Puzzazz Blog

We just released a new ActiveBook puzzle collection full of Symdoku puzzles -- a version of Sudoku that uses symbols. Why on earth would we do that?

I have to tell you it's strangely compelling. Symdoku puzzles are definitely harder and require more concentration but there is something addictive about the symbols. I've solved more Symdoku puzzles than either Sudoku or Wordoku lately.

In some sense, we created the Symdoku book because we could and paper publishers can't. Puzzles like this have always flopped in paper publications because solvers just can't draw the symbols well enough (and reliably enough) to make the puzzles fun to solve. In an active electronic book, it's not a problem. Symdoku is just a small hint of what's to come as we build puzzle eBooks that are better than their paper equivalents.

If you think Symdoku is too weird, don't worry -- we've got you covered with Sudoku puzzles too.

When you're charting new territory, you don't have a map to go on. That's the situation we had in building the interface for our ActiveBook puzzle collections -- our puzzle eBooks for the Amazon Kindle.

The short version is that we set some clear goals for ourselves, and everything flowed from that. But we also did extensive user testing, watched people use the interface, and we listened to a lot of feedback. Here are the goals and what we did to achieve them.

Make sure the Kindle interface doesn't get in the way. When people solve puzzles on paper, they never think their pen or pencil is getting in the way and we wanted the same thing to happen here. You just type to enter solution numbers or notes into a puzzle. For Sudoku puzzles, if you type more than one number into a cell, it automatically switches to entering notes. To remove a note, you just type the number again. When you have only one note left, you simply type the number you want to confirm it. We discovered that different people have different Sudoku solving styles, so we have a second mode of entry in which entries are notes by default and you type a number twice to make it a solution number>. In both modes, you don't have to change modes to make notes.

Improve the solving experience in natural ways. Puzzle books traditionally have the answers in the back, but nobody ever compares their solution with the answer. Instead, the answers get used for cheating hinting. If you're stuck on a puzzle and you don't know where you went wrong, you might compare your solution with what's in the back, or you might look up a particular part of the puzzle. We integrated hinting directly into the puzzles, with options for providing your choice of hints (not a random hint) or removing one or all of your mistakes. In addition, for Sudoku puzzles, the puzzle legend or keyboard layout at the bottom changes when you've used 9 (or more!) of a given number.

Provide a great experience on the E Ink display. Every piece of art was created from scratch to fit the characteristics of the black-and-white E Ink display and designed to maximize contrast and readability. In comparison, many competing titles for the Kindle use color art that they've downsampled.

Optimize the use of the keyboard. The physical keyboard is a huge advantage the Kindle has over other electronic book readers. We created a virtual 3x3 numeric keypad on the left side of the keyboard, while also allowing you to use the top row or (on a second-generation Kindle) the number keys. We give users a choice of which layout gets displayed but, because there's no conflict, all of the layouts work all of the time.

Feel like a Kindle book. Kindle owners already know how to use their device, so we want take advantage of that. We made the Next and Previous Page keys navigate through the book, allowing people to browse through the book. We also provide a menu item which selects a random puzzle for you, plus an option which hides all finished puzzles from the book. The Menu key shows an Amazon-standard menu, while the Back key goes back to the previous page and functions as Undo on a puzzle page. Additionally, the Table of Contents resembles the Kindle's main table of contents and acts in the same way.

Of course, the proof of the quality of any interface is in its usage. If you've got a Kindle, we encourage you to give one of our eBooks a try and let us know what you think.

Puzzles are hardly new. They've existed since before recorded time. Most of the puzzle types that we know of today have roots going back thousands of years.

The crossword, invented ninety-seven years ago today (December 21st, 1913), has its roots in word squares, invented millennia ago. In fact, the earliest known word square, the Sator Square, was found carved in stone in the ruins of Pompeii. It was in Latin.

Speaking of Latin, Sudoku, which we think of as a recent invention, is based on the Latin Square, discovered centuries ago and named by the mathematician Leonhard Euler, who used Latin characters as symbols.

At Puzzazz we're looking to the future and looking at the past at the same time. We see puzzle delivery shifting to the internet and electronic devices, and we are completely embracing this great opportunity. But we know that the fundamental reasons that people like to solve puzzles haven't changed. We won't be throwing puzzles and puzzle games at the wall, hoping to get lucky and have something stick. Instead, everything we ship will give you what you love about puzzles.

