Game and
puzzle sites
Page 1 of 3 (A-E)
Page 3 of 3 (Q-Z)
Jean-Louis Sigrist has an amazing and attractive website devoted to math, magic, education, geometry and puzzles, all in French but so generously illustrated that you probably won't need the words, or you can brush off your high-school French. Many puzzles and magic tricks are interactive online. Then there's his golf page.
Torsten Sillke has a wide-ranging website of recreational mathematics subjects and links, including an index of Martin Gardner's books. He also has a large page of tantalizing unsolved problems. Want to try some?
Eric Solomon is a prolific and talented game inventor, website designer, cutting-edge programmer, and champion sportsman. His superb website shows many of his publications, and java applets let you play several original games online, or even buy them. There's also a highly selective list of links to other great sites. Eric is a bit irked that Kadon's "Game of Solomon" was named after that other fellow.
Spidron describes an amazing tiling with two kinds of triangles that can also fold into a solid figure and into a relief pattern of mountain and valley folds, and they can be bent to curve space. The Spidron system was discovered by Daniel Erdely of Hungary and first presented at the Twelfth International Conference on Crystal Growth in 1998. This webpage illustrates many of its surprising manifestations.SurfNetKids.com is a merry site full of entertaining and educational activities for kids. It's the brainchild of columnist Barbara Feldman and includes arts, crafts, music, games, lots of interactive games, languages, math, science, history, the calendar, word games, a blog, links, jokes, a journal, a book club, and many other topics, as well as sound advice. Yes, you can even solve Pentominoes rectangles here. And there is a large section on one of our favorite things, tessellations, and activities for creating your own. There are lots of ads and pop-ups around to pay for all the good free stuff.
Robert Stegmann is a serious collector of mechanical puzzles, and his richly illustrated website, "Robert's Puzzle Page," shows his collection and has links to many sources.
Terry Stickels is an author and speaker who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of improving one's mental flexibility and creative problem-solving skills...and making it fun. His books, calendars, card decks, newspaper columns and website are filled with fun and challenging puzzles that stretch the minds of even the best thinkers. His book of Frame Games came out in 2006, and the puzzles appear in daily newspapers. His 2009 Frame Games Calendar (release date, August 2008) is shown at right. You can order any of his books directly from Terry on his website. And try out his brilliant brainteasers while you're there. They'll get your brain working in fun new ways.
Tangrams is a passionate site by Randy Crawford, with a history, links, books, downloads, sets for sale, and hundreds of shapes to solve with the seven historic geometric tiles.
Ten Millions of Tangram Patterns is how Franco Cocchini's site started out. Then it went to tens of millions, and now up to a billion, making this the most extensive online collection for this classic puzzle, with classifications such as convex (see figures at right), fully matched, most compact and more. Franco has a second site, Tanzzle, with galleries, downloads, activities for kids, silhouette of the week, and the unique silhouette maker software, Tangle 'n Tanzzle, that lets you make your own shapes. And the collection keeps growing — all with just 7 pieces!
Mark Thompson's website has reviews and descriptions of many abstract strategy games, including Kadon's Game of Y, and a section on mathematical recreations. Mark is a math and computer science teacher in Chicago, and a member of Mensa. One section on "Great Thoughts" is a collection of philosophical musings. I particularly liked this observation: "The wisest thing anyone could say has been said on Star Trek: TNG: 'The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth.”'"
TilePuzzles.com is for sliding block puzzle lovers. Here's a collection of over 40 different sliding tile puzzles and games in various formats, from the traditional 15 puzzle of number squares to wood blocks, picture tiles, and trains, from an easy introductory puzzle to the hardest tile games imaginable. Collect medals in the Tile Championships, submit your score to the Hi Scores. Attractively designed, no ads, and it's free. TilePuzzles is a project of OriginalGames.Totally Tessellated is a celebration of tilings, patterns, Escher, mosaics, and joyous creativity. Take the time to let the many lovely designs load; it's worth the wait. There are also links to many related sites. Even more remarkable: this site was built by students as the 1998 ThinkQuest Internet Challenge and won a first-place award.
Aad van de Wetering's home page offers for free download several programs for solving polyform puzzles. He also shares his pleasure in a large variety of puzzles and games with interesting and illustrated descriptions...all in Dutch. Not to worry—you can enjoy the graphics, and the solving programs are easy to identify because key words are the same: polyominoes, polyiamonds, polyhexes.
William Waite, an American mathematician/musician/humorist, has a quaint and curious site of fun and fantasy surrounding puzzles and mysteries. Nemmelgeb Murr is a mythic land 3 trillion lightyears away and has inspired William to design geometric puzzles in boxes, lasercut wood tiling puzzles, music puzzles and "artifacts," several available for secure ordering on his site. Solve his maze puzzle and maybe win a prize.Martin Watson's eclectic British website is homey, personal, colorful, a whimsical combination of blog, diary, photo album, newsy miscellanies, sundry links, a collage of Martin's interests and doings, and a catalog of puzzles Martin collects and designs. Get a dose of British humor, literature and history while you're there.
Richard Whiting's jazzy website, full of flash and animation, is titled Puzzle Grail, the quest for the ultimate puzzle. It shows a nice sampling of Richard's collection by categories, and selected solutions to the really thorny ones.
Wildwords is the brainchild of Peter Roizen. This crossword game goes beyond Scrabble® in having asterisk tiles that serve as wildcards for one or more letters. Peter has designed a great play-online version, with full directions. Two players anywhere in the world can get online and play each other in realtime. Also available for download.
Judy Wyckoff is a fascinating lady with interesting hobbies, like puzzles, photography and astronomy. Her website illustrates her large puzzle collection by major categories (she has many of Kadon's, too), and viewing her collection of painstakingly made photos of cosmic objects is like having your own Hubble telescope. She does all this against great odds. Treat yourself to many visits.
Zillions of Games is Jeff Mallett and Mark Lefler's super site for an exciting game package for Windows (various versions, regularly updated) that uses an absolutely unique "universal gaming engine" technology, allowing you to play nearly any abstract board game or puzzle in the world. Buy the package, download hundreds of games for free and get updates for free. Jeff also has contests for game inventors and designers using the ZOG system. Visitors can vote for their favorites.Livio Zucca has a marvelous homepage bursting with polyform puzzle ideas, sets, questions, and computer-generated solutions. Beautifully illustrated. Some arrangements have hundreds and even thousands of pieces. It took one heck of a programmer to derive these solutions. Treat yourself to a long visit with this mind-boggling eye candy. Most pages date from 2000 and 2001 and are still as fresh as the future.
