Websites

Puzzlinks Roundup (weekly)

February 19, 2012
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Puzzlinks Roundup (weekly)

February 8, 2009
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Figure Ground

February 3, 2009
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Figure Ground is a unique new puzzle game from Ian Gilman.  The concept is simple, moved colored blocks around on the right to match an image on the left.  There are a couple catches though.  When blocks of the same color are laid next to each other, they are permanently attached.  Also, moving blocks of one color reveal blocks of a different color beneath.

Puzzlinks Roundup (weekly)

January 25, 2009
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Puzzlinks Roundup (weekly)

January 18, 2009
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Puzzlinks Roundup (weekly)

January 11, 2009
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Web Kendoku

January 3, 2009
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Anyone who keeps an eye on the comments on this blog has probably found this site already, but I would just like to draw your attention to the Web Kendoku site.  It’s a site that lets you play Kenken puzzles on the web.  Enjoy!

Treasure Challenge

December 10, 2008
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I got an email a while back about a site called Treasure Challenge that offered cash prizes for solving puzzles.  I just tried the puzzle for the first time today.  The site requires you to create a user to log in.  You are then presented with the treasure challenges for the week.  It will either tell you who solved the challenge or when the challenge will be active, or it will let you try the challenge.

First, you are presented with a series of trivia questions that shouldn’t be too difficult for anyone connected to the internet.  Some of the questions require you to click on an ad link.  The answer to the question takes you to a page that contains the answer.  For example, today’s treasure challenge was cleary sponsored by Amazon and all links went to their site.  This is, apparently, how the site makes money.  After you answer the trivia questions, you are presented with a riddle for which you only get one guess per day.

After this, thinks get a bit murky.  I haven’t gone any further, so I can’t say for certain what happens.  The rules say something about a FASTCASH round and multiple clues.  If you want to find out what that means, I suppose you’ll have to play.

Wordplay Blog

November 24, 2008
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The New York Times has started up a new blog called Wordplay and it is, not surprisingly, a crossword puzzle themed blog.  I looked through some of the previous posts and most of them seem to be about the NYT crossword that day, with a few news items about Will Shortz sprinkled in.

Texas Holdem Puzzles on the web

November 18, 2008
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Back in January, I wrote about an idea for Texas Holdem puzzles.  One of the recent coments on that post directed me to a site with puzzles exactly like the ones I described.  Check it out.

Puzzles of Leonid Mochalov

October 15, 2008
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I got an email from Leonid Mochalov, a Russian puzzle inventor.  He was drawing my attention to his web site which features many original puzzles, some of which are very unique.

The puzzle types on his page include Squarewords, a sudoku like puzzle involving words, and Express-Labyrinth, a maze-like puzzle that requires you to visit every square in a grid.  The site also shows us a number of Mochalov’s block puzzles including a “Chess Cube” that you can print out and try to construct for yourself.

The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library

September 8, 2008
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Through mathpuzzle.com, I discovered that the Cambridge Univesity Press is releasing a new series of books called The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library.  Over at the Cambridege Press blog, they are giving away some of the books to those who can solve some of Martin Gardner’s famous puzzles.

The URL Riddle

September 2, 2008
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I got an email about a new site called The URL Riddle.  It’s one of those sites where each page presents you with a riddle and the answer to the riddle is the next page that you need to go to.

The author is looking for feedback, so post any thoughts on the site here.  One thing that I noticed was that on sites like this, players can often feel like they are making no progress.  It’s often good to have pages up for answers that players are likely to guess with a short message and maybe another hint.  I’ve emailed the author with this suggestion, so maybe we eill see improvements soon.

Smartkit Puzzle Book

August 28, 2008
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Smartkit has put together a puzzle book with 79 of the best puzzles from their site.  Check it out.

Logic-Puzzles.org

August 25, 2008
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Logic-Puzzles.org is a great new site that is dedicated to logic grid puzzles.  These puzzles feature a set of assertions, generally about a group of people and what kind of pets they have, what color hats they wear, etc.  The goal is to determine from the limited set of assertions, which pet each person has, etc.  There is a grid that accompanies the puzzle that helps you solve it.

Logic-Puzzles.org provides a seemingly unlimited amount of these puzzles and a great interface for playing them.  The grid is provided for you and you can fill it out on the site.  The site will also keep time, so that you know how long it takes you to solve a puzzle.  I would highly recommend checking it out.