Passion For Puzzles

Toggle is an interesting puzzle game by MintMan and looks a bit like Lights-Out, only this time with different grids and rotating options.

Toggle is a game of wit and intellect, Toggle challenges your puzzle solving ability. Toggle and Spin cells to clear the board in as few moves as you can. With 40 levels and a built in level editor, the challenges are endless.

Object of Toggle is to make all the cells in a level the same colour. Click on Togglersbuttons to toggle rows, columns, or diagonals of cells and click on Spinners button to spin the colors surrounding the Spinner. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Toggle | Puzzle Game

A few months ago Will Shortz introduced KenKen math puzzles in th USA, now Will Shortz presents a KenKen puzzle book especially for kids (age 9-12) called "I Can KenKen! Puzzles for Having Fun with Math.

Not only are these KenKen puzzles fun but KenKen puzzles helps children improve concentration, logic and arithmetic skills. Children ages 9-12 have excelled in math and gained real-life problem solving skills all from playing a puzzle so engaging that it keeps them coming back for more. This first book of KenKen for Kids features:
- 75 easy all addition puzzles to get kids excited about KenKen
- Introduction and how to solve instructions from Marilyn Burns
- "Home and Classroom Guide for Parents and Teachers" by Ms. Burns

Will Shortz Presents I Can KenKen! Volume 1: 75 Puzzles for Having Fun with Math is available via Amazon for US$ 5.95. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: KenKen | Will Shortz | Math Puzzles

Jan Mrozowski's hand darted with catlike deftness across the giant grid stuck to the wall in front of him. First one corner, at full stretch, then the other, his solving of the final puzzle in the World Sudoku Championships was reminiscent of the routines Pan's People performed on Top of the Pops.

With a final flick of the pen and a short step backwards to check his handiwork, the Pole turned and gave a triumphant cry that signalled that the search for the world's best Sudoku solver was over for another year.

The room, filled with chatter and a fug of body odour, echoed briefly with applause as contestants from 27 countries acknowledged, in some cases grudgingly, the new champion.

The contest in the dusty, provincial Slovakian town of Zilina had rumbled with controversy as it reached the final stages. The countdown to the final puzzle was read out as "6-4-5-3-2-1", some puzzles had several solutions, rules were often unclear until the last moment and many grids were too hard to be solved by logic alone.

Thomas Snyder, who won in 2008 and 2007 but narrowly failed to make the final this year, dismissed the event as a farce. "The ridiculousness of it has gone up another notch," the American said as he watched the final. "It is like you've had a championship for basketball and then for the final you have a different sized ball, higher hoops and trampolines on your shoes. It's a crap shoot. Why don't we just line them up, give them a pack of cards, and let them play poker until they get a winner?"

Vincent Bertrand, of Belgium, was delighted none the less when he completed the classic Sudoku puzzle in 3 minutes and 6 seconds, smashing the 5 minute 25 second record previously set by Mr Snyder.

Tom Collyer, one of two people from the British team to reach the semi-final, observed that the grids in the final were so large that contestants had to retreat a step from them to see the whole puzzle. One of the puzzles even fell off the wall, revealing a surprise second puzzle beneath. The second puzzle in the final proved even more controversial. "It's not a Sudoku," said Mr Collyer, a mathematics graduate. "It's a Latin square with certain restrictions."

Sudoku's, strictly speaking, should be marked with regions within the larger grid that contain each number only once. A Latin square does not, but it must have each number only once in its longest diagonal lines.

Latin squares were one of 38 different varieties of puzzles thrown at the contestants, some bearing little obvious resemblance to the classic form. The names of the Sudoku's included irregular, external, magic, crossword, roman numeral, digital, snowflake, snake, predator, domino and neighbours. Some, such as mayan Sudoku, had no recognisable numbers at all.

