Puzzazz Blog  

Welcome to Portland! It's the second stop in the Year of Puzzles, our year-long puzzlehunt filled with great puzzles by world-class authors. In honor of the City of Roses, the puzzle is a Rows Garden, a fun puzzle of interlocking Rows and Blooms invented by Patrick Berry, who crafted this one.

The story of the Year of Puzzles, written by Emily Dietrich continues as well. Don't expect to learn too much about the mysterious figures behind your journey just yet, though all will be revealed in time.

The Rows Garden highlights some features unique to the Puzzazz app. Not only is Puzzazz the only app that lets you solve unusual puzzles like the Rows Garden and the previous double spiral puzzle, but unique features like clue notes and cell marking, and, of course, TouchWrite™ handwriting recognition, make solving them as fun as they are on paper.

Enjoy!

We are very pleased to report that Puzzazz won GeekWire's 2013 Innovation of the Year award for our TouchWrite handwriting technology. Winning the award is great validation that we're doing things right.

Todd Bishop, GeekWire co-founder, said "TouchWrite is an awesome technology. Literally, they brought handwriting recognition technology to iOS. It's a really deserving award."

The unique award trophy looks very nice on the fireplace mantle in our office (our office is in an old house, so, yes, we have a fireplace). Celebrating done, the team is already back to work and super excited about our upcoming releases.

Check out GeekWire's awards wrapup for complete information, and, while you're at it, enjoy the fun intro video they used at the event.

We've been working hard to build the best way to buy and solve puzzles in the digital world, and we're proud to tell you that our TouchWrite handwriting recognition technology has been nominated for the GeekWire Innovation of the Year award. We'd greatly appreciate your vote.

Over the last few years, we've spent a lot of time looking hard at how people solve puzzles and we've crafted our user experience around what we've learned. We like to say that we're not trying to replicate paper, but build an experience that feels as good as paper does, so that solvers are just solving puzzles rather than spending times working around our user interface. Our integrated TouchWrite handwriting recognition technology is an integral part of the experience, particularly on small devices like an iPhone. It feels great to have GeekWire and the Seattle tech community recognize this with this nomination.

If you like what we're doing, we'd appreciate your vote:
    www.geekwire.com/2013/innovation-year/.

Thanks!

Update May 10th: We won! See here for details.

One of my favorite things is something called a puzzlehunt, a set of interconnected puzzles which combine to form a larger puzzle. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Puzzlehunts are filled with fun and unique puzzles, designed to challenge you just right to maximize your fun. Today, I’m excited to announce that Puzzazz is launching the Year of Puzzles, a year-long puzzlehunt filled with great puzzles by world-class constructors. Each month during the Year of Puzzles, there will be new and unique puzzle, frequently of a type you’ve never seen before, intertwined with an interesting and surprising story which will unfold over the course of the year.

Like every book we sell, the first puzzle is free. It’s a unique double spiral by Parker Lewis. Check it out in the Puzzazz app or, if you prefer to solve offline, there’s a PDF you can download.

You might wonder how the Year of Puzzles fits into Puzzazz’s mission. We’ve already built the best way to buy and solve puzzles in the digital world, through the Puzzazz app available for iPad and iPhone (and other devices in the future). But our larger mission is to build up the world of puzzles in a way that benefits all of us, including puzzle solvers, puzzle authors, and puzzle companies like Puzzazz. We’re doing this by creating the best and easiest to use interface, including our exclusive TouchWrite handwriting recognition technology, and by supporting a huge range of puzzles. Whatever type of puzzles you like to solve, you can find them here. Puzzazz is the only app, on any platform, which supports the kickoff double spiral puzzle or the Rows Garden puzzle by Patrick Berry which will be up next. And you’ll see much more in the coming year.

Enjoy!