RESOURCES
Game and
puzzle sites


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Gabriel Fernandes, an avid puzzle collector living in Portugal, has a stylish, beautifully illustrated blog of puzzle reviews he writes with verve and enthusiasm. And he really works out and solves all those puzzles, so he knows them inside and out. You will not find a better authority on the essence of any puzzle that he writes about. See him also on Facebook.

Franjos is an excellent small game company in Germany. The founder and proprietor is Franz-Josef Herbst. They have intelligent strategy games, mostly on finely tooled leather gameboards. The site is in German, copiously illustrated. Need translation? Click on this Babelfish.

Free Puzzles is Jimmie Dean's extensive website of puzzles. He has over 210 posted, with over a thousand collected so far. They include puzzles on math, geometry, logic, weights/volume, moves, word puzzles and a miscellaneous collection. Most of the math solutions are available. Jimmie's motto is, "Increase your IQ by playing puzzles." Many of his puzzles do look like questions from IQ and SAT tests.

Christian Freeling's website, MindSports, has got to be one of the slickest, jazziest, wittiest sites we've come across, one of the pioneers in online interactivity having to do with games. All in English though based in The Netherlands, it's packed with games, puzzles, chess variants, new games created by Christian, all good stuff you can download or play online. Web designer par excellence is Ed van Zon.

Galileo Educational Network is a Canadian non-profit organization that consists of thought-leading educators and a high-profile Board of Directors. The Galileo Educational Network creates, promotes and disseminates innovative teaching and learning practices through research, professional learning and fostering external collaborations. Galileo works with students, teachers and policy makers across Canada both onsite and online.

Geduldspiele presents a huge gallery of 2-dimensional puzzles, several from the International Puzzle Party's design competitions and many created by the world's top puzzle designers. Keep scrolling to browse an exquisite line-up of eye candy and mind candy. A goodly number of Kadon's are there, too.

Grabarchuk Puzzles is the lively, highly informative "pinboard" page of the Grabarchuk puzzle family. Lots of puzzles described, plus puzzle apps, puzzle books, puzzle sites, and a list of the world's top puzzlers. There's even a page dedicated to amazing "inspirations" of puzzling artistry.

Hanging Hyena presents John Hackett's solving programs for Scrabble, Hangman, Boggle, word jumbles and word analysis, including solvers for popular mobile games. There's also a lively blog dedicated to word games and even cheat programs to let you find the trickiest words to stump a player, and the best guessing strategies.

Eric Harshbarger's website has a growing collection of pentomino articles and a dazzling portfolio of Lego sculptures. One of his pentomino questions won the Gamepuzzles Annual Pentomino Excellence award for best new pentomino problem proposed in the year 2004.


Hedraweb is Dave Smith's blog of luscious tessellations, polyhedra, shapes and patterns, beautifully illustrated. Feast your eyes and nourish your mind on the varieties of geometric assemblies. Regrettably, an occasional ad shows up.
 

Harvey Heinz has a great website on magic squares, magic stars, magic cubes, and all sorts of number patterns, such as knight's tours. He gives their history and dazzling examples of solutions. It's awesome to realize how far back these ideas go. Those ancients had some smarts.

Hexboard provides both very beautiful Hex gameboards and opportunities for online play. The boards are laser-engraved and meant to be pieces of art. Each board is uniquely numbered and can be registered. Tony VanderValk of the Netherlands offers them as tribute to this now-classic connection game concept, a cousin to our own Game of Y and *Star.

HipSoft has the coolest downloadable computer games—"family fun for everyone"—that are also educational on three counts: word games, spatial puzzles, general knowledge ("trivia" but not trivial). HipSoft won our Gamepuzzles Annual Pentomino Excellence award in 2005 for Puzzle Express. Bryan Bouwman, Brian Goble and Garrett Price are the creative minds behind this most worthwhile enterprise. Check out their whole line-up. Try the games for free, buy them at very reasonable prices.

