Passion For Puzzles

Germz is a nice block removal Flash puzzle game by the passionate people of IQ Foundry.

Object is to protect yourself from a myriad of infectious germs. To clear the nasty bugs, match three or more of the same colored Germz to destroy them. Match four or more to release antibodies that are powerful white cells in the blood to fight off the germ viruses. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Germz | Puzzle Game

Johannes from PuzLogical.com pointed me to a puzzle called MinuPlu which is the same like KenKen (another Sudoku variant).

The rules for Minuplu are almost as simple as Sudoku or KenKen. All cells of a MinuPlu have to be filled in with numbers. The possible numbers range from 1 to the size of the MinuPlu. For example, in a 4×4 MinuPlu there are the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. Each number must appear exactly once in each row and each column. However, in contrast to Sudoku, there are no blocks where this must be fulfilled as well. Each region surrounded by a thick line contains an arithmetic operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) and a result. The numbers in each such region must yield the indicated result when combined by the corresponding operation. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: MinuPlu | KenKen | Sudoku

Pocket Posh Word Roundup is a fashionable and sophisticated book from the Puzzle Society, in an irresistable package for any female puzzle lover.

The compact 4-by-6 trim size easily fits into a purse or a tote, has rounded corners, and includes elastic band closure so the pages won't get bent. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Pocket Posh Word Roundup | Puzzle Book

Evacuation is a nice but simple small, maze look-a-like puzzle game by Foddy.

The story starts as aliens have invaded your spaceship's cargo hold. Object is to get rid of the aliens by clicking on one of the colored sliding doors, by this you open or close all sliding doors of the same color. When you open a path of open sliding doors, the lack of air leads to anything sucked outside in space. Happy Puzzling! [via Microsiervos]

Tags: Evacuation | Puzzle Game

Tahiti Hidden Pearls is a hidden object puzzle game by NextGamez.com

Tahiti Hidden Pearls is based upon the legend of princess Papeeth. Object is to seek and find all hidden items and solve puzzles to get one step closer to discover the legend of the pearls.

Find the hidden items that are written on your item list. If you can't see an item, click the name in the list to display a silhouette image so it becomes easier to find. If you still can't find the item, click the "Hints" button. Be sure to find the four magical pearls as well! These will give you additional hints and the use of a mysterious compass. When you have found the four magical pearls, try to click an item in the list and then click the compass to figure out how it works. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Tahiti Hidden Pearls | Puzzle Game

3D memory is a variant of the classic memory game.

Object is to find pairs of hidden objects until there's none left. First select a theme, then select a style of play. There are in total 13 pairs of objects hidden in a 3x3x3 cube, it has 26 little cubes on the outside plus one central cube that has no objects. Select a cube with your mouse, the select another cube to see if both objects match. If they do, the little cubes are removed, else you can watch them for one second before you can try again. The game is over when only the central cube is left. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: 3D Memory

Oh noes! The puzzle craze of 2006 is rooned!

It’s fiendish, it may even be diabolical, and it’s the solution to Sudoku. To the outrage of the puzzle’s fans, an American computer scientist will tomorrow reveal a formula for solving any Sudoku problem, no matter how difficult..The Crook algorithm is the first mathematical proof of how to solve the puzzle. Not even Howard Garns, the Indianapolis architect who devised Sudoku in 1979, could promise that.

For better or worse, reports of the the death of sudoku through the works of James Crook are greatly exaggerated.

If you’re not familiar with sudoku (what rock were you living under?) it’s a type of logic puzzle played on a 9×9 (in the standard version) grid, further subdivided into 9 3×3 “boxes”. The player is given a sudoku grid partially filled in with single digits, and has to fill in the remaining digits according to a simple rule - every row, column, and box must contain each digit 1 to 9 precisely once.

For a computer scientist, this is a straightforward example of something called a finite-domain constraint satisfaction problem. These are, in general, “hard” problems, in that as the problems become bigger, they rapidly become impossible to solve in a reasonable time. But at the scale of a 9×9 sudoku, this isn’t an issue, and standard “backtracking” techniques solve most sudokus in the blink of an eye. It’s completely and utterly a solved problem.

