What is WGR? A brief history of the magazine that cannot be named

In late 1983, I started irregular publication of a print magazine (you remember those, they were made of paper), whose full name I am not legally allowed to use anymore. It had the initials WGR, frequently referenced on many of the pages on our site, as many of the articles here originated in the magazine. The first ten issues were produced on a 1982 vintage IBM PC, and stored on 5-1/2" floppy disks (it's a miracle the original files still exist).   The earliest issues were printed on a daisy wheel printer (essentially a computer-controlled typewriter) with graphics pasted in; only the last few issues were laser-printed with more modern fonts and graphics.  (Some people criticized the early issues for their plain appearance, which is funny since some of the critics were producing publications on dot matrix printers).

At its peak, right before it folded, it had a circulation of well over 300, scattered all over the world (about 25 countries besides the US).  The magazine lost money over its run and was barely turning a profit even at the end. On March 17, 2000 (a Friday afternoon), I received an e-mail from an organization (which I will not name) who claimed my title infringed on their trademark (possibly true; though in 16 years of operation I did not even know their organization existed). They also made a completely false and baseless accusation of copyright infringement. Without any legal representation, I asked knowledgable friends for advice, but I was told that I could well lose a trademark lawsuit and be liable for substantial damages. I had no option but to suspend publication. I never heard anything from the organization since, though I found that they wanted to use my title for a publication of their own.

WGR published articles on a host of varied topics in the game and puzzle field, many of them in areas not covered heavily by other publications. Issues 9 and 10 were both special issues devoted to one specific topic. When WGR13 appeared, I was just starting to get seriously involved in card solitaire, and Giza first saw print in English there. Special issues were planned on card solitaire and cryptarithms, but never appeared. Some of the highlights of the thirteen issues which exist are listed in the table below:

Num Date Pages Highlighted contents
1 Nov 83 27 taxonomy of games, Pyraminx, Risk, backgammon openings, Guillotine, Mem
2 Mar 84 33 Latino, Morra-Board, Super Crazy Eights, Skewb, Avalanche Chess
3 Sep 84 32 Orion, the world's best games, polycubes (start of regular feature on polyforms)
4 Feb 85 30 Collective Hangman, ImpossiBall, dice games, metagames
5 Sep 85 27 Realm, Risk, Sparkle, solitaire Lap, Baconian cipher, Ultima
6 Sep 86 52 cumulative index, postal games, Free Choice Chess, Hexomino problems
7 Oct 87 33 domino constructions, large polyform sets, Rubik's Magic, new chess variants
8 Jul 88 38 cryptarithms, Lachaino, peg solitaire, new sports games and card games
9 Dec 89 28 Polyforms: The Birds and the Bees, polyarcs, an 82 year history
10 Jun 91 99 Chess Variants: index, bibliography, rules, inventors, sample games
11 Jun 92 38 polyform interior holes, Castawords, mail order catalogs, peg solitaire
12 Jan 94 52 index (7-12), puzzle reviews, Amazons, Super Crazy Eights, Palabra
13 Feb 98 38 game and puzzle fonts, Giza, dice games, chess variants, The Great Dalmuti

As I do not think that specialized print magazines are viable anymore in the Internet age, it is unlikely that WGR will ever be physically published in any form, but a long-term goal of this website is to publish old articles from WGR (revised as needed) and articles that exist in electronic form but which were never printed.  Some of these will appear as free articles on the website.

One full issue and several compilation articles have now been posted, particularly:
WGR Index of Chess Variants     Corrected version of WGR10.
WGR Guide to Hexomino Puzzles    Original version of the supplement published in WGR6, with new diagrams, additional hexomino material from WGR, and previously unpublished solutions.
The Puzzle Laboratory Guide to Twisting Puzzle Solutions  Rubik's Cube and its variants, Pyraminx, Skewb, Impossiball, and many more.
Solving and Composing Cryptarithms   Greatly expanded version of the article in WGR8, with additional material intended for a special issue that was never published.   Over 300 original puzzles.

Others are planned for the future:
The WGR Index of Chess Variants.    Expanded and corrected version of WGR10 with added material from other issues (
including Paul Yearout's series on Avalanche Chess and Ultima), unpublished material, and an updated resource guide
The Puzzle Laboratory Guide to Latin Square Puzzles.     Detailed resource guide to Sudoku and its many variations, and related puzzles.

Most recently edited on September 15, 2021.   This article is copyright ©2021 by Michael Keller.  All rights reserved.