Hoagies' Gifted Education Page is dedicated to "all things gifted"— over 1150 pages of information on gifted children and adults, including 650 pages of Hoagies' Page collection, plus 500 pages of the Educational Resources Information Center's (ERIC) Clearinghouse for Disabilities and Gifted Education. Read the Blog Hops, find a wealth of material in the Hoagies' Shop, an excellent Shopping Guide, and a special page for educators with help for educators, counselors, psychologists, and administrators of the gifted. Founder and Director, Carolyn K., has made the award-winning Hoagies' Gifted Education Page a labor of love for decades. She is available to speak at conferences on many areas of gifted education and parenting.

Hop's Links — It's the strangest thing:  the publisher of the Ajo Copper News, a very small weekly newspaper originally about copper mining in Ajo, Arizona, has a great fondness for Escher and all matters geometric. Hollister David has a great collection of links to all the best resources on tessellations, fractals, Fibonacci numbers, polyhedra, math and art, and asteroids. Out yonder in southern Arizona is one of the hottest outposts of the math, art and puzzle world.
 

Dave Huffman has created a beautiful game, Osiron, with a unique way of moving by exchanging places with the other player's pieces — and Dave makes them in a gorgeous pottery form, veritable art gallery ceramics. Take a look, read his interesting philosophy, and maybe even order a set.

 
Glenn Iba is a much-published and honored scholar on artificial intelligence, machine learning, mathematics and computer science. He has a special interest in puzzles and games. Play his Grand Tour Path Puzzles, in square and hex formats. Connect dots to form a single closed path that visits every dot exactly once. Some permanent connectors are in place to make each solution unique. Easy to play—just click between dots to add or remove a link. Many levels of challenge; visit often and work your way up. Great fun and stimulation for your brain. Glenn has also contributed the lovely Hexmate challenges for our Hexdominoes set.

Jaap's Puzzle Page specializes in mechanical puzzles, primarily sequential movement types. Jaap Scherphuis, who is a collector in his own right, has included a wealth of links to all kinds of puzzle sites and descriptions and solutions. He's based in the Netherlands, a major center of Cube lovers.

JDB Games is the brainchild of J. David Barnhart, dedicated to developing and selling a new generation of multi-dimensional, abstract strategy boardgames. The innovative games they show range in price, construction, and complexity, from a colorful cloth board design you can wear as a scarf ("GRYB") to finely crafted space-age sculptures that play in 3-D ("Time Vectors" and "Crystal Draughts"). Fascinating. Also read their excellent essay on the educational benefits of such games.

Michael Keller's Solitaire Laboratory is an authoritative site for FreeCell and other solitaires, with a wealth of research and background material. You can also buy original game software for Windows that Michael has written, available on diskette or by email.

Scott Kim, puzzle master, designs visual thinking puzzles for the web and print, with software, books, toys, a newsletter, articles and reviews. Scott is also famous for his "inversion" writing that reads the same right-side-up and backwards, like his name icon here. Also check out his YouTube channel on Game Thinking, a system for designing high-retention products based on game design, the consulting business that Scott and his wife, Dr. Amy Jo Kim, conduct for helping businesses large and small to thrive.

Sam Loyd (1841-1911) was American's most prolific and inventive puzzle creator, and now there is a brilliantly designed website as his legacy. See his original designs to exercise your brain.


Ayliean MacDonald
, a dedicated math (excuse me, "maths") researcher in Scotland, has produced a Complete User's Guide to Pentagons. See it as a 44-page slide show (four videos may not be accessible). Enjoy the rest of the show. Click through with your down arrow.

Math Education Page is Henri Picciotto's labor of love, enriched by his 42 years of experience as a math educator, puzzle designer, trainer, speaker, curriculum developer, author and consultant. Check out his blog. See also his intriguing Polyarcs puzzle made by Kadon.

Mathematical Games and Recreations is part of an extensive online archive of the history of mathematics, maintained by John J. O'Connor, Ph.D., of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and by Edmund Robinson. It gives highlights of mathematicians and their games, from thousands of years ago to the Rubik's Cube. A few inaccuracies hang on. A selective bibliography expands the lore.

Mathematics HQ is a huge reference library, a directory of sites related to mathematics in all its forms. From A Maths Dictionary For Kids to World Of Mathematics, it lists sources of everything from books, games, lessons to tutors, software and more.