How is this miracle achieved? In essence, you fill out the squares using the obvious techniques (for instance, if there’s only one possibility for a particular grid position, fill it in), until you’ve done all you can with the obvious techniques. At that point, you pick one of the other squares and take a guess. Either the guess will be correct and you continue on your merry way, or it forces a violation of the sudoku rules. You then “backtrack” to where you made the guess, and choose one of the other possibilities. This may sound slightly complicated, but it’s a beginning exercise in computer programming. And there are a number of variations which can be used to speed the process up considerably.

But it’s not generally how sudoku players like to solve puzzles; guessing is generally considered a cop-out. Instead, they have identified more complicated patterns with fancy names like x-wing and chaining. They’re just slightly harder (for humans) to spot patterns for eliminating certain possibilities from consideration, thus avoiding the need for guessing. It’s possible to build computer programs that use these fancier elimination rules to solve sudoku puzzles; they’re useful for puzzle designers, because they give a good insight into how difficult a particular puzzle will be for its human players. But they’re not necessary to actually solve a puzzle - just the very simplest rules, and backtracking, will do the job.

So what insight does Crook’s paper offer? Essentially, he proposes an alternative - and not significantly easier to understand or perform - mathematical description of the simple techniques every sudoku player knows. And if they don’t work? You guessed it - or more to the point, his technique guesses. It’s just backtracking search, a technique that’s been around longer than sudoku itself.

Sudoku players aren’t going to start using this method for two very good reasons: a) it takes all the fun out of it, and b) it’s generally much slower than using the advanced solution-elimination techniques. All it’s useful for is a fallback method for finding a solution when you’re stuck, and, frankly, if you want to do that you may as well enter it in to a computer and let it handle the tedious work for you.

The Times reporters who broke this non-story seem to have spoken to a sudoku champion (and undergraduate mathematics student) and a sudoku puzzle compiler. Given the idiocies in this story, I have to wonder whether they actually listened to their answers. That said, whomever was responsible for promoting this story to the Times has clearly overhyped the story.

While it’s of no great consequence here, it’s a textbook example of the kind of lousy science coverage we usually get in the mainstream media. [via Larvatus Prodeo]

Tags: Sudoku

Transmover is a 2D online Flash-based puzzle game by Polygon * Gmen.

Object is to get to the key to unlock the exit to the next level. To be able to do this, you have a little zapper called the Transmover, that allows you to change places with blocks that are scattered throughout the area.

Transmover starts very easy, but gets more difficult in each of the 60 stages available. Although this is a Japanese game, the in-game instructions are in English. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: | Puzzle Game

Cubic Disturbance is a challenging physics engine based online Flash puzzle game.

Your goal is to push the special block down by using as few bombs as possible. You can set every bomb that you use to go off at a specific time to your own advantage. You can place a bomb by clicking anywhere on the screen, you can then move it around using your mouse cursor and remove if you don't wish to use it anymore. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Cubic Disturbance | Puzzle Game

Pathem is a word puzzle game invented by game designer J.K.Cook.

Pathem is designed to be simple to learn and play, while still being engaging for hard-core puzzle fans, the topical puzzle can be played during a spare minute on the bus or for hours in your most comfortable chair. The effort was worth it as more and more people are discovering how fun and addictive Pathem puzzles are.

It’s easy to pick up the basics of Pathem. Just fill in the grid with letters to spell the "word" required in a single continuous path. Spell the "word" in the grid above it in a continuous, horizontal, vertical or diagonal path from square to square. Each letter will appear only once in the grid, but may be visited multiple times along the spelling path. There may be more than one correct solution.

Difficulty levels range from one star (easy/beginner) to five stars (genius). Start at lower levels to get used to the game and then work your way up to tougher levels. The more you play the better you get. Happy Puzzling!

UPDATE: Seven Pathem puzzle books are available via Amazon.com:
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: Famous People
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: Famous Sayings
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: The Movies
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: Sports
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: TV Shows
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: Bible Puzzles
- Pathem: the path word puzzle: Christmas Puzzles

You can try Pathem puzzles by downloading a special 'print-n-play' Pathem sampler puzzle book with 15 new puzzles in pdf format (approx 970kb). Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Pathem | Puzzle Game

How to kill a hobby and create another one, just put Lego and Sudoku together.

