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Forbidden Planet Jigsaw Puzzle | $16.95
Putting together this 1,000 piece Forbidden Planet Jigsaw Puzzle from the NeatoShop brings the reward of seeing the movie poster from the 1956 science fiction classic -and the reward of having a good time with your family and friends! The final size is 20″x27″. It makes a great gift, too! Check it out, as well as the other neat jigsaw puzzles available at the NeatoShop.
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Doctor Who Jigsaw Puzzle – $16.95
Attention Doctor Who fans! Do you feel that you are misunderstood by your family? Maybe you need to share your love of all things Doctor who with the 1,000 piece Doctor Who Jigsaw Puzzle from the NeatoShop. This puzzle is a great way to spend quality time with the family. It will also give you the opportunity to drone on and on about all your favorite characters and episodes.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Puzzles and fantastic Doctor Who items.
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Ready for a puzzle?
Here is a class of a dozen boys, who, being called up to give their names were photographed by the instantaneous process just as each one was commencing to pronounce his own name. The twelve names were Oom, Alden, Eastman, Alfred, Arthur, Luke, Fletcher, Matthew, Theodore, Richard, Shirmer, and Hisswald. Now it would not seem possible to be able to give the correct name to each of the twelve boys, but if you practice the list over to each one, you will find it not a difficult task to locate the proper name for every one of the boys.
When you are ready, the answers are at Futility Closet. Link
Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a character from the Star Wars universe here. Can you name them all? You might notice some of the main characters are missing in action, because a puzzle should never be too easy. The answers are at Gamma Squad. Link -via Buzzfeed
Click and rotate the cells to line up the curvy red and blue lines. That’s all. You can see how difficult this puzzle is before you even start -but once you start, it’s hard to stop! Link -via mental_floss
Here’s something that will make mealtime fun (or frustrating – depending on how good you are at solving puzzles): PuzzleWare utensils ($8.95) from the NeatoShop, a set of fork and spoon "puzzle" that you have to solve before you can eat.
Perfect for your little Houdinis: Link | More Mealtime Fun | Gag Gifts & Pranks
Cubebot (small) – $24.95
Forget CGI! David Weeks created the Cubebot, a wonderful wooden "transforming" puzzle out of cherry wood. The cube you see on the right "unfolds" into the posable robot.
The trick – and fun – is to fold him back into the cube. Challenge your puzzle-minded loved ones to fold the Cubebot back into the cube (without instructions, of course). It’s not as easy as it looks … Link | More Cubicle Toys from the NeatoShop
Pi-Pie Jigsaw Puzzle – $6.95
Do you love Pi, Pie, and Puzzles? Behold the two-sided Pi-Pie Jigsaw Puzzle from the NeatoShop. Now you can devote your whole Pi Day to the things you love.
Happy Pi day!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Toys & Games!
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This clock would be really neat for a puzzle enthusiast or anyone who wants a one-of-a-kind item on their walls. The clockworks come with five puzzle pieces attached and twelve more that you add in your own design. Link
It might take a genius to find the way through this maze! Print out a full size copy at the link and give it your best shot. Link -via Nag on the Lake
Mikal Hart wanted to give his friend a wedding present like no other – so he engineered a box that can only be opened at a particular location. Here’s the story of the Reverse Geocache Puzzle Box:
Hmm. What does “Distance 391km” mean? “Access Denied” suggests that getting inside the box is indeed the objective of all this button pushing. Just for fun, let’s try again.
Uh oh. We seem to be consuming our limited supply of “attempts”. The “No signal” problem seems to be solved, but the message “Distance 391km” remains puzzling. Does the box know its own location? Is there something 391 kilometers away? London? The Hague? A circle of that radius drawn around Paris intersects quite a few interesting places in France, England, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany.
Link | Part 2 of the story – via Gizmodo
It’s time for another puzzle, in collaboration with Conceptis Puzzles! Every Tuesday, we’ll be offering a different logic puzzle, today featuring a 9×9 sudoku puzzle. Please give us some feedback on the new feature- we’d love to hear if you found it too easy, too hard, or what you think about Neato-Puzzles. Ready? Click here to play!