Mr Mrozowski's victory remained unclear for an hour while judges, who contribute their time voluntarily, considered a protest from Turkey that the rules had not been explained properly, but finally he emerged triumphant. "I don't yet know how I feel," the 22-year-old engineering student told The Times. "It's too soon. The last puzzle was very hard to work through logically, so I made a guess at one point. It was wrong, but I was able to go back and change it, and the answer became clear."

Branko Ceranic, of Serbia, finished in second place, followed by Robert Babilan of the Czech Republic. Eastern Europe, where puzzles are a way of life, also dominated the team competition. Slovakia, buoyed by the advantage of playing on their home turf, came first, followed by the Czech Republic.

The British team, which included Nina Pell, the Times National Sudoku champion, finished in 12th place. David McNeill, of Belfast, was the most successful competitor from the UK, finishing 18th out of 128 contestants.

[Via TimesOnline.co.uk]

Tags: Sudoku | WSC

Magnetism is a small but interesting logic puzzle game by GlaielGames.com

Object of Magnetism is to drop a metal ball into a cup. But you have to use magnets and other objects to achieve this. Magnetism has two game modes with each two sets of 25 levels (level set A has a steep learning curve and level set B has a slow learning curve. The first game mode involves clicking the mouse to drop the ball into the cup and is more logic and thought-based. The second game mode is a skill-based mode in which you have to use the arrow keys to maneuver the ball into the cup.

The first game mode I like more, but that's just my passion for puzzles. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Magnetism | Puzzle Game

Me And My Key is yet another great puzzle game by brilliant puzzle designer Bart Bonte from Belgium. The complete puzzle game is made by Bart himself, code, graphics and music.

In Me And My Key you will have to find the key in each level and most levels are about little blue penguins. The best about this games is that there are no instructions. But don't worry each level explains itself. Also each level is different and you need to click on things to find the key and move to the next level. Currently stuck at level 13 which is an Arkanoid kind of level. Just explore this fantastic online puzzle game yourself, think out of the box and enjoy. Happy Puzzling!


Tags: Me And My Key | Bart Bonte | Puzzle Game

Submarine Puzzle is yet block swapping game by Gradient Circle.

Game play is as usual very easy with this kind of block puzzles games. Swap place of blocks in such a way to have at least three of the same kind next to another (horizontally or vertically). You are only allow to swap block next to each other. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Submarine | Puzzle Game

Fillomino logic puzzles were designed by Japanese puzzle maker Nikoli famouse as they create all puzzles by hand without any computer, so you can sense the human touch. Fillomino is also known as Polyominous math puzzles which you can find on 'A Cleverly-Tiled Logic Puzzle Blog'

The rules for Fillomino are simple and can be explained in four sentences:
1. Divide the grid into polyomino that satisfy the following rules.
2. Every number in the grid must be contained in a polyomino containing that quantity of squares.
3. No two polyomino containing the same quantity of squares may share an edge. (If every square were numbered according to the quantity of squares in its corresponding polyomino, no two identical numbers will ever be on opposite sides of an edge.)
4. A polyomino may contain one, more than one, or none of the numbers originally given.

Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Fillomino | Polyominoes

Gridless is a puzzle weblog with every month two or three new word puzzles.

Gridless is all about word puzzles. Most predominantly, Double-Crostics and Gridless puzzles. Gridless puzzles are puzzles devised by blog owner Craig and they are like cryptic crosswords but there is no grid. The answers to the clues share an elusive theme. Discovering this connection will reveal a vertical answer line which will reveal all and neatly tie the puzzle together - including the title, clues and theme.

Craig's puzzles are appearing regularly in magazines in Australia, New Zealand, and England. And even some puzzles by Craig appeared on Smart-Kit. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Gridless | Word Puzzle

KenKen for your iPhone / iPod is called iKendu and you can download iKendu for free.

To solve an iKendu (KenKen) puzzle, you combine numbers in each bordered region with the given math operation to obtain the region's given answer while not repeating any number in any row or column.

