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.

Erno Rubik, inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, has developed a new puzzle that is coming soon to a store near you.  The puzzle is called Rubik’s 360.  There aren’t a whole lot of details about the puzzle, but from pictures it appears to be a clear plastic ball with smaller colored balls inside.  The goal is to get each ball into the appropriately colored ring on the surface of the larger ball.

Almost three years ago, I posted about a puzzle alarm clock. Now Mensa is taking a crack at the same basic idea. To turn your alarm off, you have to solve a puzzle insuring that you are really awake. The puzzle for this alarm clock is a Simon-like puzzle as opposed to a jigsaw puzzle.

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!

Here’s a great post for anyone who likes woodworking and making puzzles.  The author of the post has gathered free puzzle plans from around the web.  It’s worth taking a look at, even if you don’t intend to make any of the puzzles as many fun designs are on display.

SmartKit is featuring a new puzzle by Peter Grabarchuk called Strimko.  It’s a sudoku variation where, instead of the traditional square grid divided into sections, there’s a grid of circles connected by lines.  The circles that are connected by lines create the equivalent of the internal sections.

Here’s a silly item for the puzzle lover’s holiday gift list that I found on BoingBoing Gadgets.  It’s a toilet paper holder with a puzzle.  In order to gain access to the toilet paper, you have to solve the puzzle.  I guess that’s good motivation.

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.

ThinkFun is having a contest to see who can solve their 36 Cube puzzle.  The 36 cube puzzle requires you to arrange a collection of “towers” in a 6X6 block.  Each tower is a different color and a different height, which leads us to the two rules you need to follow.  The first is that a color may appear only one in each row or column.  The second is that all of the towers must be placed so that they are all a uniform height.  The places for the towers in the cube are already at varying elevtions, such that each row or column will have only have one tower of a particular height.  The completed puzzle will then be a cube.

The first 36 contestants who can prove that they solved the puzzle will win a ThinkFun Game Club kit for the school of their choice.

The Griddle has another sudoku variation up called Quad Clue Sudoku.  This variation features a six by six sudoku grid with four numbers at some of the grid intersection points.  These four numbers correspond to the four numbers in the four ajoining squares.  It’s another way of providing starting clues, without telling you exactly where they are.  Enjoy!

iRectangles is yet another puzzle app for the iPhone.  This app is based on the nikoli puzzle sikaku.  For the puzzle, you are given a grid of arbitrary size.  Some of the individual squares in the grid have numbers in them.  These numbers correspond to the number of squares in a rectangle.  The object of the puzzle is to section off the grid into a collection of rectangles such that each rectangle has a single number in it that is the rectangle’s area.  There should be no spaces left over in the grid.

I’ve found a couple sites, just by googling, that has some examples of the puzzle that you can try.  And, of course, there is always the iPhone app.

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.

Tredoku is another sudoku variation.  In a tredoku puzzle, the grid is laid out in varrying three dimensional patterns.  The same rules still apply.  The same numbers can not appear in the same rows or columns or the same internal square.  In Tredoku, rows and columns continue even over 90 degree turns in the grid.

The main advantage here is that grid orientations are virtually endless.  And it’s a little bit neater than massively overlapping sudoku grids.  There’s currently a tredoku blog set up where you can go and try some of the puzzles.  Enjoy!

From the MAKE blog: A new puzzle called Trigears.  Trigears is a set of three gears that must be positioned so that all three gears mesh at a single point and the gears do not jam when they spin.  One of the creators notes that there are no other puzzles like it.  I can’t think of one.  The puzzles were made in a very limited run so, if you want to buy one at Puzzle Palace, it will cost you $425.

You read that right.  Will Shortz and Merl Reagle will be guest starring in a crossword themed episode of The Simpsons this weekend.  In addition, the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle will be related to the show somehow.  Read more about it here.