This video showcases the presentation and effect of a simple yet confusing puzzle. It incorporates basic geometry, but it is surprising and potentially baffling at first glance. A step-by-step tutorial on how to make one can be found at Instructables. Link
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by nicnac.
Oh, these interlocking wooden name puzzles called "Nuzzle" by John Christenson is absolutely gorgeous!
Nuzzles® are custom designed handmade wooden name puzzles crafted by John Christenson since 2008, each with its own unique typographic style. Every puzzle is crafted from a single block of wood, and the letterforms interlock with each other in a way that creates a sense of harmony and integrity.
The shorter the name, the cheaper! Link – via Ministry of Type
There’s a classic logic puzzle in which a person must take a fork in the road, one of which is safe, but the other is a deadly trap. Two men guard the fork, one of which always lies, but the other always tells the truth. The person gets to ask one question in order to determine which path is the safe one.
Mathematician Raymond Smullyan has added another dimension to this puzzle. See if you can figure it out:
There are three guardians, A, B and C. Their names are Knight, Knave and Chaos. Knight always speaks truly, Knave always lies. Chaos tossed a coin this morning to decide whether today he would behave like Knight or like Knave.
Your task is simple: ask three yes-no questions, each of a single guardian, and determine which is Knight, which is Knave, and which is Chaos. There is, alas, a complication: the guardians understand English but will answer in the local language, in which “Da” means yes and “Ja” means no. Or possibly “Ja” means yes and “Da” means no – you cannot remember.
Link via Marginal Revolution | Raymond Smullyan
UPDATE 3/18/10: Here‘s the solution.
Large mazes or labyrinths served different purposees at different times inhistory, but they are always fun! In the 16th century, garden mazes were features of many noble gardens. They enabled people to mix socially, to get some exercise, to have fun, and to participate in nature! Mazes have been built for other reasons as well.
In 1950 Canon Harry Cheales, parish priest of Wyck Rissington, a small village in the south of England, had a curious dream. In it, he was looking out of window of the rectory while below him, in the garden, he could see people walking around a maze. A shadowy figure behind him was describing the scene.
The dream was so vivid that, on walking, the rector felt compelled to build a real-life version of the maze he had seen. The newly constructed maze was modeled on a set of religious carvings in the village church and the design was symbolic. The winding pathways represented the journey of life. The wrong turnings and culs-de-sac symbolized the sins that people commit before death, obstacles on the way to paradise and heaven.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by MrGhaz.
John Farrier’s post on Where’s Waldo prompted me to shine the spotlight on another series of puzzle-tastic find-me books that feature actual photographed objects.
The tableau of I Spy puzzles vary between scattered and seemingly similar objects to exquisitely staged snapshots of a closet, and even other worlds. Here’s one.
Photo/Artist Walter Wick came up with the idea of finding hidden objects in plain sight…by accident.
I was organizing screws, paper clips and other odds and ends. As I began sorting, I liked the way the objects looked spread out on my light box. After hours of careful arranging, I took a picture (left). This photograph of odds and ends was the spark that helped inspire the first I Spy book! But that would take another 10 years.
Photo: Walter Wick/I Spy
I Spy an anchor, 2 shovels, plus a sleeping man. Helicopter, knight, and a cooking pan. (That was all mine, anyone care to do better?)
Read more about Walter Wick here, and remember this video from last November? That’s him. And he apparently has a new book series called Can You See What I See? where he writes his own poem hints.
Mark Setteducati and Ken Knowlton have invented a unique puzzle marketed in Japan as "Jingazo." The puzzle includes 300 jigsaw pieces that can be arranged to form a picture of anybody’s face. The puzzle works in conjunction with an online interface. Users upload an image and recieve instructions on how to arrange the shaded puzzle pieces. You can create pictures of yourself, your friends or even your pets. Currently, The Jingazo Puzzle is only available in Japan but a U.S. release is planned for the near future.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rubin.