The first two iKendu puzzles will help you understand how it works, and you will soon be able to solve all 100 iKendu puzzles. iKendu comes with 10 Easy to Medium (3x3), 40 Medium to Hard (4x4), 40 puzzles Medium to Hard (5x5) and 10 Hard to Difficult (6x6) KenKen puzzles. Best about iKendu is the great user interface. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: iKendu | KenKen | iPhone | iPod

Brian left a comment at a previous blog entry about KenKen Puzzles.

In his comment Brain let's us know that he is hooked on is KenKen. "I don't think it's possible that things like KenKen and crosswords don't help your brain stay fit."

Brain also made a 10 minute (!) video about how to start solving a 9x9 KenKen puzzle in which the operation signs are not given.

Brain, Thanks for sharing and Happy Puzzling!

Tags: KenKen

Phil. from SudokuGeant pointed me to yet another huge Sudoku Puzzle.

This time a super-giant Sudoku puzzle with 144x144 cells (=20736 cells). That means 256
classic 9x9 sudoku's linked together on one huge grid. They have also a pdf version of this super giant Sudoku (best result printed on A3). Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Sudoku

Magic Square is a combination between a math puzzle and a jigsaw puzzle designed by Dubi Kaufman.

make the sum of the puzzle pieces in each row and column be thirty. Drag the jigsaw puzzle pieces with with figures (0 to 15) to the game board in the center. There are in total 144 solutions, and out of them 16 solutions with also the diagonal has a total sum of thirty. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Magic Square | Math+Puzzle

Chroma Circuit is an addictive online matching color puzzle game by Coolbuddy.

Object is to creat the circuit. Match the colors on all neighboring elements to complete each level. Click an element with your mouse to rotate clockwise. Hold the shift key and click an element with your mouse to rotate counter clockwise. Later on in the game you need to use enery transfers and bombs. Press R to restart the level. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Chroma Circuit | Puzzle Game

Prizma Puzzle is a addictive sci-fi chainreaction puzzle by SilenGames.

Use your mouse cursor to click on the start node, and connect one node to the endpoint to complete the level. There are 28 cleverly designed levels to solve. This puzzle game starts easy but becomes more difficult every level you solve. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Puzzle Game

Bubble Spinner is yet another variant of the world famous puzzle game Bubble Puzzle.

Your goal in Bubble Spinner is to clear all the bubbles from the game board scoring as many points as possible. You can remove balls by forming groups of three or more similarly colored balls. Aim with your mouse and click to shoot. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Bubble Spinner | Puzzle Game

Fits Game is a new puzzle game by Ravensburger and is a puzzle game variant of Tetris.

Object is to skillfully fill in your playing board so that all the differently shaped tiles fit perfectly without leaving any spaces. If a piece doesn't fit precisely, slot it in the best you can because the game is not over yet. The next tile may fit better than the last and make you the winner! FITS is a lot of fast-paced fun with just a few easy rules for non-stop entertainment! Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Fits | Puzzle Game

Dottie is an online maze game in which you need the ability to maneuver your mouse.

Object of Dottie is to guide the small dot through different levels full of labyrinths, but without touching the walls and other obstacles like rotating balls, sliding balls, mazes, expanding wire thingies, walls, windmills, rotating blocks, alternating blocks and much much more. Sometimes this seems very easy but soon you will realize Dottie is not as easy as it looks like. [via Microsiervos.com] Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Dottie | Maze | Puzzle Game

Civiballs is an easy but brain teasing physics puzzle game by King.com.

Object is to interact with the environment to get the balls to the correct place. Choose your country of civilization (Greece, Egypt or China) to play and solve the puzzles by cutting the chains. If you get stuck, you can just try another civilization. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Civiballs | Puzzle Game

Puzzle Name Stool is personalised wooden Step Stools for your kids to help them teach to spell their own name.

