patronized by Kamehameha IV...

 in 2008.

Kim was born in 1955 in Washington D.C. and grew up in Rolling Hills Estates, California

Rolling Hills Estates, California

Rolling Hills Estates is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 8,067 at the 2010 census, up from 7,676 at the 2000 census....

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

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

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

Donald Knuth

Donald Ervin Knuth is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.He is the author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms...

. 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

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...

's "Mathematical Games" column.

Kim is one of the best-known masters of the art of ambigrams. Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

 called Kim "the Escher

M. C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher , usually referred to as M. C. Escher , was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...

 of the alphabet".

Kim is a regular speaker on puzzle design, such as at the International Game Developers Conference

Game Developers Conference

The Game Developers Conference is the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers, focusing on learning, inspiration, and networking...

 and Casual Games Conference. His wife, Amy Jo Kim

Amy Jo Kim

Amy Jo Kim is an American author and researcher on the subject of online communities. She is noted for her influential conceptual frameworks for online communities, in particular the Membership Lifecycle that was presented in her 2000 book, Community Building on the Web, a design handbook for...

, is the author of Community Building on the Web.

He lives in Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

 with his wife Amy Jo Kim

Amy Jo Kim

Amy Jo Kim is an American author and researcher on the subject of online communities. She is noted for her influential conceptual frameworks for online communities, in particular the Membership Lifecycle that was presented in her 2000 book, Community Building on the Web, a design handbook for...

, son Gabriel and daughter Lila Rose, and his two cats Sam and Viola.

Works

• Inversions, 1981, Byte Books, ISBN 1-55953-280-7, a book of 60 original ambigrams
• "Letterforms & Illusion", 1989, W. H. Freeman & Co., created with Robin Samelson, accompanies the book, Inversions.
• Heaven and Earth
  Heaven & Earth (video game)
  Heaven & Earth is a computer game developed by Buena Vista Software in 1992.-Plot:Heaven & Earth is an integrated triad of toy, puzzle, and game all based on a single fantasy legend. With the animated cards in a solitaire-like game, the player tries to score tricks of the highest value, working...
  
  , Buena Vista / Disney (computer game)
• Obsidian, SegaSoft (computer game)
• MetaSquares, 1996 (computer game, created with Kai Krause
  Kai Krause
  Kai Krause is a software and graphical user interface designer, best known for founding MetaCreations Corp., his Kai's Power Tools series of products, and for his contributions to graphical user interface design.-Biography:...
  
  , Phil Clevenger, and Ian Gilman).
• The Next Tetris, Hasbro Interactive, PlayStation
• Railroad Rush Hour
  Rush Hour (board game)
  Rush Hour is a sliding block puzzle invented by Nob Yoshigahara in the late 1970s and first sold in the United States in 1996. It is manufactured by ThinkFun ....
  
  , ThinkFun
  ThinkFun
  ThinkFun, formerly known as Binary Arts, was founded in 1985 by Bill Ritchie and Andrea Barthello. The two started the company from the basement of their home in Virginia, with a product base that initially consisted of four games invented by a family friend William Keister...
  
   (toy)
• Charlie Blast's Territory
  Charlie Blast's Territory
  Charlie Blast's Territory, or is a puzzle game developed by Realtime Associates and published by Kemco...
  
  (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, ISBN 0-7611-4079-4

Contributed works

• Harry Abrams. Escher Interactive (computer game)
• Elonka Dunin
  Elonka Dunin
  Elonka Dunin is an American game developer at Simutronics Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri, where she has worked since 1990. She is Chairperson Emerita and one of the founders of the International Game Developers Association's Online Games group, has contributed or been editor in chief on multiple...
  
  , The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles, 2006, Constable & Robinson, ISBN 0-78671-726-2