where can I find more Shinro puzzles?

October 26, 2007 7:53 PM

PuzzleFilter: I flew Southwest earlier this month and they had this really fun puzzle in their in-flight magazine. Anyone know where I can find more of these online?
posted by rezaman to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (11 answers total)

I bought a mensa puzzle book at B&N once. Don't know if it have that puzzle specifically, but it had a lot of that type of grid puzzle (minesweeper, submarines, clouds, etc). Pretty good assortment, and just the right mix of challenging and enjoyable (ie harder than sudoku)
posted by jpdoane at 8:05 PM on October 26, 2007

I think it was this one
posted by jpdoane at 8:07 PM on October 26, 2007

You may have already found this one since the link is on the same site as yours, but here's a different page of that kind of puzzles from Spirit Magazine.

Looks fun...and hard. I'm going to have to give it a try.
posted by greenmagnet at 8:38 PM on October 26, 2007

I know I've played it before, but I cannot remember where.

In the meantime, check out my favorite puzzle site.
posted by alexei at 10:37 PM on October 26, 2007

I thought this was pretty interesting until I figured out how to do it. Maybe it's possible to make harder ones of these if you're not trying to make an in-flight magazine?
posted by aubilenon at 11:26 PM on October 26, 2007

A different, but still fun grid-game, Picross.
posted by qldaddy at 6:30 AM on October 27, 2007

This is somewhat similar to minesweep, isn't it? Not ashamed to admit I've always loved that game. This looks fun too.
posted by Brittanie at 10:08 PM on October 27, 2007

The Answers page for the Spirit magazine puzzles indicates all of them were supplied by Puzzability, a company that makes a wide variety of word/logic puzzles for all sorts of big-name clients. I don't see any more examples of Shinro on their site, but you could try contacting them to see if they can point you to any other sources. (According to the podcast interview they did just this past week for the NYTimes -- scroll down to OpCast -- they create many of their puzzle ideas from scratch, though they're often inspired by other puzzle types. So the possibility exists that there are no other Shinro puzzles, unless they've supplied them to other clients too.)

If they are the latest logic puzzle to cross over from Japan, I'd keep my eye on Nikoli -- that seems to be where most of these puzzle types pop up first. (Nikoli is kind of unusual in that they're all about the "democratization of puzzle invention": the readers submit ideas for new kinds of puzzles, Nikoli tries them out in their puzzle magazines, and then they further pursue/develop the popular ones.)

Even if your Shinro puzzles never show up there, you might find another puzzle variation that you enjoy. Other sites with this type of logic puzzle (vaguely in decreasing order of my personal preference):
- Conceptis - Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
- Indigo Puzzles
- Logic Games Online
- We Love Puzzles
posted by alyxstarr at 8:21 AM on October 28, 2007

(D'oh -- missed a line break between Conceptis and Simon Tatham's site. Two separate sites there.)
posted by alyxstarr at 8:25 AM on October 28, 2007

...aaand if I had just gone to visit alexei's link (haven't been to Otto Janko's site in a while), I would have been able to point out what looks to be Shinro with stars instead of dots:

Sternenhimmel
posted by alyxstarr at 8:52 AM on October 28, 2007

Yes! I knew I had seen it, but didn't spot it when I went to look (so many links, you know).
posted by alexei at 2:31 AM on October 30, 2007