Google Puzzles

Mensa Guide to Solving Sudoku: Hundreds of Puzzles Plus Techniques to Help You Crack Them All

2010-03-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

This book by Peter Gordon is pretty comprehensive. As an avid Soduku solver, I found tips that I never knew existed! Who knew they had names for solving techniques. If you love Soduku, you should give this book a read. Read more about the book including reader reviews at Amazon.

Google Bar Code

2009-10-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

Google is celebrating the invention of the bar code on its home page.

If you have a bar code scanner on your iPhone or Android phone, scan the bar code and...

If you can figure this out, you may have a future with Google.

2009-09-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

8 M L D Q 6 T U I
6 T F M L R H A A
N R A 6 Q 8 E F L
D M Q 8 6 I I 2 O 3
2 S 5 J 1 3 J X O J

via TechCrunch's Google Is Searching For Beautiful Minds, But So Far No M.I.T. Students Have Broken Its Code.

Crop Circles. 51.327629, -0.5616088. puzzle?

2009-09-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

query: crop circles

clue: 51.327629, -0.5616088

Unexplained Phenomenon. Puzzle?

2009-09-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

query: unexplained phenomenon

Clue:
twitter @google: 1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 28

2006-12-01T23:24:00.000-08:00

Trilands:
You must flood the giant island until you are left with 6 islands, each with three huts.

Rules.
Touching lands are considered to be part of the same island.

How to Play.
You may click on a hut to flood it; click it again to unflood it.

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 27

2006-11-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

Bridges:
Construct bridges on the open sea so that each island has the specified number of bridges connected to it.

Rules.
Bridges go vertically or horizonally. If an island is numbered, that many bridges (and no more) must connect to it.

How to Play.
All empty water spaces must be labeled with a bridge before the puzzle can be considered solved. Click on a water space to cycle between bridges and water. The numbers will turn yellow-green or red (depending on whether it is satisfied) when you have constructed all the bridges around that island.

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 26

2006-11-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

Mini Kakuro 4:
Since so many users had problems with the puzzle rendering last week, I've decided to keep them here this week, with 12 more puzzles added for those of you who managed to make them work.

Rules.
Place the given digits into the grid so that no digit appears more than once in any "word" and that the sum of the digits in the word match the indicated sum. For example, a three-digit 8 might be "152", or "215", or "431".

How to Play.
Drag letters from the "palette" on the left into the grid to place them. You'll know you've solved it when all the sums turn green. Click on a cell to get a keyboard-sensitive cursor. You can click on "Shrink" to make the grid smaller (for those of you with small screens).

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 25

2006-11-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

Mini Kakuro 3: The twist in these Kakuro puzzles is that low numbers are used frequently, while you only have a few copies of the big numbers.

Rules.
Place the given digits into the grid so that no digit appears more than once in any "word" and that the sum of the digits in the word match the indicated sum. Sometimes there is one digit left over; don't let that rattle you.

How to Play.
Drag letters from the "palette" on the left into the grid to place them. You'll know you've solved it when all the sums turn green. Click on a cell to get a keyboard-sensitive cursor.

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 24

2006-11-03T23:31:00.000-08:00

Whyme Rhyme 2: Find the non-rhyming pairs of words that only differ in their first letter, such as LEMON DEMON.

Rules.
The words may or may not be proper nouns. Pronunciations are assumed to be standard American English, but these pairs will fail to rhyme in almost all dialects of English. (For more Whyme Rhymes, check out the archive.)

How to Play.
Simply type your guess in the box. Spaces and capitalization don't count, but spelling does! You can try as much as you want without penalty. If you have solved a puzzle already and want to see the original clue, try parking your mouse over the answer.

In the direction of milquetoasts
A serviceman stationed closer to the tropics
Description for teeth that could be a bit whiter
The right person to be reaching
Famous actor from Sheffield
Starbucks® concoction that isn't very shiny
Attempts to popularize grassy plants
What to press a doorbell with
A new sort of miserable dwelling
Pours out trigonometric functions
Mexican food from a city in central Texas
An amazing thing that one likes better

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 23

2006-10-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

October 27, 2006:

Hidden Insults:
Name the famous person, given a somewhat-insulting word hidden in their name. For instance, VIEW can be found in "SteVIE Wonder."

Rules.
The hidden word always spans a space in the original name, but there are no extra letters added or removed. You'll get 10, 7, 4, 3, 2, or 1 points depending on how many hints you've revealed. There may be more than one famous person with the hidden insult, but I've tried to pick the most famous one in each case. The first clue is always the (main) profession of the person.

