Jigsaw puzzle sites on the web are fairly common, but when I got an email from National Geographic asking me to check out the jigsaw puzzles on their site, I was immediately interested.  I’ve always equated National Geographic with fantastic photographs, so I was expecting to see some really great looking online jigsaw puzzles.  I wasn’t disappointed.  The jigsaw puzzles are in a section of the National Geographic site called “Your Shot” that features photos submitted by readers.  Editors then select among the submitted photos which will appear on the site.  The result is some pretty amazing pictures.

National Geographic has also clearly put some time into developing their jigsaw puzzle interface.  It’s what you would expect from a high quality online jigsaw program.  It’s easy to use and intuitive and there are options for adjusting difficulty.

If you like jigsaw puzzles, it’s worth checking out.  If only for the pictures.

I came across a new kind of puzzle called shinro that can be found in Southwest Airline magazines.  According to the magazine, shinro is Japanese for “compass bearing.”  The puzzle involves finding holes in a square grid.  Like battleship puzzles, the number of holes in each row and column are indicated.  In addition, there are a number of arrows in the grid that point to at least one hole.

I can’t find any other examples of this specific kind of puzzle on the web.  So, I’m interested to hear if anyone else has found some.  I’m also interested in trying to make some of my own shinro or shinro-like puzzles.  So keep an eye out for that.

A new puzzle game has been launched to promote the upcoming sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight.  The puzzle begins at a site called whysoserious.com and it seems to involve finding and photographing actual locations around the country.  Enjoy!

Just Crosswords is another great site for crossword lovers.  It’s got about 300 free crossword puzzles on it grouped into variously themed categories.  The puzzles can be played on the site in your browser, using a web applet that’s pretty well done.  The down side is that most of the puzzle grids are not terrible dense, in that they have quite a lot of black spaces in them.  And, as with most free crossword puzzles, the difficulty level is not terribly high.