Apathy

____________________________________________________________________ | / .-=""=-. | unmitigated -\ -|--, /---|--|- .\ / .'\__/ \_\ | irrelevant / \\ || / // \ || || |\\ / /__/ \__/ \__.oo | anti-news /___\\ ||_/ //___\|| ||__| \\/ ._/___\__/__\__(____/ | episodic / \\|| // \| || | V /__|/ \|__\ ` | orchard / V V / ______________________|_________/____________________________/ / what? / email / ascii links / ____ _____________________________/ | | ___ / |____| ______ | | old archives: chip music / | | | | lewis carroll / opinion / __ | some | |___| asciigames / dead rock / |__| | grid | voicemail / j.s. bach / |______| ____ eigen* ........other / _______ | | / | | | | _____________________/ | games | |____| |_______| __________________________________________________________ | | 01/31/2000 | Greet the grid and play | |__________________________________________________________| | | | Gone on a puzzle run. Let us play some simple rule- | | based grid games! | geek out | | | Meffert's Puzzles has a great history and | | categorization of puzzles that I haven't followed | | particularly. | disclaimers | | are for | Fair warning: If you like puzzles or games, I make | wimps | no guarantees for your precious time with these | | links. It's a safe bet you'll find one that fits | | your sensibilities and spend far too much time | | playing with it. If you hate puzzles, do you Yahoo | | instead? | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | | Online puzzle repositories used | |__________________________________________________________| | | | The aforementioned Meffert's Puzzles | | The Grey Labyrinth | | Mindbreakers | | rec.puzzles archive | | Dmoz - Yahoo - About | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | | Miscellaneous favorites | |__________________________________________________________| take | | dignity | Zen: True enlightenment is only a click away. The | | nature of the squares is disguised here, but great | | illogical fun before blasting into all the brain | | teasers below. | | Also see: David Chess's Visual Mantras | | | spatial | | fitting | Chockablock! where the goal is to make 3x3 or larger | | rectangles with Tetris pieces. However, no reflexes | | are required as there is no timer or falling things; | | you should give it a try even if you dislike Tetris. | | Reminds me of my soma cubes. Starts out simple, and | | gets rapidly complex when squares are permanently | | blocked off. Can't seem to think far enough ahead, | | but improved to level 7 with 9700 points. If you | | beat me badly, post your score! | | | my utopia | | | Speaking of the soma cube, everyone should be | | required to communicate by arranging sets of | | pentominoes. | | | painted | | wrong | 3x3 Rolling Cubes | | Simple yet quite difficult; the sliding puzzle with | | a different dimension. Once I saw a rendition of | | this with half marble, half chrome spheres that were | | locked in some strange sort of stringed axis system | | in a gift shop. Too cool. | | | x^y | | | Web Travex is a Java version of the game where the | | sides of each grid square within a larger square | | must match each other. A numbers-based version of | | jigsaw puzzles, really. | | | 0000 1111 | | | Lucas' Problem in CGI | | | state | | maintained | Berries is an Othello-ish game where one spreads by | | moving or jumping pieces. Capture is not in the | | style of Othello -- when you move adjacent, you take | | over. | | | simple | | grandeur | Gentle Bishops | | This one had me baffled for some time, but I did | | manage to solve it. One of the more complex chess | | piece puzzles, it could stump you. | cont'd | | | On the other hand, if it's real chess puzzles you | | seek, check the exhaustive Chess Problems Database. | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | | GJN(e)M: Good Job Nothing (ever) Matters | |__________________________________________________________| | | a site of | | tilting | How can I not link something with a name like that? | | These kind folks have Java applets that sort of | | simulate those old Labyrinth table-top games, but | | without the frustrating timing part. | | Plus, some very hypnotic, complex mazes. | | | swoop swoop | | wait was | 2-D Tilt Mazes | just here | Roll a ball through the grid of walls. After | | solving some simple targets, some multi-objective | | mazes are thrown in. This forced me to re- | | prioritize and look at the overview of the layout | | before jumping into action. As mentioned on the | | page, if you manage to