This Lego robot solves 200 Sudoku's puzzles in 30 minutes with just Lego, a webcam and some code. That's just 9 seconds per Sudoku puzzle. Although the iPhone application Sudoku Grab seems to be much more efficient, this Lego Robot is just another great invention. You can watch a video of the Lego Sudoku Killer solving Sudoku puzzles at YouTube.

Tags: Lego | Sudoku

Math has helped place a man on the moon and has counted the genes in our DNA.

But never mind all that. A mathematician says he has finally produced something that people really care about: a foolproof way to beat Sudoku puzzles.

"Sudoku has become the passion of many people the world over," says computer scientist J. F. Crook of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., in the current Notices of the American Mathematical Society. "The interesting fact about Sudoku is that it is a trivial puzzle to solve."

Not everyone would agree. Since the introduction of the numerical puzzle in London's The Times in 2004, Sudoku has taken quiz fans by storm. It has appeared on websites, cellphones and in newspapers, including USA TODAY.

"Sudoku requires a kind of math sense," says mathematician M. Ram Murty of Canada's Queen's University in Kingston, an expert in number theory. "Everyone wants a mental challenge, and Sudoku provides it."

The puzzles are generally grids of 81 squares, nine across and nine down. Some boxes have a number filled in; the rest are blank. Players must fill in the blank squares with numbers between 1 and 9 without repeating any numbers in a row, column or the nine interior 3-by-3 boxes of the puzzle.

Many players and strategy guides intuitively take steps like those Crook outlines, but he says his study offers the first mathematically guaranteed way of solving the puzzles.

Even using his method, there may be two possibilities for a particular box. In that case, the player would have to guess which one is right and then repeat the steps to see whether they lead to a solution. He counsels switching pencil colors at this stage. If the first guess doesn't work, erase and try the other option.

Murty, who has published theoretical work on Sudoku, says Crook's steps follow well-worn mathematical approaches to puzzles such as chess problems. "Sudoku is really just a kind of math in action," he says.

The paper will be posted Monday at ams.org. [via USA Today]

UPDATE : Crook's Sudoku theory can be found at http://www.ams.org/notices/200904/rtx090400460p.pdf (pdf. 616kB)

Tags: Sudoku

Tilt has nothing to do with pinnball but this is a flash maze game where some skills are needed to solve the puzzles.

Tilt is a good wooden looking 3D maze skill puzzle game in which you have to move the ball (or balls) by tilting the plate with mouse towards the exit. When the ball(s) reached the exit you will move to the next level. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Tilt | Maze

Sudoku Grab is a brilliant application for Sudoku lovers with an iPhone.

With Grab Sudoku you can take a photo from any Sudoku puzzle (e.g. news paper, Sudoku puzzle book etc.). Grab Sudoku will automatically make a copy of the Sudoku grid that fits perfectly on your iPhone screen and also recognize all the numbers. Now you'll have the option to solve the Sudoku yourself on your iPhone or let you can let your iPhone solve the Sudoku in a split second for you.

This is the perfect application to store Sudoku's on your iPhone and solve Sudoku's any time without the need to carry around all day with your Sudoku puzzle book or a part of your daily newspaper or to check the solution of the Sudoku puzzle you solved. You can find a movie of Sudoku Grab on Youtube.

Tags: Sudoku | iPhone

MathDoku is yet another interesting Sudoku variant.

The games at MathDoku are is loosely similar to killer sudoku and based on the same rules of Kenken, an educational puzzle invented by Tetsuya Miyamoto in Japan. MathDoku games go by a number of names including KenKen, KenDoKu, kenduko, cancan, square wisdom, minuplu, calcudoku, and/or latincalc. It is also slightly similar to a crossword or jigsaw puzzle since it requires trial and error to solve.

MathDoku features Mathdoku games in 4x4, 6x6, and 8x8 tables and each have difficulties ranging from easy, medium, hard, and no-op (a version that hides the math operation). At the MathDoku website you can play this highly addicting logic and math puzzle game. It is available in both online and printable formats for free. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: MathDoku | Sudoku

Play BubbleQuod puzzle game and try to free yourself from the bubble quod.