How to Play.
Simply type your guess in the box. Spaces and capitalization don't count, but spelling does! You can try as much as you want without penalty. You can also switch back-and-forth between puzzles without penalty (assuming that the new Google Gadgets User Preference code holds up).

Answers / Solutions: Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Looking for a new blog owner

2006-10-26T16:31:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I have been really really busy at work and I am not able to contribute as much time as I would like to the Blog. :( If there is a puzzle Blog fan(s) that would like to pick up this Blog, let me know. I can give you all the stats on the Blog. Thank you and happy puzzle solving.

Puzzle Solver Wannabe

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 22

2006-10-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

October 20, 2006:

Mini Battleships:
Fifty small Battleships puzzles! Place the six-ship fleet into the grid.

Rules.
Ships can be oriented vertically or horizontally. The numbers along the side tell you how many "ship parts" are in that respective row or column. Ships are never adjacent to each other, not even diagonally. Some ship components and blank spaces are given to you and cannot be changed.

How to Play.
All 36 squares must be labeled before the puzzle is considered solved. Click on an empty space to mark it with a ship part. Click on a brown ship part to mark it with an ocean ('x'). Click on an brown ocean mark to make it empty. Right-click has the reverse effect of click. As you surround a ship part with ocean, it will be automatically shaped to fit. The numbers will turn green or red depending on how many ship parts you've

Answers / Solutions: Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 21

2006-10-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

October 13, 2006:

No fancy puzzle this week; I just got back from being part of Team USA at the 15th World Puzzle Championship. But here's a rather basic puzzle from the competition I can share:
What is next in this sequence? 15, 16, 17, 21, 23, 30, 33, 120, ?

Answers / Solutions: Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 20

2006-10-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

October 06, 2006:

Mister Mind.

Introduction.
Mister Mind has challenged you to guess his secret color code. For each guess of yours he's given indicator pegs on the side; but, the evil Mister Mind always adds an extra peg just to keep things confusing. You only have one guess left, so you better make sure it's correct!

Rules.
The rules are similar to Mastermind®; a black peg indicates that a color is in the correct position, while a white peg stands for a color that is correct but in the wrong position. The only difference is that each row always has an extra peg, which can be white or black. No guesswork is required; there's always enough information for you to be able to deduce the correct code.

How to Play.
You may click on the cells of the rows to "make notes" -- the background can be cycled among three different colors. When you are ready to submit your answer, click on the colored pegs on the right to submit your answer. You may click the arrow to "backspace"; however, once you click the fourth color, it will be submitted instantly, so be careful! The stats are for entertainment purposes only, and are pretty easy to cheat -- so you're only cheating yourself.

Answers / Solutions: Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 19

2006-09-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2006:

Word Wreck Tangle: Drag the letters into the rectangle so that words read both across and down.

How to Play.
Purple letters only move up-and-down, while green letters only move left and right. Click and drag a colored letter to move it. You win if four five-letter English words read left-to-right along the rows and five four-letter words read down along the columns.

Answers / Solutions: Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 18

2006-09-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

September 22, 2006:

Last Chessman Standing: Invented by Vesa Timonen. Have the pieces capture each other until there is only one. No moves, only captures.

How to Play.
Click and drag a piece onto another to capture it. Pieces capture as in standard chess, but color can be ignored. When the button is held on a piece, the legal captures will turn black. You'll be notified if there are no more moves.

Answers / Solutions: Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 17

2006-09-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

September 15, 2006:

Pipe Spin: Spin the pipes such that all pipes become green.

Rules: One pipe has a "water source" (colored green), and anything connected to that pipe also gets water. To win, all pipes must be connected. On harder levels, pipes may "wrap around" (connections above reconnect to connections below, and same for left-to-right). To win, all pipes must get to the "water source".

How to Play: Click on a pipe to rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. After choosing a new puzzle, you may have to resize your browser window a bit to force the refresh.

The pipe images are not showing as of writing this entry. Wei-Hwa, images are not showing...

Answers / Solutions:

Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solvepuzzles page.

Due to the random puzzles, answers will be different based on your pipe layout. Example of a solved puzzle:

I will post the solutions later.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 16

2006-09-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

September 08, 2006:

Mini Battleships: To solve these small Battleships puzzles, place the six-ship fleet into the grid.

Rules: Ships can be oriented vertically or horizontally. The numbers along the side tell you how many "ship parts" are in that respective row or column. Ships are never adjacent to each other, not even diagonally. Some ship components and blank spaces are given to you and cannot be changed.

How to Play: All 36 squares must be labeled before the puzzle is considered solved. Click on an empty space to mark it with ocean ('x'). Click on a brown ocean space to mark it with a ship part. Click on a brown ship part to make it empty. Click on "Reset" (in the lower-right) to reset the puzzle. The numbers will turn green or red depending on how many ship parts you've placed.