Yes, new puzzle types get invented all the time and we've got some upcoming books with new puzzle types that we think you'll love. Even though they're new, they'll feel familiar and they'll complement our upcoming Sudoku, Calcudoku, and Crossword books. And they'll all have the wonderful solving experience that has already won rave reviews for Wordoku Unbound #1.

If we could give the crossword puzzle a birthday present, it would be lots of puzzle friends for the next ninety-seven years.

If you've ever played the game of Clue, created in 1949, you've played a puzzle game. Clue is still popular today, but there's a new breed of puzzle games, powered by technology. These games got a big boost with the creation of personal computers and laptops, but they've really gone crazy with smartphones. When most people have a device with them all the time they can play a game on, there's a lot of potential.

Some people believe that puzzle games, particularly computerized puzzle games, are better than puzzles and will replace them eventually. The theory goes that there is effectively an infinite supply of puzzles -- clearly they must be better than carefully crafted puzzles.

We believe otherwise.

You can't make a good puzzle game by just generating random puzzles. Not only is that not really a game, but an infinite supply of poor puzzles is, well, a bunch of poor puzzles. Who wants that? And you can't make a good puzzle or a puzzle game by tossing game mechanics into puzzles. Good puzzles don't need animations or pretty pictures or timers. If I'm spending my time solving a puzzle, I want to have fun and be challenged. I'm looking for an intellectual challenge, something that makes me think. I'm not interested in a poor puzzle and I'm really not interested in an unsolvable puzzle, which some of these puzzle games can create. And when I do want to play a game, I want a game, not a puzzle. They're simply not the same thing.

And that, in a nutshell, is why we're doing books, not games, for Kindle. The Kindle is a phenomenal eBook reader, and a phenomenal platform for our ActiveBook puzzle collections. We're not trying to make games that are worse than they are in person or on a computer, or even just as good -- our goal is to make books that are better on an eBook reader than they are on paper!

It's easy to look at Puzzazz as just a puzzle company. And how important are puzzles anyway? Well, it depends on whether or not you like puzzles. There are millions of people who can't live without their daily crossword, Sudoku, or other type of puzzle. About half of all Americans solve Sudokus and about one in six solve crosswords, and there are about sixty new puzzle books published each month in the US alone. Don't tell the people who need their morning crossword, sometimes even before their morning cup of coffee, that puzzles aren't important!

At Puzzazz, we're building the premier source for puzzles and puzzle games, with a goal of making sure that every solver has fun and gets challenged through high-quality puzzles and a great solving experience. We believe that the way in which puzzles are being delivered is in the process of undergoing a significant shift, the first big shift since the invention of the crossword ninety-eight years ago. The rise of puzzle games is one indicator of this, but it's not about games, which are really a different market. It's about fundamental intellectual challenges -- not dexterity challenges or timed challenges -- that puzzles have offered for millennia.

Just as puzzles are changing, so are books, and that's precisely why we're building what we call ActiveBooks, interactive puzzle books which combine the advantages of paper with the advantages of electronic book readers. Our ActiveBooks are the first electronic books that let you solve puzzles (or, really, do anything) right on the page. Someday, almost all puzzles, and many other things delivered on paper today, will be delivered in this way. It makes perfect sense that our first major initiative is for the Amazon Kindle devices. A Kindle is not an iPad and that is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on what you're doing. For what we're doing, it's a great thing. For most "pencil and paper" puzzles, the Kindle is a phenomenal platform, while the iPad is just so-so (don't worry, we know the iPad is good at other things). You don't need color for a crossword puzzle or a Sudoku puzzle, but the ultra-high resolution eInk screen makes a tremendous difference. Having an actual keyboard with real keys is perfect for "pencil and paper" puzzles and all sorts of other puzzle types. And, wow, having a device that weighs so little you barely know you're carrying it makes it easy to take a bunch of puzzles with you wherever you go.

Our first ActiveBook for Kindle is Wordoku Unbound #1, basically Sudoku using the letters of a word or phrase (read more about it here). It's a good puzzle type when you actually have a keyboard. But it's just our first title in what's going to be a big, ongoing line of books. Sudoku, calcudoku, crosswords, and plenty of other types will be coming soon, all with original, high quality puzzles that you'll love.