Puzzles? - Internet Fun

Puzzles? - Internet Fun


Who hasn't enjoyed a game or two of cyber-Solitaire?
Often,
this is one's first experience on the computer.
Playing Solitaire can give you practice
with initial lessons in computing like using your mouse,
dragging and dropping, etc.
Plus it is fun.
That is one of the most important lessons
to learn about computing!

And the fun of computing does not stop with Solitaire.
You are going to be amazed at all the fun sites
I am going to share with you.
These Web sites offer simple games and puzzles
that exercise the mind as well as allow a break from
the work-a-day world.
On top of that, these sites are
FREE.
So get your browser in gear and sharpen your skills;
we are going to enjoy the Internet World of Free Puzzles.

Getting Started

Don't shy away
from any of these fascinating puzzles
just because you may not be familiar with them.
Almost all have easy-to-follow directions,
and many have excellent introductions
and areas where you can check out the rules.
Often you just click on the puzzle
or maze to open it.
Get ready to use your arrow keys on the keyboard
or those shown on the screen
because there is a lot of cursor moving involved.
Many programs use sound effects that
can be turned off if you find them
a distraction to all your heavy thinking.

Mazes

Clickmazes
(http://www.clickmazes.com/index.htm)
offers Web-based interactive puzzles and mazes.
This site
has been stumping surfers since 1997,
and if you enjoy mazes,
this is your Web spot.
The home page offers over twenty different types of mazes.

The Plank Puzzles
are fun as you try to find a route across
a crocodile infested swamp with only a handful
of often too short planks.
Fortunately,
the planks are light and old tree-stumps
in the swamp will support the boards to serve
as temporary bridges.
By planning carefully and re-using the planks,
you can find your way across the swamp.

Moving up in the world of mazes,
you may want to try the 3D tilt mazes
where you use three layers that tilt causing
a slide/roll motion and are interlinked with lift and drop points.
One maze looked especially easy
until I realized left turns are not allowed.

Another fun maze is
The Sliding Door Maze
where you start as a black dot trapped
at the bottom of the maze.
Whenever you move the black dot over a colored dot,
the gate of that color will shift in the direction
indicated on the dot.
Better have a strategy about which way you want
those doors to slide or you will never get through.

For Mac OSX users,
there is a downloadable PuzzleBox games pack.
This PuzzleBox contains a wide variety of games,
one of which is Socoban.
In the puzzle world,
you might bump into this type game more than once.
Socoban is Japanese for
"warehouseman,"
and these puzzles involve guiding a man
who is pushing cartons through the twisting
corridors of strange warehouses.

Illusions

You are not going to believe your eyes,
and you shouldn't…
or
maybe you should.

At the Illusion Puzzles site,
(http://infohost.nmt.edu/~armiller/illusion.htm)
you can enjoy two interactive antique illusion puzzles.

The Vanishing Egg Puzzle and
the Jockeys and Mules Puzzle
have baffled generations of puzzle enthusiasts.
(You will need to download a Shockwave plug-in that is supplied,
if you do not already have Shockwave on your computer.)
Believe it or not,
I did figure out the Jockeys and Mules.

Don't forget while you are tackling these illusions
that your gray matter is getting a beneficial workout.
Illusions are a way to look at how the brain works;
illusions reveal hidden constraints of the visual system
in a way that normal perception fails to do.
We continue to be fascinated by illusions because
they combine both the element of joy as well as the element of surprise.

Mensa
(http://www.mensa.org/)
Have we sparked your puzzle and problem solving interests?
Want to find out if you are Mensa material?
Mensa was founded in England in 1946
as a society for bright people;
the only qualification for membership was
a high IQ.
The society welcomes people from every walk of life
whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population.
Want to find out if you might be Mensa-minded?
There is a Mensa Web site
that offers a test of your mental capabilities.
The Mensa site challenges you with thirty questions
to be complete in thirty minutes - that is one a minute.
(See what a good puzzle solver I am?)
In response to the first question,
"Sriram likes 225 but not 224; he likes 900 but not 800,
he likes 144, but not 145,
which does he like - 1600 or 1700?"
(I'll give you a hint: don't be a "square" about this.)
I spent more than a minute on that one.
How about you?

Riddles
(www.riddles.com)
Looking for lighter puzzling?
Remember those riddles you learned as a child?
There are enough riddles at this riddle site
to remind you of your youth as well as
to keep you busy for a very long time.
These are classic riddles.
Most of them have a solution hot link to confirm that
you are right or rescue you from your curiosity
if you cannot think of an answer.
Here's a fun one:
"Who makes it, has no need of it.
Who buys it, has no use for it.
Who uses it, can neither see nor feel it."
I'll give you the answer at the end of this article.

Puzzles
(http://www.greylabyrinth.com/)
No,
the Grey Labyrinth is not a maze site
as you would expect, but a puzzle site.
This site should keep you busy with
its twenty most recent puzzles along with their solutions.
The Grey Labyrinth
always posts one current puzzle
that is unsolved.
See if you can deduce the answer before it is posted.

A site called Puzzles.com (http://www.puzzles.com/)
is a treasure of classic and modern puzzles.
This site claims to be the world's best resource
for puzzling on the Internet.
How about tricky and clever puzzles,
baffling and perplexing illusions,
unbelievable and incredible tricks,
fascinating and cognitive toys,
and many other puzzle related things?
This site's focus is on the funny,
entertaining, intellectual,
and educational side of puzzles.

A fun puzzle at this site was
the Knossos Labyrinth.
You are an architect and you have to restore
the labyrinth from fragments of an old plan.
You have to decide how to make your
way around those ancient walls.
Puzzles.com offers other puzzles like
Eight Cards, a true classic.
Despite the fact you need only simple arithmetic skills
to get to the solution, Eight Cards will have you thinking
slightly out of the box.
The Diamond Puzzle,
Three Hares,
Testa, and many others
will challenge you.

Remember those math puzzles
that stumped you back in high school?
For some reason,
they seem more fun now
(maybe because they do not count
toward your course grade).
Some of them seem just as hard.
Remember the traditional crossing river puzzles?
Try Puzzle Help to get your brain calculating.
A puzzle called Grace, Helen,
and Mary will challenge you
to figure out how old each girl is.

AARP
also knows the value of intellectual enjoyment.
Don't miss the Games section of AARP's
My Generations magazine
where you can exercise your brain with interactive daily
crossword puzzles as well as jigsaws where you click,
drag, and drop to complete pictures.
Why not print out entertainment for your offline time?
AARP offers print and play word searches
along with print and play crosswords from both
Modern Maturity and My Generations.
AARP supplies the answers to all their print and play puzzles.
Just click the solution hyperlink.

Had Enough?

Is your mind stimulated?

Are you tantalized and intrigued?

Do you feel like you have changed
the flow of neurons in your brain?

Puzzle aficionados claim all this is possible through puzzles.
And they claim puzzles can easily be habit forming.

One thing is for sure, puzzles are fun
and educational and often entice you to think
"outside the box."
Oh, that reminds me,
the answer to the earlier riddle is also a box
...a black box…
a coffin.


Sriram Savarkar
Hinduism is more a way of life than a method of worship.
Dharmo Rakshati Rakshithaha
If you protect Dharma, Dharma will in turn protect you.
Hindus, If people slap you once, slap them twice!