Puzzle Name Stool features rounded, easy-to-fit edges and measures 16"Lx8"Hx8"D to 20"Lx8"Hx8"D (depending on name) to fit names up to eleven characters. Puzzle Name Stool is crafted of sturdy maple or ponderosa pine and non-toxic paint in primary or pastel colors, with smooth lacquer finish. Puzzle Name Stool is available via Amazon for US$44.95.

Tags: Puzzle | Stool

Easter PloyGone is a nice Easter themad puzzle game by Samgine.com

Object is to look all misaligned polygons that have been shifted out of position. Click with your mouse on all polygons and they will shift back into the correct position. You will get a time bonus points if you find all nine polygons on the image. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Easter PloyGone | Puzzle Game

Xyonix is an online retro version of an old puzzle game like Tetris.

Object of Xyonix is to place all falling block so you have a solid horizontal line of block, as soon as you reach this these blocks will disappear. Use the arrow keys to move the blocks, press 1 to rotate the falling block. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Xyonix | Puzzle Game

Since last year there is a smart authentication solution for all Rubik's Cube lovers. This security solution is a Rubik's Cube look-a-like (2x2x2) and designed by Cheng-Li Hung.

With this cube design you can create your own password by using your own color combination (you can even embed little pictures within each cube). You can take your security even a step further and make it a time based entry - solve the cube before time runs out and the colors change. The latter method is the best as otherwise brute-force attacks are possible. [Via JankoDesign]. Happy Puzzling !

Tags: Color Cube | Rubik's Cube

Connecto2 is an addictive online Flash version of a classic puzzle game.

Object of Connecto2 is to destroy a different number of blocks to complete each level. You destroy blocks by creating a complete link between the wires in the blocks and to power nodes at the edge of the player area. Destroy more blocks to get more points. If the blocks reach the top of the screen it's game over. Create a power connection from one side to the other to get a bonus. Black blocs can not be linked, but you can destroy them by destroying other linkable blocks next to them.
Obeject is to Although this is a classic puzzle game it's still addictive: Use your keyboard or your mouse (better) to rotate and move the tiles to build long pipelines. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Connecto | Puzzle Game

Edwin created a online Katamino Solver so you can find all your Katamino solutions if you are stucked.

As most of you know Katamino is a puzzle game released by DJ Games. Katamino is originally designed by Solomon Golomb who in the fifties did extensive work on tiling polyominoes. Katamino comes with a board, the 12 pentamino's and four sets of challenges (Grand Chelem, Super Chelem, Penta 9 and Challenges). Chelem is the French word for slam, as in Grand Slam.

You can also find some solutions for Katamino in pdf format at our website. Happy Puzzling!



Tags: Katamino

0-2-5 (OhTwoFive) is yet another great puzzle by The Griddle. 0-2-5 puzzles contains elements of kakuro, sum sudoku, and shape sudoku.

Object of 0-2-5 is to fill the grid with the digits 0, 2 and 5 only to add up to the
specified row and column sums. In each shape in the grid, all squares must contain the same digit. Happy Puzzling!

Tag: Sudoku

ThinkFun Block By Block by Thinkfun is yet another addition to my puzzle collection. Block By Block is based upon the world famous Soma Cube (also known as The Block).

Object is to build each of the sixty 3D structures with just seven 3D pieces. This sounds easy but I can tell you it isn't. Each of the seven pieces, based on three or four connected cubes, is unique. If you are stucked with one of the sixty puzzles there are helpful clues available on the back of the card. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Block By Block | Puzzle | Soma Cube

MonkeyMetric is a nice Flash based online puzzle game by Armor Games and is another Sokoban based puzzle game.

Object is to help the little metallic ape to escape this puzzle game. In order to reach the exits you will have to push the usual boxes or flip various switches. In the first levels it took me some time to get used to the key-controls, but later on it went fine. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: MonkeyMetric | Puzzle Game | Sokoban

Str8ts Puzzle is a Sudoku variant and is about identifying the next cells that can be deduced from the clues in the black and white cells.

