Ponoko's Puzzle & Game Contest

Ponoko, an Internet laser cutting shop is in the midst of a Design Challenge for puzzles and games. I've been meaning for a while to look into doing a laser-cut version of my WIM game (below), so I made up a laser-cutting design for it and also created two other puzzles for the competition, one a brand new puzzle, the other a rework of a paper puzzle that I created a few years ago for the National Puzzlers' League convention.

I invented WIM a few years ago, inspired by my long-standing interest in ambigrams (you can see several "Roy" ambigrams in the header of this blog). I created the first version with a Sharpie and blank wooden tiles. After play-testing and some tweaks, the next version was created with a better grade of wooden tiles and transparent labels run through my laser printer. It took many hours to put the sets together, but they look very professional, as you can see in the picture.


WIM is in the "word tiles" family of games. In WIM, key tiles can be read in more than one direction, sometimes as different letters, which means you can play words "every which way." Scoring is similar to games like Scrabble, but there is no board and players receive bonuses for using a previously played tile as a letter it wasn’t used as previously, for changing the orientation of a word, or for using all seven tiles on their rack in a single play.

The picture above shows a partial game. You could probably immediately see the words NIECE, ZEBRA, and JAY, but, given that monitors don't rotate, it may take a little to read everything else. Tilt your head one way for DOZES and the other way for SKIS, FOOTING, and COP. Reading upside down, you can find HUBBY, DOVE, and EONS. Trust me, it works a lot better on a table than on a monitor.

WIM isn't the first game that I've invented, but it was the first that I actually think is good. I'm looking into doing a small run of WIM on Ponoko. Stay tuned for that.

Next up: Word Dominoes. In this puzzle, you get a set of 20 dominoes that look a lot like regular dominoes, except they have words instead of pips. The dominoes combine, in pairs, to form phrases and compounds words. Lay out the dominoes to make a solid rectangle, five words wide by eight words high, in which all connected dominoes form phrases and compound words. There is only one solution.
Finally, there's Puzzle Coasters, a completely new puzzle consisting of a set of jigsaw-puzzle shaped coasters with letters on them. My goal was to make an attractive "coffee table puzzle" -- one you could leave out and have fun just playing with, but also one with a real, relatively difficult challenge built in. You can use them as coasters or combine them to form words, as shown below. Or, arrange them to form a 4x4 double word square, which I'm relatively sure can only be done in one way. If people are interested in getting sets of coasters, I might make some.


Unfortunately, none of my puzzles made it into the finals of the contest. I was actually a little surprised at some that did make it. Here are my thoughts on the ones that made it, plus some that didn't. To see the entries I'm talking about, go here. You can see just the 17 finalists, on the Ponoko blog.

Zen - Clever, well executed, but not a puzzle. I do think it works as a solitaire game (what interesting shapes can I make?)
Portrait Puzzle - Clever and attractive use of halftoning (could be beautiful when finished), but not really a puzzle since the spiral means that any piece's location can be determined pretty much independently. Had this been done with the diamond shapes of the Zen puzzle (it's the same designer), it could have been a devilishly clever and fun puzzle, especially if the cut lines came between halftone dots.
Ponoku Anyone - Personally, I think it's silly. If there are no givens, it may be unsolvable, or there may be many solutions.
Marble Madness - One of the best ideas, but the question is how well the construction actually works.
Tessa - Nice use of the tessellations, but it's neither a puzzle nor a game. To make it a puzzle, the shape should have morphed from edge to edge like Escher frequently did.
Underground Maze - Interesting and original, though clearly not a difficult puzzle.
Crane Mobile and Pteradactyl - I like these very much as kids toys, especially if no other materials are required for assembly. But, I don't see them as either puzzles or games. More interesting would be a kit that you could make many things from. (btw, it's Ptero-, not Ptera-)
Layer Puzzle - One of the best puzzles here, but may be easier than it looks. This may be a puzzle you can solve again and again.
California County Puzzle - The "puzzle" part of this was provided by Ponoko. The rest doesn't do much for me.
Match the Typeface - I don't think this works. It's clearly for kids, but I think they'll be frustrated that the cutouts aren't deep enough to really hold the letters.
Build (h)and Share - I like this idea. Tolerances may be an issue for construction and solving.
Grimly Dominoes and Erik & Styx Double-sided Puzzle - Are Grimlies something famous that I don't know about? The dominoes don't interest me. The puzzle isn't much of a puzzle, especially with the large percentage of blank squares.
Puzzle Box - Nice idea. Clever description too. Again, the question is how well it actually works. And it looks very simple (though there may be components not shown that make it more complex).
InterlaceCircle - Also one of the best. Looks like fun. Could also be a repeat solve.
Gears - Interesting and Innovative idea. I'm concerned that it might not actually work because of the force applied to the 26 gears over the range of the entire puzzle. A puzzle with fewer gears and larger gear teeth might work better. Might work better as a set of puzzles rather than a single puzzle.

