 |
Games, Games, More Games...
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
|
Sunday I was visiting with some of my young nephews and my niece, and one of them said to me: "Why didn't you post a notice about the new game on The Problem Site?"
My mistake. :D
So, in case you didn't notice it, you'll want to check out this game: The Picture Word Game - Find the secret word to uncover the secret picture.
I wanted to let everyone know that with three thousand Entrapment Puzzles on the site, people have been working very hard at solving them. As of today, there are only 73 Entrapments which have never been solved. Keep up the good work, and lets see if we can bring that number down to ZERO!
(And for those who were skeptical that they could all be solved, I hope you're starting to believe now!)
Finally, I wanted to let everyone know, if you are not yet a subscriber at Quote Puzzler, or your subscription is scheduled to expire before Christmas of 2007, I strongly encourage you to subscribe (or resubscribe, as the case may be) before December 1st.
Why? Because on December 1st, I will have a special treat that will be available to subscribed members only.
Am I going to tell you what it is? NOPE! I'm not! :DLabels: entrapment, picture word game, quote-puzzler, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
|
|
Congratulations, High Scorers
Friday, September 14, 2007
|
Well, my congratulations go out to Kaleb and Bryce - the first members at The Problem Site to beat my high score on the Adders! Math Game!
Nice going, guys! (And to the member whose screen name is DouglasIsGoingDown...you're getting close, but not quite there yet! :)
It looks like VICKY is starting to catch up with globuggie in the Entrapment game...
But I'm afraid no one is even in the ballpark to catch DO in the Trio Match game!
For those who are trying to catch DO, be sure to read the hints in the instructions section of the game, because there's no way to catch him without either clearing the board out several times OR creating lots of multiple trios!
Good luck!
DougLabels: adders, entrapment, high scores, theproblemsite, trio match
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
|
|
Puzzle Progress - Tracking System
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
|
Some are wondering how your progress through the puzzles is tracked at The Problem Site. After all, if you login to your membership account, the puzzles still seem to come in a seemingly random order. You don't get Puzzle #1, followed by Puzzle #2, Puzzle #3, etc. So what is going on?
Well, for some puzzles (like Entrapment) the puzzles are sorted in order of difficulty, and you start with the easiest, and move toward the hardest. But what happens if you get a "mental block", and can't figure out puzzle #25? Are you stuck on that puzzle until you solve it?
I didn't want people to have to sit and stare at the same puzzle until they got it, if they wanted to skip it and come back later. So here's how this works...
Instead of giving you the puzzles in order, the site randomly selects a puzzle from the first 30 or 40 unsolved puzzles, and presents it to you. If you get it, great - the site then picks another unsolved puzzle. If you don't get it, the site will go back and grab another unsolved puzzle...but since you've left that puzzle unsolved, the site will periodically grab it again (random luck of the draw) and give it to you again. Eventually you'll be forced to overcome your mental block and get that puzzle done.
So it appears to be random, but actually it's designed to give you a more enjoyable ride! :)
And, while I'm on the subject, I'm pleased to announce that the Side By Side Puzzles now include an option (like Entrapment) to track your progress through the 1200(ish) puzzles. Just make sure you're logged into your member account, and the site will keep track of your progress!Labels: entrapment, side by side, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
|
|
Tough Puzzle, More Geometry
Monday, June 18, 2007
|
A Tough Puzzle
Last week some of the people at Tile Puzzler started playing around with some more complex "Free Style" puzzles. Puzzles involving shapes with six square units, seven square units, etc. Some of these have been really interesting. karill created a puzzle titled NineNineNine, which consisted of a square (nine by nine, of course) which was created with nine pieces, and each of those pieces had an area of nine square units.
That puzzle stayed in the unsolved list for ALMOST an entire week (which is practically unheard of!)
Give it a try, if you want a bit of a challenge!
NineNineNine
Some More Entrapment Geometry
Entrapment continues to be a popular game at The Problem Site.
I've added in a feature to track how much time you took, and the average time for each puzzle. This way you can compare how you did with how everyone else did.
I wanted to show you another Entrapment puzzle. Take a look at this screen shot:
This might look a bit intimidating, but remember, we start by looking for triangles. In this case, we can find three similar triangles. Did you find them?
The next thing you might notice is that one of the triangles is in reverse orientation. You see that? Guess what! This is the triangle that you should start with. Can you entrap that triangle?
ANd with only two dots left, can you entrap the rest of the computer's dots? You bet you can!
What was the point of that little exercise? Not much - just to point out, again, that the Entrapment puzzles are most easily solved by focusing on triangles!
By the way, when I solve the Challenge puzzles, generally it takes me somewhere between twenty seconds and a minute, although once in awhile I get one that takes me five or six minutes to solve! What about you? How long does it take you to solve an Entrapment puzzle?Labels: entrapment, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
|
|
Geometry Of Midpoints
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
|
Last week a new puzzle titled Entrapment was posted on The Problem Site. This new puzzle has already become a big hit on the site, more than I anticipated. Within just a few days there were already close to 2000 puzzle solutions submitted.
On the puzzle page I gave the following hint:
Start out by trying some of the "Practice" puzzles. These are all puzzles which contain exactly three red and three gray dots. What you will discover is that most puzzle solutions are built around triangles, so if you can master the easy puzzles, the more challenging puzzles can be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces.
I thought I would elaborate on that just a little bit, because the Geometry of the Entrapment Puzzle is quite interesting. The Geometry of Entrapment is the Geometry of Midpoints, and of Triangles.
