I have been asked when I will be teaching classes again. Soon, I hope.
It has been said to “teach what you know.”
After my extended bout of flu fighting, I am most familiar with solving pencil and paper puzzles though I use a pen for the added challenge.
So anyone want to know some techniques for solving puzzles?
My favorite kinds of puzzles are:
Sudoku aka Number Place
Place numbers into a grid without repeating a digit in any row or column
Jigsaw Sudoku aka Loco Sudoku
Place numbers into an irregular grid
3-D Sudoku
A delightful twist on Sudoku
Killer Sudoku aka Sum-Doku
A cross between Sudoku and Kakuro
Paint by Numbers aka Nonogram, Logic Art, Paint-Doku, PicCross
Deduce which dots to color to make a picture appear
Loose Tile
Deduce the positions of domino tiles in a box
Brick by Brick
Like a crossword with the answer given to you in 2x3 blocks
Letterboxes aka Tanglewords
Fit words into a grid, like a word seek in reverse
Places Please
A slightly different format of a Letterbox
Missing Vowels Word Seek
Find words, but all of the vowels have been removed
Fill-in
Fit intersecting words into a grid
Crosspatches aka Framework, Kriss Kross
Fit words into a sparse grid
Kakuro aka Cross Sums
Fit numbers into a grid with no repeating digits and the digits adding up to a specific sum
Trigons
Determine the values of the edges of triangular pieces
Collectibles
A constrained logic puzzle
Battleships
Determine the position of a fleet of ships in a section of ocean
Some time ago, I created some web pages about some of them:
http://home.earthlink.net/~deiresearch/puzzles/paintbynumbers/index.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~deiresearch/puzzles/crosssums/index.htm
I also have one on Sudoku, but apparently never got around to uploading it.