Illustrator Paul Rogers puts together six drawings of iconic images for each classic movie. Your challenge is to name the movies from the drawings. You don’t get a clue as to the plot, the dialog, or the actors. I could name most of them; I suspect that the others are movies I haven’t seen. Link -via reddit
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Forget jigsaw puzzles, over at the Neatorama Shop, we've got some really cool (funducational?) 3D Anatomy Models/Puzzles with removable organs. My favorite is of the Woolly Mammoth and the Snail: Link
The Mind Trainer Loo Roll is packed with puzzles, brain teasers, and Sudoku on every sheet. Create a game for yourself: you don’t get to use a sheet until you’ve solved the puzzle on it.
Link via The Presurfer
Previously on Neatorama: The Puzzle Game Toilet Dispenser
Do you remember when President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit while fishing in 1979? Carter became the butt of many jokes about this incident. Here’s a puzzle from John Tierney based on the incident:
Suppose, the day after attacking President Carter, the rabbit finds itself alone in the middle of the pond, which is perfectly circular. Suppose there is a single Secret Service agent on the edge of the pond, armed with a small net to ensnare the swimming rabbit as it approaches the edge. This net is effective only if the rabbit is still in the water. If the rabbit reaches any point on the edge before the agent does, it can hop away to freedom; if the agent gets there first, the rabbit will be captured.
If the agent runs four times as fast as the rabbit swims, can the rabbit escape? If so, how?
For extra credit: What’s the fastest the agent can run (as a multiple of the rabbit’s speed) such that the rabbit can still escape?
What is your answer? The first correct answer wins a kiss from Alex.
Link via Instapundit
The city of Lvov in the Ukraine is home to the world’s largest crossword puzzle.
Clues to the crossword are scattered around the city’s major landmarks and attractions including parks, fountains, and theatres.
Although the crossword – which is 19 squares across and 34 squares high – is far too big to be filled in by hand, the artists responsible have come up with an intriguing way of displaying the answers.
When night falls, fluorescent letters placed inside every square are turned on, revealing the complete solution in a light glow
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Frau.
If the Rubik’s cube is too easy for you, check out this puzzle created by Jason Smith of PuzzleForge, based on Andrew Cormier’s design. Behold, the Petaminx, a dodecahedral puzzle with 4 slices per face:
It is entirely custom built and contains almost 1000 moving parts.
This project took place over two months, including:
20 hours on masters and molds.
12 hours casting parts.
30 hours cleaning up parts and sanding (!!)
7 hours assembling all 1000 parts
6 hours stickering.
Also checkout the video clip of Andrew Cormier’s Teraminx – via Unique Daily
There are some pretty nifty things you can win through puzzles and contests. iPods, concert tickets or dvd’s…but what about a house? Dave Mackie, a 49 year old Englishman is offering his house (valued roughly at $750,000) as a prize to whoever can solve a Sudoku puzzle.
To participate you’ll have to pay 60 bucks, but otherwise there is no catch. Mackie claims he is planning to migrate to Egypt and needed a fun way to get rid of his current home near Blackpool, England. Being addicted to Sudoku’s himself, Mackie quickly set up the plan. He is hoping enough people will participate so that he will have a fair amount of money in return for his house, which includes a sauna and hot tub.
"It’s a fun way to sell my house and a way to avoid getting sucked into the global financial crisis" says Mackie.
The puzzle will be available on Mackie’s website til February 2010. By then Mackie hopes at least 14,000 people will have participated.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lilrawker.
I imagine this puzzle game would be funny for about 10 seconds, and then your friends are going to start yelling for some TP… or they will put your guest towels to ingenious use, as John Brownlee from BoingBoing Gadgets puts it.
Via BoingBoing Gadgets.
For fans of point’n'click puzzle games, “Guest House” has a different twist to it with strange contraptions, Egyptian hieroglyphics and interesting music. More games of the genre can also be found at Lazylaces with “Rental House” and “Terminal House”.
Source: Lazylaces
Here is a cool puzzle challenge that will get your mind moving. Can you follow the clues and get to the top of the mountain to take on the wizard? The game uses the net in a pretty novel way, you can search and ask for clues. Good luck, you’ll need them.
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