So, in my opinion, some great puzzles (and a few I wouldn't mind owning if they work out as well in final form as I think they will), and some duds. Here are the best puzzles that didn't make it (excluding my own :-)

Crocodile Ball - I'd like to see a photo of an actual puzzle, but it could be very interesting.
The One That Got Away - Yeah, it's a ripoff of a classic Sam Loyd puzzle (and hardly the first such ripoff), but it's well executed and would be fun, particularly for kids.
Dante's Icosahedron - Looks like a fun construction, though tolerances might be an issue for it to stay together.
Binary Dominoes - An interesting twist on dominoes. Might be fun to play upside down, where all you have is the binary edges (and especially so if you play "touch move"). Using triangles instead of squares for the bits might allow it to be more tolerant of tolerances.
Stacking Acrylic Puzzle - Very nice idea, but I think the need to glue pieces together is its downfall. It would also work better if it wasn't so uniform.
Catclump - Could be a great puzzle (but could also be made much more attractive).
Viking Journey - Nice puzzle in the genre of sliding block puzzles. Would be better if the set itself enforced non-rotation, as puzzles with rectangular shapes do.
Om Mani Padme Hum - I have no idea what that means and it's hard to tell how well this will work, but, if it does, it could be very, very cool.
Architext: a word-building game - I'm not sure about this one. The description sounds intriguing, but the illustration doesn't show enough.
Player Piano - OK, it's neither a game nor a puzzle, but it is cool. Would have been much better if everything was laser cut except the xylophone keys -- I see no reason why the hammers couldn't be laser cut wood. I suspect this is a design adapted from hand-cut wood that needed a little more adaptation.

Whodoku is out

My first puzzle book, Whodoku - Sudoku with Personality is now out, published by Sterling Publishing. My inspiration for the book was some disappointment with sudoku puzzles. Unlike crosswords and many other puzzles, there is no overall point to a sudoku -- it's just numbers. When you were done, you were done. I wanted something that took it a step beyond that and came up with Whodoku.

Each puzzle starts with a trivia fact. For the middle puzzle on the cover (which is puzzle #1 in the book), the fact is "He represented _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ in the U.S. House". The blanks get filled in by the circled squares in the puzzle. If you figure out one of those words early, you can fill in the extra letters in the puzzle and get a leg up on the sudoku logic.

Next, the shaded letters drop down below the grid to provide the name of the person who fits the trivia fact. For puzzle #1, you'll see: _ E _ _ L _ and _ O _ _ stacked one above the other. In columns with more than one shaded letter, you'll have to figure out which letter goes in which blank. Again, if you figure out the name early, you can get a leg up on the logic. Some puzzles have extra hint letters like this one, but most do not. The puzzles get harder as you go through the book.

I hope you enjoy them!

Choices Families Make

Warning. This is a sad story: When a baby is destined to die. The families chronicled in this story made a tough choice. I'm glad that they were able to make it -- that they weren't forced by their government or their doctors to make a choice that wasn't right for them. This is what freedom of choice is about.

If you think you know the choice they made, you might not be right.

Memories Remembered and Forgotten

One more post, almost on the Kansas Jayhawks. My last post was about the Jayhawk Men's basketball team winning the NCAA Championship this year, but also about my memories of the 1988 championship.

Tom Keegan, the Lawrence Journal-World Sports Editor, wrote a great article about memories -- and Alzheimer's. There's a benefit for the Alzheimer’s Association (Heart of America Chapter) this weekend in Lawrence.

"If the family curse hits me before that cure is found, the day will come when I forget the highlights I witnessed from press row these past couple of weekends

...

"For many who attend or attended KU, those memories will endure for as long as their minds stay clear.

"My favorite memory was born when I was a senior in high school. I watched from the den of our Rochester, N.Y., home as Marquette defeated North Carolina in the 1977 title game, sitting alongside my father, who took calls from two of my brothers, then Marquette students, after the game. With fingers crossed, I hope I remember that until the day I die. Seven-plus years after that night, the effects of Alzheimer’s began stealing my father’s mind. Thirteen long years after that, he moved onto his eternal reward."

Tom Keegan, Lawrence Journal-World Sports Editor

My father-in-law has Alzheimer's. It's rough. I'll leave it at that for now and let Tom's words speak for themselves.

It's rough.

Thanks for your post, Tom. And, to those who donate, thank you too.

Rock Chalk, Championship!

Every year, I predict that my alma mater, the Kansas Jayhawks will win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Once every twenty years, I get it right.