Take a look at the following image, which shows three completed "Practice" puzzles:
What do you notice about each of these solutions? First, you should notice that the three red dots form a triangle (of course! Three points in a plane always determine a triangle!). Second, of course, the gray dots form a triangle as well. What should also be apparent is that the gray triangle is similar to the the red triangle. And when I say "similar", I'm using the geometric definition of the word similar. These two triangles have congruent angles, and equal ratios of sides.
In fact, if you think about it for a moment, you'll be able to figure out what that ratio of sides is. Are you thinking about it? If you're not sure, you can scroll down to the bottom of this post, where you'll find the answer.
Now, the other thing which is interesting and helpful is the fact that if you pick any two red dots and draw a segment connecting them, there will be two gray dots that define a segment parallel to that segment. Take a look at the picture if you don't believe me. Remember that from your Geometry class?
All of a sudden you should realize why the "Practice" puzzles are called "Practice" puzzles - once you understand the Geometry of the situation, there is very little Problem Solving involved; you can solve each one of the Practice puzzles by counting distances and creating parallel segments.
So why bother with the Practice puzzles? Because if you can get the hang of entrapping triangles, the other puzzles get much easier. Take a look at this puzzle:
A puzzle like this can look very intimidating - and some are even more intimidating than this. But if you can quickly locate triangles to entrap, the puzzle gets easier. Here's an example:
It took me only moments to recognize that triangle which could be entrapped. Note the similar triangle, the common ratio, and the parallel sides. From there I would start placing other dots to maximize the number of red dots entrapped. But it all starts with finding a triangle you can entrap.
When I first started solving these puzzles, I thought This is insane - these beastly things are unsolveable! In reality, even the most challenging Entrapment puzzles can be solved within a minute or two, if you can find the correct triangle to start with!
Have fun ENTRAPPING!
Ratio of Sides: Well? What is the ratio of sides? Did you say 2:1? If you did, you are correct. I won't take the time to do a proof here, but it's well known that a segment connecting midpoints of two sides of a triangle has half the length of the third side.Labels: entrapment, geometry, theproblemsite
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
|
|
Getting Ready For Summer
Monday, May 28, 2007
|
Those who have been around the Puzzler Sites for awhile know that when summer hits, I "disappear" for a few weeks. This summer I'm going to be "camp pastor" at several different camps over the course of a month and a half.
What does that mean for the sites? It means that, although I will be checking in on the sites regularly, you shouldn't expect to see any new puzzles appear on the site for the next few months. Here is a little bit of information about the sites to get you through the summer...
BrainFood
The BrainFood Page is about to shut down for the summer; this week's puzzle is the very last one before summer vacation. The next puzzle will appear in September. If you would like to be reminded when the BrainFood page has new puzzles again, you can either use the "subscribe" link to put the BrainFood puzzles into your favorite feed reader, or you can email me(dtwitchell@virtu-software.com). Be sure to specify that you're emailing me because you want to be reminded when BrainFood is back online.
 | Click the email icon to send me an email asking to be put on the BrainFood reminder list. |
On that subject, I haven't decided what sorts of puzzles I'm going to do next fall, so if you have any ideas, drop me an email!
Entrapment Puzzle
If you missed the previous post in this blog, there is a new game on The Problem Site. The game is called ENTRAPMENT, and the goal of the game is to "trap" each of the computer's red dots between your gray dots. Sounds simple, right? Especially when I tell you that you can move your dots, but the computer doesn't move its dots, right?
Turns out it's a little more complex than that, and I won't say any more, except to tell you to go check it out, and also to show you a screenshot of a completed puzzle:
Tile Puzzler
I'm very excited to see the sheer number of puzzles which have been created/solved at Tile Puzzler, since the site went online a few months ago. I think we now have enough puzzles that I can select the cream of the crop and start a "Daily Puzzle" competition complete with high score list (but, unlike Quote Puzzler, without prizes). If you would like to be notified when the daily Tile Puzzler competition starts up, send me an email.
| Click the email icon to send me an email asking to be put on the Tile Puzzler notification list. |
Also, feel free to continue adding puzzles througout the summer. Who knows - some of your puzzles may make it into the competition!
Note: During the summer months you can expect that creation of Tri Puzzles, FreeStyle Puzzles, and Overlap Puzzles will be restricted to members only. This is to keep the site from being flooded with pathetically easy or painfully impossible puzzles. If you want to create these style puzzles, just create a member account and login!
The Puzzler Store
This site will be getting a major overhaul towards the end of the summer; I am putting together a team of product reviewers who are going to be writing reviews of puzzle/educational products. Some of these reviewers are already receiving products directly from publishers to review for this site. Coming in the fall you can expect to see reviews of several math and science tutorial DVDs, and probably a variety of other products.
The Problem Site
As you may have noticed, all the puzzler sites (Tile Puzzler, Quote Puzzler and The Puzzler Store) have very similar page layouts - same color scheme, same background image, same border styles, etc. The Problem Site is, strictly speaking, the very first of the puzzler sites, yet it has a very different layout.
I've been toying with the idea of rebuilding the site layout so it matches the other sites. Any opinions?Labels: brainfood, entrapment, puzzler-store, theproblemsite, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
|
| |
| The Puzzler Blog |
The Puzzler Blog gives information about what's new at Virtu Software's puzzle sites.
You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the syndication icon below.
|
|