solve the later multi-goal | | mazes in any reasonable amount of time, you are | | amazing. | | | augh the | | pain | 3-D Tilt Mazes | | These are only for the truly insane. Multiple | | levels of simple-looking mazes must be traversed to | | reach the endpoint. | | | pair of | | aces | Tilt Puzzles | | Roll two blocks this time, against the walls and | | logically toward the proper target location without | | having them collide. Got them all, but took a while | | to solve the grand finale. It's not very fault | | tolerant! | | | wide open | | spaces | Tile Puzzle | | On a different note than the tilting grids, this one | | is rather like the old Pipe Dreams game where the | | pipes and junctions all have to fit together. | | Suggestion: Do not jump to the Expert mode after | | solving the first two rather easily. Very mind- | | wrecking. | | | jump the | | islands | The Knight's Tour | | File this one under chess-derived puzzles. It's a | | bit odd; your goal is to move from one spot to | | another, on certain squares of a 10x10 board. | | Fairly simple to solve, after you get around the 5x5 | | visibility issue. | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | | Scopie! Yahoo? | |__________________________________________________________| | | | Scopie bills themselves as the largest human-edited | | web directory on Earth. Wasn't that Open | | Directory's slogan? At any rate, they may be famous | | for their ASCII art [or not], but they have games | | too. The grid-related puzzles are very nice Java | | applets. | | | notrik | | | Marble Solitaire | | The old classic; jump marbles into empty spaces | | until there is only one. | | | flip flop | | | Flip the Lights | | Turn all the lights on. When you toggle a switch, | | all rooms immediately next door toggle as well. | | | stop | | cutting me | Bridges | off | Cross the alternating colors horizontally before the | | computer blocks you vertically. This one I had to | | play quite a while before understanding the | | offensive / defensive logic behind moving strategy. | | | say hi to | | herman | Off-topic: My turtle has the same eyes as their | | rendition. I like the Ls for perspective feet. | |__________________________________________________________| __________________________________________________________ | | | That one warehouse game | |__________________________________________________________| didn't know | | what it | I had to resort to asking Jeeves: | was called | "Do you like that puzzle with all the box-pushing in | | a maze?" | | | | Oh yes. It's called Sokoban. ["warehouse keeper"?] | | And it has got educational value, don't you know. | methods for | | playing | There's only a zillion versions. | | | | If you've got an X server, I recommend Xsokoban; if | | instead you enjoy punishment, there's a classy | | Windows version as well. Otherwise, here's a slick | | little Java version to ponder if you don't want to | | waste time downloading and installing. | netbaby, | | fun! | It should also be noted that Netbaby has a game in | | this vein, called Postoffice. Much Shockwave and | | Javascript involved, I can't figure out how to link | | it directly. | greek | | | Xsokoban's linklist includes what I was looking for: | | sokoban levels in ASCII format. Working on a | | clickable desktop in Graphite that imports a | | different Sokoban puzzle each day. | on that | | note | Cool page with some studies on solving and creating | | solvable puzzles programmatically. (partially in | | Japanese) | blast off! | | | Notes for an actual speech about solving Sokoban. | | All in H1 for easy reading. | |__________________________________________________________| ___________________________________________________________________ !t y t | dd@f! k u | Eh? This is the log of a faceless entity. Me. usnngnll s | I wander around the web, and point out what are kr @gdqnvn | most likely completely useless things for you gx@dfwmd | to visit. It's where I have been, what I learned j zvhlx0lk | there, and what I plan to figure out in the b yqrccnh | future. All in the palm of your hand. pu @g ccgs | wjp jng | Technically speaking, this is a "weblog". There p t q0w gl | are many weblogs. You can probably find one that q r k | suits your tastes pretty closely, but if not you r !r 0q u | can use the pitas system to track v j p0 | yourself. x s | ____________|______________________________________________________ Dan Fitch dgfitch@yahoo.com / ICQ 363803 ___________________________________________________________________