The puzzle portal contains so many puzzles that it is easy to get lost without a search function. Actually, there are four pages for searching puzzles: two with pre-defined searches, and two where you can choose search options.
The lists on the beginners' series page have been put together manually. They contain puzzles that have been created to make it easy for beginners to get started with logical puzzles without having to rely on guesses.
Some of the puzzles on the page are intended for beginners who have mastered the first few puzzles. These are marked by two or three stars in the difficulty rating behind the puzzle. If you are an absolute beginner we recommend that you save these puzzles for later. It can be quite interesting to return to the puzzles on this page in a few days or weeks.
If the hints don't help you solve these puzzles you can ask questions in the forum. There are always helpful people around!
If you have created some puzzles for a standard puzzle type that contain hints
on how to solve puzzles of this type and you would like to see them added to this
page: just contact Berni
, and he will take care of everything.
Another help for puzzle portal newbies are these special searches. They come in three main variants: searches for certain types of puzzles, searches for nice puzzles, and searches for specific authors.
If you enjoy solving Sudoku puzzles you may want to check the list of Sudokus. Watch out: there are many variations on the basic Sudoku, and this list contains these variations, too.
Or imagine you have some experience solving logical puzzles and you are looking for a challenge for a long train trip. In that case the list of hard and nice puzzles may contain something for you.
The simple search will list all puzzles in the portal, and you can choose the sort order. You also have the option to exclude puzzles that you have already solved.
The advanced search gives you
lots of options. First you can choose the sort order, for example nicest puzzles first.
If you prefer a random sort order choose any
.
Besides you can specify many search criteria: text, publication date, ratings, authors, additional restrictions, and various tags. Most of these criteria are self-explanatory. One restriction is labelled 'my puzzles'. This will return all of your portal puzzles, published or not.
Puzzle authors may assign their puzzles to categories by tagging them. These tags can be used during advanced searches. The icons should help you identify the categories quickly. If you are uncertain about an icon move the mouse pointer over the icon and wait a second: you should then see a tool tip with the category name.
The advanced search offers one more feature that the other search options don't have: you can modify your Observation, Favourite, and Ignore lists based on the search results. Just click the link at the bottom of the search results list.
