Thursday, August 27, 2009

Puzzle Pal launched

It all started in New Zealand.

I have always wanted to learn to do cryptic crosswords, but in USA only the hard-core cruciverbalists play cryptics, so there isn't a lot of beginner material. Imagine my joy when I bought my first cryptic crossword booklet in a supermarket in Te Anau! I happily went through the puzzles, but as a newbie I often got frustrated when I knew what do to, be it anagrams, hidden answers and what have you, but was stuck anyway because I could not come up with the word. Internet was not available since I was touring the country, so I really wanted an offline app on my phone.

I came home and started writing an app for pattern matching and anagram, which are great for cryptic crosswords. After I built the wordlist, I realized that I could do more with it, so I threw in different modes like phone spell and caesar cipher. While I was at it, I added a sudoku solver too.

I was going to keep this as a little tool for myself, but once my friends saw it, they wanted a copy as well. I polished the app a bit, and decided to put it on the Android Market for all to enjoy. Hope you like it too.