Websites

Cubrius

April 21, 2006
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Cubrius is a fun little puzzle game for the casual gamer. The object is to clear away all the colored blocks in a level by pushing them next to blocks of the same color. If you push a block so that it’s orthagonally adjacent to any other blocks of thesame color, they all disappear. Part of what makes the game interesting is that you don’t move blocks around like the finger of God. You’ve control a little guy who runs around each level pushing blocks. This places limitations on which blocks you can push in which directions. Additionally, there are blocks with special symbols on them. Blocks with an anchor can’t be moved. Blocks with a puzzle piece can only remove other blocks with a puzzle piece. Blocks that have a joker on them can eliminate any block of the same color or a block of any color with a joker on it also. Particularly cute is a block with an animal footprint on it. When you eliminate that block, you gain a little animal friend on your shoulder the color of the block you just eliminated. Going forward, any block that you push of that color will disappear regardless of whether or not it is adjacent to any other blocks. As a nice touch, the game automatically saves your progress so that you can return later and start again at the place where you left off.

As with moth of these kinds of games, there are a few levels playable for free on the site. The full game costs money, which promises more challenging levels. Still, there’s a couple hours of diversion on this site for free.

Note: After the writing of this entry, the game has changed names and location. It’s now called CuberXtreme.

Hexafex

April 19, 2006
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hexafexI got an email today urging me to try out a new puzzle called “hexafex” (conveniently located at www.hexafex.com.) The email called it “a new angle in number placement puzzles for people who are tired of squares.” It’s an interesting new puzzle played on a hexagonally shaped grid that’s divided up into triangles. Each internal junction in the grid is marked by a circle and six triangles surround each circle. Numbers are placed in some of the triangles to start and the goal is to have every digit from 1 to 6 surrounding each circle. In this way, it’s a little bit like sudoku.

Now, I’m not going to say something ridiculous like: If you like sudoku, you’ll love hexafex. But I will say this: If you love sudoku but you’re a little bit bored of it, you’ll find that hexafex is a breath of fresh air. It’s the first puzzle that I’ve seen that incorporates most of what makes sudoku so enjoyable while still managing to be a completely different kind of puzzle.

New puzzles are posted on the site daily and you can also download a demo version for their software for free. (A full version with 1200 puzzles is available at a cost.) I recommend checking it out.

Puzzles and Wine

April 15, 2006
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Ever wondered what kind of wine best complements a Sudoku?  I just came across the blog of Derrick Schneider who has a passion for food and wine and also happens to be a puzzle designer.

There’s nothing on Derrick’s site about wine/puzzle pairings; I was only joking about that… though I wonder if he’s ever thought about it.  Instead, he’s combining his passions in a way that makes a lot more sense.  He’s writing puzzles for Wine Enthusiast.  Unfortunately, I don’t subscribe to the magazine, but I might take a look at it in the book store.  And I certainly hope he succeeds in getting the food and wine crowd into puzzles.

Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzles

March 28, 2006
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Through download squad, I came across Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzles, a fantastic collection of little puzzle games for your computer. There are some that everyone will be familiar with: sudoku, minesweeper, mastermind, etc; along with some nikoli games like hashiwokakero (“bridges” in English) and some types of puzzles that I’ve never seen before. He even has a puzzle called “untangle” which seems to be identical to planarity.

Best of all, these games will most likely run on your computer regardless of your operating system. The puzzles are available for Windows, Mac OS and Unix based systems.

Untangling the web

March 15, 2006
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PlanarityI found a nice, simple puzzle game through Bernie DeKoven’s FunLog that’s sure to please anyone who feels a great sense of satisfaction after untangling a mass of yarn. The game is called Planarity and it involves a series of points that are connected by lines. At the start of each level, the points are arranged in the shape of a circle and the lines cross in a random pattern. The object is to rearrange the points such that none of the lines cross. Each level has more points than the last making each level increasingly difficult. Puzzles generally take a few minutes to solve (the first can probably be solved in seconds–more difficult levels take longer) and I like the fact that you can skip ahead to harder levels if you want to.

One Billion Mazes

February 20, 2006
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Through a homeschooling blog, I came across a website boasting one billion mazes.  I certainly don’t have time to verify this, but this seems to be true.  (Ok puzzle maniacs: If you did one maze a minute, how long would it take you to finish one billion puzzles? Answer at the bottom.)

These mazes must be computer generated (the alternatives are too hard to imagine, really.)  They are all in printable PDF form where page one is the maze and page two is the solution.  And they vary considerably in difficulty.  If you’re into mazes, check it out.  But I suggest you don’t try to solve them all.

On the same blog post that led me to the mazes, there was also a brief description of a “touch Rubik’s Cube.”  It’s a standard Rubik’s Cube that has six different materials covering the six different sides so that you can solve the puzzle without even looking at it.

(Answer to above question:  Assuming you took no breaks and lived long enough, you would finish the mazes in just over 1902 years.  Or just under two millenia, depending on how you look at it.)

Crosswords and Pixel Ads

February 16, 2006
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James Kearsley is hoping that combining pixel ads with a crossword puzzle will pay off. There have been a lot of copycats trying to cash in on the success of the Million Dollar Homepage, but Kearsley is actually adding a twist his site pixelword.com… one that involves a puzzle. Sites that sell pixel ads sell variable sized blocks of space on the page for a fixed amount of money per pixel. If the site generates a lot of buzz, lots of eyes end up on the ads placed there and the idea can work.

Kearsley has decided that he will sell ad space in a crossword grid and give you a discount if you know the letter that goes in the square you’re buying. It’s an interesting idea, but it will only pay off if it’s interesting enough to generate a good amount of buzz.

Still, the crossword is challenging and fun, even if there are a few adds sitting on it. I may give it a try myself.