Mathpuzzle.com is Ed Pegg Jr.'s website of fascinating and beautiful mathematical puzzles, replete with links to other interesting sites, contests, discoveries, on-going research, and news about other math and puzzle people. Ed was a consultant on the popular NUMB3RS TV program.

Medieval Games is Ron Knight's lovingly compiled reference site in his persona as Baron Modar Neznanich and includes board games, activity and sports games, card games and more from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Modar also connects to the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) who started it all—the entire Renaissance Faire and historical reconstruction genre.

Uwe Meffert has built a beautiful website as a world resource for puzzles. He's the inventor of the Pyraminx and many other well-known sequential movement puzzles. Meffert's was also a sponsor of the Mind Sports Olympiad for the year 2000. His site has a large number of links to other interesting puzzle-related sites, and you can buy his puzzles online. He also links to a site sharing knowledge for the betterment of humanity. Very interesting.

Leonid Mochalov is a prolific Russian puzzle creator with over 50 mechanical puzzles to his credit, plus a large variety of brainteasers, including labyrinths, mazes, dominoes, rebuses, cut-up puzzles and more, shown on his site. Generously he also provides solutions. His puzzles have been popular in Russia for decades, and now all over the world. Most of his site is in English as well. You can't buy his puzzles there, just enjoy viewing them and trying to solve them. When Leonid is not puzzling, he's fishing.

Paul Nylander has assembled a website full of the most gorgeous math art, including tessellations, 3D minimal surfaces, hyperbolic artwork, fractals, fluid motion, Mathematica codes and, yes, bugs. Sumptuously illustrated, with links to the works of the world's most eminent math art creators. Feast your eyes and mind.

PathPix is an amazing puzzle site created by Kris Pixton, a very talented artist, potter, software pioneer and thinker, and formerly a fellow exhibitor of Kate's in many arts and crafts shows. Kris has developed hundreds of clever picture puzzles you solve by using logical deduction. Delightful original styles of solving: PathPix, PrismaPix, LOOPical, SlitherQuest, MixAPix, PairABox, LunaPix challenge your logic in different picturesque ways. All the while, serene classical music plays, though you can mute it. When completed, a pixel-patterned picture becomes visible, with a literary quotation to the theme. We're hooked! The free download demo versions contain 25 beautiful puzzles to get you started. Sizes and difficulty levels vary. And you can order hundreds more for a very gentle price.

Peter's Puzzle and Polyform Pages is Peter F. Esser's extensive and loving overview of all manners polyform and some variants. This German website includes an ambitious gallery of solutions for puzzles with over 100 pieces, a group of online puzzles you can play (make sure your Java is up to date), and several solver programs.

The Wade Philpott collection is maintained by the University of Calgary's library as part of its recreational mathematics section. These are the personal papers of the late Wade Philpott, one of the pioneers in recreational mathematics in the 20th century, containing his original manuscripts on the findings of decades of research. The library has done an efficient job in identifying and cataloguing a wide range of topics. Wade's major contributions were in extended research on MacMahon Squares and Triangles (published by Kadon Enterprises, Inc., in the instruction books for Multimatch I and Multimatch III), exhaustive research on domino puzzles, polyominoes and other polyforms, and the peg solitaires on a 6x6 grid (also published by Kadon in the game set Leap and included in Oxford University's compendium on The Ins and Outs of Peg Solitaire). Philpott was also a pioneer in developing search programs for computer-derived puzzle solutions.

Play DOS Games is a rare find.Their goal is to offer its users the possibility to play old MS-DOS games in a modern way, online in their browser. Many websites offer online games these days, but few also offer the possibility to bring back some good memories of their childhood. There are 575 games on file here in 18 categories, dating back to 1983, for you to play. They even have Kadon's Blockout challenge, that's like the grandfather of Tetris. (Yes, they have Tetris, too.) And it's all free, though they gratefully accept donations. Also check out their discussion forum.