In 1988, it was Danny and the Miracles. It wasn't long after I met my future wife. I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the Jayhawks play in the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight in the Pontiac Silverdome. Tickets weren't nearly as difficult to come by then as they are today, and I had gotten two in the KU section, so I brought a friend to both games. On Friday, March 25th, I watched KU defeat Vanderbilt and Kansas State defeat Purdue. The Jayhawk and Wildcat fans were all very cordial -- most fans cheered on both of the Kansas teams. On Saturday, I had to travel to attend a wedding with Emily in Kalamazoo, then I headed back Sunday morning to watch KU vs. K-State. The K-State fans weren't nearly as friendly at this game. A week later, I was in Minneapolis with Emily during the semifinals and dragged her and a friend of hers to a pretty empty sports bar to watch KU beat Duke (it's a pretty good sign when the woman you love goes with you to watch your team play basketball). And, of course, in the incredible final game, KU beat Oklahoma, who had beaten them twice earlier in the season.

This time around, I watched the semifinals and finals with my family. And, once again, the final game was amazing. During the last eight minutes and the overtime (and particularly the last two minutes of regulation), my wife and kids were as tense and as loud as I was. It was great to share it with them.

When you add in the triple-overtime loss to North Carolina in 1957, it seems to me that Kansas has been a participant in three of the most exciting NCAA finals ever.

Roch Chalk, Jayhawk! Go KU!

Live Politics

Yesterday, I was an Obama delegate to the Democratic 48th Legislative Caucus here in Washington. On my dev blog, I wrote about problems voting without much technology (An Exercise in Democracy, Real World Bottlenecks). A few interesting observations on the caucus itself ...

The Pledge of Allegiance. I don't stand for the pledge and I don't say it. This is my small way of protesting the unconstitutional inclusion of the phrase "under god" (see this brief (PDF) for some background -- I'll write more about that some other time). So, I've observed the pledge being said many times. This time, when the pledge was recited, I witnessed something I'd never seen before -- the entire room stumbled over "under god." Part of the room (I believe a minority) said it, part of the room paused for it but didn't say it, and part of the room went right on to "indivisible."

Politics is Slow. Almost everything done during the day took way too long. We all checked in relatively smoothly, but there was a huge delay until the registrations were counted -- apparently everything had to entered into a single computer, with a single person entering data. Given that everybody had been waiting for hours, there was a big dispute when it came time to do what we all came to do -- vote for candidates to be delegates to the county convention. The original plan was one minute per candidate, which probably would have taken an hour and a half. Some people wanted no vote (most candidates had already posted a written statement, which many of us had already read). Since we all finally had a chance to say something, rather than just sitting around and waiting, it was contentious. The compromise (after more than 15 minutes and three motions and votes) was an intro plus 10 seconds per candidate. Unfortunately, because I was the one who proposed the 10 seconds, I got appointed to be the timekeeper.

Stump Speeches. Because there was plenty of time to be filled, we got to hear each of the candidates talk. Darcy Burner spoke about her campaign for congress. Most interesting fact I learned: I knew that Dave Reichert was very conservative (despite his claim otherwise), but I didn't know that he was against birth control. I researched this afterwards and, yes, it's true. He thinks pharmacists shouldn't have to fill birth control prescriptions. If you want to help this country move forward and you're in Washington's 8th Congressional District, vote for Darcy. Better yet, donate money.

State Representative Ross Hunter discussed how important health care and health coverage are and he lamented that so much of what needs to be done to address today's problems can't be done at the state level -- it has to be at the national level, through the President and Congress.

People Care About America. Everybody I talked to, from State Senator Rodney Tom and Ross Hunter, to local organizers, to all the people with both Obama and Clinton signs, had a lot to say about the sorry state of the country and the need for drastic change. There was (mostly respectful) disagreement about the best candidate, but no disagreement about what's at stake in November.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

The Jayhawks are in the Final Four! (for the 13th time)

Stephen Curry was very impressive in the finals of the Midwest Regional. As a KU fan, the game was agonizing to watch, though I suspect the agony felt by Davidson fans turned out to be a bit more acute.

This week, it's a bit frustrating to read all the articles about Roy Williams. If any members of the press are reading this -- it's the players who play the game, not the coaches.

I thought Roy was a fine coach (and, hey, I liked his name). I thought he did a lot for KU, but I felt he was never a closer -- that he wasn't the best bench coach in a close game. I think Bill Self is better in that regard. But, I've always disliked North Carolina and Duke (and UCLA and a few other teams). For me, the only difference with Roy Williams being at Carolina is that I now root for the Blue Devils over the Tar Heels instead of vice versa.

My prediction: KU vs. UCLA in the finals. KU by 6.

Bear in mind that I totally crapped out in my bracket -- I had Kansas, Duke, Tennessee, and Texas. At least I had Kansas right and hopefully I have them right again.

Go KU!