Money Exchange Game

I have played a lot of flash games on PrimaryGames website. The game named Coinz! is disturbingly hard and addictive at the same time. The target of the game is to make money disappear by picking up the same amount of money using two currencies.

The first game involved exchanging Singapore Dollars to Russian Rubles. This was hard. There were lots of coins marked 1, but it is harder to determine if the coin is 1.oo or o.o1. Choosing Hint from the list on the right you can see the value when marking a coin.

After all the Singapore Dollars were exchanged the level was completed. Now the new currency was Lithuanian Litas. The exchange rate is shown above the box and below the box you can see how many Rubles you should find matching the Litas you have chosen.

Interestingly the third level seemed easier to me. Now Polish Zlotys were exchanged to Litas, and the value of the currencies being nearly the same made it easy.

A very good game in mathematics learning. I could imagine that kids are faster to find the right coins than I was.

Sudokid - Sudoku for Kids

Sudokid is a kid’s version of Sudoku. Sudokid is very simple: Sudoku with shapes, instead of numbers. Sudokid comes with 75 Unique Game Cards- 25 at each difficulty level (easy, medium, and hard). Be careful adults, you may get addicted too...

It’s designed and developed by the Quirky community. The idea is that the product requires 300 commitments to buy before it goes into production and is made (priced at $14.99). So far 27 have been pre-sold. You’re not charged until the threshold is met.

I hope they make it, the idea is great. If you are interested, check the details here

[via Josh Spear]

The Inspirational Rubik's Cube

The Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. The puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toys in 1980. Nowadays there are lots of variations of the puzzle by size but also by shape, like this Pyraminx Crystal

I did not concentrate on the puzzle aspect but all the imagination people have been using creating everyday things using the magical cube. There are also some new variations of the puzzle at the end.

Ear rings

[via eCRATER]

Necklace

[via CharcoalDesigns]

Handbag

[via YesStyle]

Cufflinks

[via The Retroist]

Salt and pepper mills

[via giftmonger]

Table

[via Popgadget]

Chairs

[via ON24 (Finnish)]

Art called Rubikubism

[via space-invaders.com]

Car commercial

Watch the awesome video!
[via Maniac World]

Cakes

[via Geekologie]

[via Eden Cakes]

Alarm clock

[via Bedzine]

mp3 - player

[via Yankodesign]

Subwoofer

[via Project 'Cube 2007]

Speaker

[via Megahouse]

Lamp

[via übergizmo]

Photo Cube

[via Ann's Personalized Gifts]

Pillow

[via Lankalauantai]

People who want more expensive looking cubes can choose form the one covered in swarovski stones

[via Etsy]

or try to get this full-size, fully working cube with 185 carats of precious gems, 1.5 pounds of pure sliver with eight coats of hand-painted enamel. Only 2,500 of limited edition Rubik's cube were produced worldwide distribution. The price of this toy is $10,000.00.

[via Gems Collection]

The colours are not necessary and the puzzle can be solved by touching the different sides. The next two examples show two different solutions.

Rubik Cube for Blind by Zhiliang Chen

There are six different basic materials involved. They are Metal, wood, textile, rubber, plastic and stone. Different materials give people different senses, which thus enabled the blind men to play.

[via Yankodesign]


[via Gearfuse]

Some additional twists are included in the next two cubes.

Sudoku and Rubik's Cube combined

[via Hilavitkutin via The Gadget Chest]

Mirror Cube

If you want to see this cube solved watch the video
[via Digital Gadgets Freak]

The next two are also games but not based on the Rubik cube's pieces and movement.

Rubik's Revolution

This cube has 6 different games. One of them is light rally where you have to push the hole in the cube on the side which has a matching colour. The cube mentions the colours in some order and this particular cube speaks Finnish

[via mulletoi where you can also see a guy playing light rally]
link to the English product's page

Magnetic Cube

[via Andrew Curtis]

One example of a futuristic puzzle

FENTIX CUBE

The world's first cubic touchscreen games platform. Featuring unique cubic ultra-bright full-colour multi-touch touchscreen technologies, the Fentix Cube has been programmed to implement various multi-dimensional games, puzzles, and lighting effects.

[andrewfentem]

And for the end two funny cubes

For the lazy person

[via Geekologie]

For Engineers or Blondes or...

Depending on the source this has different target groups. The engineer joke was from a Finnish engineer-student-website which I am not linking here because of the very questionable content. Other suggestions were of course blondes, beginners, non-geeks etc. I am not sure who to credit for this picture. It seemed that various sources had watermarked it for themselves.

Games - Good or Bad?

This week Oxford University reseachers revealed that Tetris can actually be a treatment to traumatic stress.

Players had fewer "flashbacks", perhaps because it helped disrupt the laying down of memories, said the scientists.