The Rules are simple:
1. Rows and columns are divided into compartments of white squares.
2. Squares in compartments need to be filled in with single numbers.
3. These must complete a 'straight'. A straight is a set of numbers with no gaps and in any order.
4. No single number can repeat in any row or column.
5. Clues in black cells remove that number as an option in that row and column, and are not part of any straight.

Str8ts Puzzle has a daily on-line versions for you to solve. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Str8ts Puzzle | Sudoku

Omar Guerrero, 11, a fifth-grader at West Oak Middle School in Mundelein, asked, "How did jigsaw puzzles get their name?"

Have you ever put together a jigsaw puzzle? Small, irregularly-shaped cardboard pieces are linked to make one large picture, the same picture as the one featured on the box containing the puzzle.

Jigsaw puzzles come in all shapes and sizes. They can be round, square or rectangular. They can follow the outline of the picture, like a puzzle in the shape of a puppy or a windmill. Some puzzles are three-dimensional. There are online jigsaw puzzles. Some puzzles are very easy to put together and have large pieces that children can easily assemble. Others use thousands of pieces to complete the picture. Some are extremely difficult, using hundreds of pieces to complete a puzzle featuring a completely blank picture.

Jigsaw puzzles have been entertaining people for a very long time. The first versions had no interlocking pieces. They were pictures, usually of maps, cut into pieces.

"Jigsaw puzzles originated around 1760 in England," said Anne Williams, jigsaw puzzle historian and author of "The Jigsaw Puzzle, Piecing Together A History." The puzzles helped students to learn geography when they correctly assembled the cut-up pictures.

"The earliest ones were called dissected maps," Williams said.

The next generation of puzzles had interlocking pieces. Pictures would be glued onto a wood base. A saw with a thin blade called a coping saw or scroll saw allowed puzzle makers to cut pictures into complicated puzzles using pieces that would be notched and connect with an almost seamless fit.

During the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, inventors and entrepreneurs tried using electricity in many new ways. Electric tools made jigsaw puzzle making even easier. Using a jigsaw, a power tool with a thin blade like a coping saw, complex puzzle cuts could be made quickly and thousands of puzzles could be produced in a short amount of time.

"Most puzzles today are not wood, they are cardboard," Williams said. "And they are not cut with saws, they are stamped out on large presses. The dies look like immense cookie cutters and they cut all the pieces at once in a single pressing." [via daily herald].

If you like to read more about jigsaw puzzle please read our jigsaw puzzle page. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Jigsaw | puzzle

The New York Times has just released a new crosswords app for the iPhone and iPod touch. It is designed to closely mirror the print crossword experience, with a simple user interface and three different puzzle views. It features daily puzzles from the newspaper, 30 classic puzzles edited by Will Shortz, The Times's Crossword editor, and an additional archive of more than 4,000 puzzles.

Other features include the ability to:
- Send messages and compare your solve times with friends online.
- Compete against top players via the online leader boards.
- Listen to the in-game soundtrack or your favorite tunes from your iPod.
- write in 'pen' or 'pencil'.
- Solve puzzles on the grid or directly from the clues list.
- Highlight related clues automatically.
- Check or reveal letters, words or the entire puzzle.
- View the front page of that day's New York Times newspaper.

An interactive tutorial acquaints new customers with the features of the application. It is available for a one-time cost of US$ 9.99 through the Apple app store. The app was developed by Magmic Games. Happy Puzzling !

Tags: NYT Crossword | iPhone | iPod Touch

At SmartKit you can find an unique online Flash jigsaw puzzle.

It took over two months to design this neat twist on the jigsaw puzzle concept. Use your mouse to move the puzzle pieces around and the arrow keys to rotate a puzzle piece. Hopefully more of this kind of unique jigsaw puzzles will appear on SmartKit in the near future.

If you like to read more about jigsaw puzzle please read our jigsaw puzzle page. Happy Puzzling!

Tags: Jigsaw Puzzle