Complete all 50 puzzle levels by bouncing off sharp inanimate objects to pop the bubble and break free. Every tenth level is the bonus (special) one. The Platform Game task is to free yourself from the bubble in which you are imprisoned. The bubble can be pierced by a nail which is situated in the window. Logical thinking, skills and clearness of purpose will help you. Happy Puzzling

Tags: BubbleQuod | Puzzle Game

Cracking computer security for fun, that's what puzzle game Exploit is all about.

The idea is to fire packets of data from the ports around the edge of the play area and hit the root node in the centre. Except the direct path to the root node is blocked by various buffers, dividers, overflows and other sly nods to nerd-dom. What starts out simple will soon make your brain hurt, just like any good puzzle game should. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Exploit | Puzzle Game

Carrie sent me an email about Colorific, a new color blending puzzle strategy game for the iPhone.

The goal of Colorific is to create Cyan, Magenta and Yellow hexagons by overlapping Red, Green and Blue triangles. For each completed hexagon you receive additional triangles and points. You can see a timelapse video of Colorific at AppTheater. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Colorific | iPhone

Aqua Energizer is yet another block moving puzzle game by Miniclip.

Object is to help Aqua solve the underwater puzzles by pushing the red flashing balls into energizer. Use your mouse or arrow keys to move the Aqua on the gamegrid. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Aqua Energizer | Puzzle Game

In graduate school, I spent time procrastinating by solving a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. The pieces lived on my dining room table for about a year, taking up almost the entire surface area. Whenever people came by, they insisted on trying to fit in pieces, choosing heaven or hell according to their desires (someone wanted desperately to complete the pig nun).

Of course, the German puzzle company made every piece incredibly nuanced, so that anyone who had completed a regular jigsaw puzzle was not actually classified to fit two pieces together.

Eventually, I outsmarted the manufacturer and finished the damn thing—and ever since I’ve been waiting for that infernal puzzle maker to offer another 10,000-piece jigsaw. So it should come as no surprise that I immediately liked the Puzzle Collection of art furniture produced by Patou Design. Shaped like jigsaw puzzle pieces, these cocktail and console tables are each individually numbered. Available in coffee and console varieties, Puzzle can be fit together piece by piece or joined with one or two pieces of glass. In wenge or zebra wood finish, the Puzzle pieces enrich anyone’s style and space.

My ultimate wish is for the German puzzle manufacturer to fill their headquarters with these Puzzle tables. I’d also like the Puzzle people to design a Puzzle desk—shaped like puzzle pieces. Think of the possibility for modular office furniture! I’d like any of the Puzzle tables for my own living room, which I would use to lay out my jigsaw puzzles in progress—it would be a puzzling mise-en-abyme. Patou Design offers the Puzzle Collection through their South Florida gallery—a fact that seems particularly fitting given that Florida looks like an errant puzzle piece. [via Designerpages.com]

The Puzzle Collection by Patou Design is offering a limited-edition collection called "Puzzle". The Puzzle collection features cocktail table sets, each individually numbered and embossed piece is a true collector's item.

Tags: Table | Puzzle

RoboZZLe is a nice Silverlight social puzzle game by Igor Ostrovsky, in which you need some programming skills.

RoboZZle challenges players to program a robot to pick up all stars on a game board. The game mechanics are simple, yet allow for a wide variety of challenges that call for very different solution approaches.

The best feature of this game is that you win by programming. And there's already a whole community surrounding RobboZZle, complete with a forum. The ability to create your own games, a ranking system, it's own RobboZZle weblog and much more. Happy puzzling!

Tags: RoboZZLe | Puzzle Game

Leaf Blight is a very relaxing but also challenging online logic puzzle game by TerraPinGames.

In Leaf Blight your object is to save the forest. Remove all sick or dead leafs from the trees using mouse. The first levels will explain you all the rules of the game by a few simple levels. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Leaf Blight | Puzzle Game

If your kids like to solve mazes than KrazyDad is the website for you. They offers you a huge collection of more than 5000 free printable mazes. The selection of mazes consist of :
- 1,000 Easy Mazes
- 1,000 Intermediate Mazes
- 1,000 Challenging Mazes
- 1,000 Tough Mazes
- 1,000 Super Tough Mazes
- 20 Animal Mazes

The mazes are suitable for printing in small batches. You are even allowed to reproduce the mazes for personal or school use.


