It’s still a few months away, but publicity has already started for the Sudoku National Championship in Philly on October 24-25.  The championship will include guest appearances by Will Shortz and Maki Kaji, credited as “the man who gave sudoku its name.”  (The creator of sudoku is actually American Howard Garns.)

It looks like they learned a lot in the first go around and have made a number of improvements for this years competition.  Most notable are help determining which level you belong in and a prize structure that awards more to the third place winner in the advanced level than the first place winner in the intermediate level.

It’s coming up this Saturday, June 14th, and you can do it in the comfort of your own home.  This is always my favorite puzzle day of the year.  Registration is open through June 12th.  Winners who are US citizens get a spot on the US team for the world puzzle competition.  But even those outside the US can take part.

For fans of picross puzzles (also sometimes called logic art or nonograms), the Wii Picross site is not to be missed.  The site has a great interface for solving the puzzles online and it allows users to create and submit their own puzzles.  As a result there are over 3500 puzzles available to play on the site.

The site is currently running a contest for puzzle submissions with the theme “Where You Are.”  Prizes include a Nintendo DS game or picross books.  Submissions will be accepted until May 18th.  Enjoy!

After coming off of my brief hiatus, I discover that the World Sudoku Championships have already come and gone.  Congratulations Thomas Snyder and the Czech Republic for their victories in the individual and team competitions respectively.

I just got a tip about a “mystery hunt” style puzzle game called Clue Chaser.  The game requires players to solve a series of puzzles and the first one to solve them all wins a prize.  The creators of the game are looking to have a competition every three months or so.  Game 1 has already been completed and it took about 32 days.  Game 2 begins on April 1st.

Yahoo is promoting their new search engine with a crossword puzzle. The crossword is presented in conjunction with the New York Times and was written by Will Shortz and Fred Piscop. The puzzle is incorporated into Yahoo’s search so that if you get stuck and need a clue, it’s only a click and a Yahoo search away.

It’s a small puzzle (9×9 grid) and it’s not terribly difficult. Expert cruciverbalists probably won’t need the clues. It’s worth noting here that “clues” here actually give you the answer. The real motivation is to show how effective Yahoo search is. When you click to “get a clue”, you are shown how easy it is to use Yahoo search to come up with the answer. It’s actually worth trying on some of them just to see how well it works. Also, any letters that you enter immediately come up in red, allowing the puzzle to be solved by trial and error.

The puzzle has a Hawaiian theme and if you finish the puzzle, you are given the option to enter a drawing where you can win a trip for two to Hawaii. So, there may be more to gain here than a few minutes of fun.

I mentioned back in May that the first US Sudoku National Championship would be happening this October. Well, it’s happening this weekend. The event page mentions Will Shortz and Merl Reagle prominently (there is even a Q&A with Reagle), so I’m guessing that the event is trying to gain some publicity from the cruciverbalist corner. The site also mentions Wei-Hwa Huang and Thomas Snyder who are, no doubt, the odds-on favorites to win the competition.

I’m currently lamenting the fact that I no longer live in Philly, or I would be there for it this weekend. Still, I’m curious to see what happens and if there will be any dark horse contenders.

The College Puzzle Challenge is coming up next month.  You need to be enrolled in a participating college to field an official team, but there are plenty of puzzles on the site that would certainly interest outsiders.

It’s been a while since my last post, and I haven’t yet written anything about the launch of Eternity II.  The site is up and you can try a mini version of the puzzle there.  The makers seem to have learned their lesson from last time and there’s no possibility of the puzzle being solved too early.  Solution submission will only be checked beginning on Dec. 31, 2008.

In this day and age, it’s likely that we will know if someone solves the puzzle early, as the person will likely brag about it on the internet.  I’ll be curious to find out how the puzzle is solved once the solution is revealed.  No doubt, a final solution will be computer assisted like the last Eternity puzzle.  There’s already a site set up to try to rope other players into using their spare computer cycles to solve the problem with brute force (via Passion For Puzzles.)  As this guy will be keeping a full half of the prize money (with most contestants getting nothing,) I expect to see competitors in the near future.

The Golden Jigsaw is a puzzle competition that starts at 12 noon today.  The competition requires you to find 1,000 jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered around the web and assemble them.  The first to find and assemble all of the pieces will win $1,000,000.

Most of the pieces are, of course, located on the sites of paying advertisers, as this is how the prize money gets paid.  The final ten pieces will be located on charity websites.

Last year, Google teamed up with Columbia Pictures to promote The Da Vinci Code with an online puzzle game.  This year, Google has teamed up with Universal Pictures to promote the new movie The Bourne Ultimatum, with an online puzzle game called The Ultimate Search for Bourne.

For the game, you take on the role of an agent trying to find Jason Bourne.  You do this with the help of tools provided by Google.  The game has you searching fake web sites for information on surveillance agents and the like.  Successfully playing the game each day allows you to place surveillance cameras in different locations with the hope of spotting Bourne on one of them.

The prizes for the game are similar to last years prizes for the Da Vinci Code Challenge.  They include, cash, a car, and trips to the major cities featured in the movies.  There are also additional daily prizes of $1000 gift cards.  And a special sightings prize of an iPhone for which anyone with over 25 sightings of Bourne is eligible.  The prizes this year are given out in sweepstakes fashion, so it’s really all luck whether or not you win.

The game has been only running a few days, and the challenges so far have not been terribly challenging, though there are some very interesting tools on the game display that have not yet been used.  All in all, a little less puzzley than last years game, but still worth a look.

The 2007 Google US Puzzle Championship is coming up this month.  The competition will be held at 1PM EDT on June 16th and, as always, puzzlers compete from their own homes (or wherever they choose.)  To compete, you need to register by June 14th.  Winners will represent the US in the World Puzzle Championship held in Brazil this year.  As always, it will be fun just competing in the competition as the puzzles are sure to be great.  The puzzles from past competitions can be found here.

Here’s a quick update on Volvo’s treasure hunt.  Apparently, the final puzzle was so hard that none of the finalists were able to solve it and the treasure remains unfound.  There will be a rematch today with a new puzzle to see if a winner can be found.  The final puzzles will be posted The Hunt web site, when the treasure is found.

The Philadelphia Inquirer will be sponsoring a National Sudoku Championship hosted by Will Shortz.  The event will take place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 19-21.  This is the first National Sudoku Championship in the US and prizes will range from $100 to $10,000, which goes to the winner along with a trip to the World Championships next year in India.

Last year, in connection with the release of Pirates of the Carribean: Dean Man’s Chest, Vovlo buried one of their cars and set up a series of puzzle games for contestants to play.

This year, in connection with the release of Pirates of the Carribean: World’s End, Volvo has dumped a chest full of gold (and a set of car keys) in the ocean for a lucky contestant to find. There will be online puzzle games again. And, of course, a quest to your local Volvo dealer will be a requirement, just like last time.

The contest begins next week, but the sign up page is already live.