It is hoped the study could aid the development of new strategies for minimising the impact of trauma.

I can agree on the part that games which keep the mind occupied are good for any stress but I would not really give all the credit to Tetris. Tetris happens to be the game which started the evolution of puzzling games but at least for me it would not work any more. I played it almost 20 years ago so much that I could not bother to play it again.

To me japanese puzzles have the same effect. I managed to cope with my father's death and other stressful things playing puzzles and choosing the difficulty level according my ability to concentrate. Trying to solve too hard puzzles may have the opposite effect.

A survey conducted 2006 by Psychologist Dr. Carl Arinoldo even suggests that games can relieve pain. (link via cultcase)

88% of players indicated they experienced stress relief from playing casual games and 74% cited mental exercise as a benefit; when asked to choose the most important reasons for playing, 41% picked "stress relief/relaxation," more than twice the number (19%) who chose "entertainment"; 27% said the games provided distraction from chronic pain and/or fatigue, and fully 8% said they derived actual relief from chronic pain and/or fatigue.

Several scientists, like Dr. David Walsh have recently claimed that internet and gaming can be an addiction

Other things in their life get neglected, sometimes even their health gets neglected, their grades start to suffer, relationships start to suffer, and so it starts to bear all the behavioral hallmarks of an addiction. And so I think that’s why the term has emerged.

There are even places where people are treated because of this addiction like The Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam.

Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rates treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug taking and excessive drinking.

But Mr Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counselling is the way to treat these people. "In most cases of compulsive gaming, it is not addiction and in that case, the solution lies elsewhere."

Seems a bit controversial to me. In logic this is called circular reasoning.

Coign of Vantage - addicted again

I think I am much more selective than before, but once again I found a game which got me playing all over again.This is the first screen which shows a hint where the cursor  should be.

The pixels are in 3 dimensions and you have to rotate the image so that you are looking at the picture from above and seeing the projection of the pixels in a plane. It is not very easy at first but the progress makes you scontinue with a new game. One of the good features is that the images are not the same from game to game. It is unbelievable how big the effect on the pixels is when you move the cursor just a little bit.

I found the game in Random Good Stuff and you can play the game here.

Things Every Sudoku Fan Must Have

I order quite often puzzle books from Amazon because I very rarely find those books in book stores in Finland. Since there are lots of different publishers they seem to invent something original like THE SUDOKU DIET or Revenge of Killer Sudoku and for kids Scary Sudoku Sticker Puzzles Book (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse). But like all celebrities, Sudoku has also all kinds of additional products for fans. Here are some interesting things I found.

Clothing

Even though I have tried to collect only things with sudoku to be solved I had to add these baby clothes from sudoku.ca. The text says: "If Mum is playing, tell her I'm hungry!"

T-shirts have even more variations than books. The largest collection of all kinds of products I found in Cafepress. All the products I have not linked elsewhere are from cafepess. The other shirt is from The Lighterside.

For underwear there are thongs and boxers:

You can also sleep in a Sudoku (there is a small piece of the fabric shown), or you can make clothes with your own design. The pajamas are from The Pajama Company and the fabric was on eBay by jandofabrics.

When you go out, you have to have a suitable outfit and you can use these. Of course your dog must match your clothing. The shoes are from Zappos.

Accessories

In addition to suitable clothes, you need personal things like pencils to fill the Sudoku’s, key chains and bags. The pencil is from Crane & Co., key chain from eBay and the bags from cafepress.

You can also replace your jewelry with Sudoku and for the safekeeping of the necklace (This Next) and the gold watch (Amazon) you can use a keepsake box. You don’t have to work with your computer without Sudoku’s around. The mouse mat comes also with a pen (playr.co.uk). There are lots of coffee mugs to satisfy your coffee addiction (News from gadgets’ world).

Home decoration

You can start by welcoming your quests with a Sudoku doormat (The Lighterside). Of course you will have self made handicraft on the walls. Patterns for these pieces of art can be found in Scarlett Rose. If you don’t have time to do them yourself you can also use designs from artists (Bigmint). The clock and pillows complete the impression.

You can serve beer from ceramic steins, and use the tiles as drink coasters. I would like to use them tiling the space between the working space and cupboards. Napkins have also Sudoku’s (Jumping Giraffe).

The last one is my favourite. Sudoku toilet paper (Gadgets.co.uk) could however mean that the toilet visits last much longer than normally.

Miscellaneous

For children or childlike people they make bath time ducks (HELPTHEAGED) and Teddy bears.

Also all kinds of game variations can be found like Glass Tabletop Sudoku Set (GadgetFind), Grand Master Wooden Su Doku Set (playr.co.uk), Double Sided Crossword and Sudoku Jigsaw in a can (Jumping Giraffe) and sudocube (News from gadgets’ world).

If these were not enough, you could of course take a sudoku tattoo!