Sandy Beram (1945-2016) was a writer and a college professor who enjoyed games with her family and friends. She spent the last ten years of her life writing books on games and , as an independent game inventor, successfully designing games and puzzles which were published by many different game producers. She once said that a great toy should be simple, fun, and encourage repetitive play, while a great game should be easy to learn but challenging to play and master. Berman specialize in what she called "gimmick puzzles," which were games or puzzles with some kind of an extra twist, to make them more interesting and fun.