The Poly Pages, Andrew Clarke's website, is intended to become the most authoritative source of reference material on the history, solutions and challenges of polyform puzzles, by the master himself. Andrew is world-famous for having found some of the most beautiful, extraordinary solutions to the largest polyominoes, polyhexes, polyiamonds and more. His site also collects the findings of other top polyformists. He lives in Australia.

Polyform Curiosities by George Sicherman contains an ever-growing collection of research and discoveries of all the major polyform puzzles and their constantly surprising possibilities. George's research covers new material for polyominoes, polyiamonds, polyaboloes or polytans, polyhexes, polylines or polysticks, polycubes, polyominoids, and polyrhons. George has catalogued convexities, symmetries, exclusions, wallpaper groups and much more with thoroughness and attractive graphics. Also see links to other important sites. This is one of the most authoritative reference sources for polyforms on the Web.

Polyform Puzzler is David Goodger's site for solving any polyform puzzle, with an overview of the best-known types and a solver program you can download as freeware. If you know geekspeak, you'll be right at home. For others, the beautiful graphics of the solutions shown are a delight.

Frank Potts is a puzzle fan, collector, and purveyor of 18 different categories of mechanical puzzles on his well-organized, easy-to-navigate "Potty Puzzles" website. And he ranges over every other kind of puzzle, with links to an amazing world of varieties, and some you can even play right on his website. Frank is based in England and accepts PayPal. Visit him (online, that is) and enjoy yourself.

Pluredro is the clean and beautifully arranged website of Junichi Yananose, featuring his mechanical puzzles and educational toys. Based in Queensland, Australia, Junichi is one of the world's foremost designers and crafters of classic burr puzzles and 3D boxes, all with his inimitable surprising twist and exquisite wood craftsmanship. Ordering couldn't be easier, and you can even use PayPal and seven kinds of world currency.

PuzzleBeast is James Stephens' cool collection of computer-generated puzzles you can play right there. Sliding block, rolling cube, maze puzzles of all kinds, and jumping puzzles. Try his "Fried Okra Perplexity"; it comes with a recipe.

Puzzle Master in Canada has a large and unique collection of wire and wood brain teasers, including puzzle boxes, puzzle rings, and books. They also carry specialty jigsaws and chess sets, and have online solutions of many puzzles. Owner and puzzle collector Allan Stein started out making and selling his puzzles at craft shows, too.

The Puzzle Museum is home to the world's finest collection of Mechanical Puzzles, also known as "Chinese Puzzles", "Puzzle Objects", "Real Puzzles", and "Practical Puzzles" from 320 BC to tomorrow's prototypes. The site is an ever-growing display of the world-class puzzle collection of James Dalgety, curator, and the late Edward Hordern. Learn about puzzle classifications, tour the hands-on exhibits, visit the Swap&Shop puzzle store, admire puzzle art, and see over 4500 puzzles currently on display. Just for fun, lose yourself by starting on the "Random" link—you'll never know where it will take you! There's also a links page to designers and sellers.

Puzzle Perfect will enlarge and turn your photos into jigsaw puzzles. Choose anywhere from 6-piece to 1000-piece formats, to please youngest players and adult puzzlers. Custom-made from the photos you provide, with quick delivery and reasonable prices. A personalized puzzle to solve and display of favorite moments in your family's life is a great present.

Puzzle University is a lively website with online puzzles, contests and features that simulate a university. Win weekly prizes, contribute puzzles, join a chatroom. Directed by Dr. Amy Galitzer.

Puzzle World is the Internet's most extensive mechanical puzzle site, managed by John Rausch, who personally knows just about everyone in the world of puzzles. The site includes links to many collectors, puzzle designers and sources, and is laid out beautifully and intelligently.

Puzzles.com is an outreach of ThinkFun, Inc. (formerly Binary Arts) and is now in the capable and creative hands of Serhiy Grabarchuk, Jr. It has six major sectors: Puzzles in Education, PuzzleClub, PlayGround, Projects, Puzzle Links and Puzzle Help. There are news, discussions, puzzles from and for the Club's members; original puzzles, illusions, tricks, and scientific toys; and a place to buy puzzles and diversions. Serhiy's vision is to develop this site as a creative, educational environment with both original content and links to other great puzzle sites on the Internet.




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