Answers / Solutions:
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/ OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 15

2006-09-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

September 01, 2006:
Cross-O Change-O: I started with one category name and five items in the category, and I wrote their names across six columns. Then I mixed each group of letters in each column, and I also rearranged the columns. See if you can rearrange everything back.

Based on Cross-O, a puzzle type invented by Will Shortz in the 1980s. Drag on the blue column headers to rearrange them.

Hints:
This puzzle is hard. You really have to play around with the words. I wrote down the possible combinations and after a while, you will start to see a pattern.

Answers / Solutions:
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 14

2006-08-25T17:00:00.001-07:00

August 25, 2006:

Mini Kakuro 2: Due to popular demand, here are some Mini Kakuro puzzles that have some more variety (and are a bit easier) than the last batch. Place the given digits into the grid so that no digit appears more than once in any "word" and that the sum of the digits in the word match the indicated sum.

Hints:
Click on the box until a grey box with a white question mark appears. Type in the number and it should appear. (Only works with main keyboard numbers. Not numpad). To delete a number, click on the number or replace it.

Answers / Solutions:
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 13

2006-08-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2006:Confounded Compounds 2: This is just like the original Confounded Compounds, except that now I'm using nine-letter words, and the components aren't always four letters. But like the last one, the components won't have much relation to the actual word.

adorable
lady
affirm
literature
ambulatory
lowfat
barrow
nucleus
castigate
panorama
choose
pinnacle
complain
postpone
considering
pronounce
cultivate
raiment
devil
reassemble
docket
ringleader
elevated
speculate
entrust
straps
fellow
tessellate
frogman
underpays
groove
went on

When you think you have a 9-letter word, enter it here. If you're right, it will appear next to the appropriate pair.

Need help? Try dragging the words around to swap their positions. A correct pair will turn green, while a correctly-paired set in the wrong order will turn yellow.

Answers / Solutions:
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page

Code for Puzzle 12

2006-08-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

The optimal number of moves needed to solve puzzle 12 is 15. Here are some files for puzzle 12.

Perl Code by Dave at d0sboots
C Code and Java Applet by David at Puzzling Addiction
Solution Diagram by CoreyPlover

Hidden Puzzle 11:

Anyone solve hidden puzzle number 11?

Looking at the hint section for puzzle 11 at the official puzzle page, hidden characters were displayed as a different typeface. The typeface was a poor selection because the only clear difference is the i’s and l’s. To see this hidden message, highlight the text in the frame and rectangles will appear over these hidden characters. (Does not work with IE. Get Firefox with Google Toolbar)

Put these letters together (dont forget 'n' in'can' at the end of line 4) and it reads:

"HIDDEN PUZZLE IN HTML"

Still no answers. Join the Discussion.

Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 12

2006-08-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

August 11, 2006: Bolt Swap: This little gem was shown to me by Markus Götz. Swap the positions of the white and black kings in as few moves as possible -- however, there is a hidden rule that governs whether a king can be moved or not. Try to discover the rule; it will be pretty hard to solve the puzzle without knowing it!

Hints:
I still cant figure out the hidden rule but it has to do with having all 3 pieces of the same colored kings connected with each other. With some luck, I solved it without knowing what I did. I am going to post my answer and if someone can clarify what I did and get the answer in fewer steps, let me know. I am curious to find out the hidden rule. I solved it in 24 but I think 24 is BAD.

Current Best: 15 (Dave)

Answers / Solutions:
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. Full answers will be posted on the solve puzzles page.

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page

A break from puzzles. Not!

2006-08-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

Looks like we will have a break from puzzles. BUT! Looking at the source code there is a puzzle!

Good job finding the hidden message and this message too!

Here's your bonus hidden puzzle:

I have a card in my pocket with the numbers from 1 through 48 written
on it. Some of the numbers are red, some are blue.  They are arranged
in a grid like this:

14   25    8  ( 1)   4    5
41  ( 6)  35   30  (27) (26)
(29) (18)  47  (42)  39  (38)
21   32  ( 3)  10  ( 7)  12
(34) (23) (40) (45)  48  (43)
( 2)  37   20  (13)  16   17
( 9)  44  (15)  22  (19)  24
46  (11) (28) (33)  36  (31)

The numbers in parentheses are red.

What is this card used for?

(This puzzle is based on an actual card I got from Will Strijbos.)

Better Visual:

Red Numbers:
1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 38, 40, 42, 43, 45

Blue Numbers:
4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 44, 46, 47, 48

Test your friends! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com
Play Old Puzzles! Go to: http://solvepuzzles.googlepages.com/puzzle OR The Official Page