Tags: Maze

Penguin Puzzle is an nice online block moving puzzle game by Zylom.

Object of Pinguin Puzzle is to make combinations of four ice cubes of the same colour. When you see the bonus figure on the right, you will get an ice cube which has magic properties. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Penguin Puzzle | Puzzle Game

A new type of mechanical puzzles has been invented (and patented) by Greek-Australian Pantazis Constantine Houlis. Unlike traditional twisty puzzles (like Rubik's cube), these are based on gravity. Pyramids are placed inside a sphere, and the sphere keeps the 3D-shape defined by the pyramids, intact. The goal is to shift around the pyramids until all the corners or the sides of the 3D-shape have the same color.

This is one of a series of puzzles which were presented at the Hong Kong Toy Fair (January 2009) and the Nuremberg Toy Fair (February 2009), and had impressed many people. This new generation of puzzles will be available from Singapore based MindStrat Puzzles in the next couple of months.

There are three different video's available at YouTube
- Krystalledron (crystal version)
- Cubedron (classic version)
- Icosedron (crystal version)

Tags: MindStrat Puzzles | Mechanical Puzzle

A few days ago I was in Madrid (Spain) for business and while at train station Atocha I passed a small shop called Superskunk.

Inside I found a simple but nice looking puzzle called Puzzle Madera. It's a 3D wooden pyramid puzzle with only five pieces (four pieces are the same and one other wooden puzzle piece). Object is to build a pyramid with these five wooden puzzle pieces which is pretty simple. But anyway a nice puzzle for the collection.

Tags: Wooden Puzzle | Puzzle Madera

Strip Sudoku is yet another Sudoku variant by ThePhoenix and has nothing to do with the Poker version with the same name.

Just fill each square in this grid with a digit from 1 to 9 so that, as in a standard Sudoku, no digit is repeated in any row, column, or 3x3 box (as marked off by shading in the grid). Each three-square strip (marked by heavy black lines) contains an S, M, and L-marked square, which stand for small, medium, and large. The S will be the smallest of the three digits in its strip, the M will be the middle digit, and the L will be the largest digit. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Strip Sudoku

Chromatica has been created by Mark Klocek and Mark also pointed this game out to me (Thanks!).

Remove shapes by placing 4 or more of them in a diagonal or vertical row. Shapes can be moved to any location as long as they have a clear path. When a shape is selected, places it can be moved to are highlighted in white.

Obtain dual shapes by creating a line of 5 or more.
Obtain additional bonus shapes by getting lines of 6 or more. All bonus shapes act as Jokers. The bomb removes all shapes of the same type. The key unlocks any locked shapes. You can create multiple lines in a row to increase the score multiplier. Happy Puzzling

Tags: Chromatica | Puzzle Game

Cursor Chaos is an interesting puzzle game by NinjaDoodle.com with a nice level twist

There are in total 42 mini-game levels to solve with only one try per level. You only need to use the cursor keys and space bar keys to play Cursor Chaos. Object is to solve all 42 levels in the fastest possible time in order to get onto the leader-board. For each level you fail will add a 20 second penalty. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Cursor Chaos | Puzzle Game

Symbol6 is an online and iPhone puzzle game by Gogogic.

The game story starts with the Symbol6 machine which is about to break down. You can take control and match its symbols with incoming ones by a simple flick of a finger. Keep the Symbol6 machine running as long as possible in this symbol-matching puzzle game where your reflexes are put to the test. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Symbol6 | iPhone

UPDATE: Treasure Challenge has made a quick decision to end their current internet endeavor :-(

Treasure Challenge WAS a weekly online Treasure Hunt where you WERE asked to solve daily puzzles and receive daily clues to the week long riddle called the Treasure Challenge. The first to solve the riddle receives $200.00.

This is a new site and not a lot of people know which is why the cash prize is only $200.00. Currently the odds of winning are very high. As the active user count goes up so will the dollar amount.

The Challenge runs every week M-F and is for United States residents only. If it is solved early a new Challenge will begin the next day and run until it is solved or until its Friday.

Treasure Challenge rewards users with cash for solving riddles. The idea came by making an obvious assumption. An economy in recession means extra cash is precious.

Tags: Treasure Challenge