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This is the home page for the 15 puzzle, pixpuzzle , Devil Rings(Hungarian Rings) and Lights Out android apps.

The 15 Puzzle

The 15 puzzle has been with us for a long time. It was created in the 1870's in New England according to our readings and became popular in the 1880's but we have no knowledge so far of the creator(s). The 15 puzzle is a permutation puzzle and this app is our little rendition that we hope will find favor with everyone. The puzzles generated are just a subset of the vast amount of configurations possible some of which are unsolvable. The algorithms that generate the puzzles have been verified to the best of our ability to generate solvable puzzles but if we made any mistakes we are truly sorry and it is not intentional. The puzzle is simple; just arrange the tiles in order but beware you might find yourself with a more confused mess than you started with. So this is a call to all true numberphiles.

The 15 Puzzle App

The app is very simple, just 15 tiles scrambled and you must unscramble them i.e. arrange them in order. And turn down the sound on your device because we celebrate your success with fireworks. We feel that solving a puzzle deserves proper celebration. the app has an options menu from which you have a choice of easy, medium and hard puzzles. If you find that you want to take a break from the puzzle you are solving then you can save the game and return to it at another time using the options menu. You only get to save one game however. And you can clear the game history at any time. Clearing the game history will clear the fastest time that a puzzle was solved and the number of puzzles that has been solved so you can start fresh. Because of the huge variations in screen sizes and resolutions on Android devices you may find that you have to touch the screen slightly outside the tile area to move a particular tile. This will most likely happen with the tiles to the left or right or the top and bottom of the box. Check out the screenshots below.

I dare you to get the tiles in order!

Screenshot of 15 Puzzle App

fireworks after solving puzzle

PixPuzzle

The pixpuzzle is an extension of the 15 puzzle to pictures. Like the 15 puzzle there are fifteen tiles that can be scrambled and you must unscramble them. The pixpuzzle app also has an options menu from which you can choose between easy, medium and hard puzzles. The menu also allows you to save your game and return to it later. And you get to make a choice between five different puzzles. You can also clear game history and start fresh anytime you want. See the screenshots below.

The puzzle

The winning scene

The Devil Rings(Hungarian Rings)

The Hungarian Rings puzzle consists of two intersecting rings made up of a number of colored balls. The rings of balls intersect at two places, so they share two of the balls. Each ring of balls can be rotated, so the balls can be mixed. The aim is to mix up the balls, and then place the balls back together so the color form a continuous sequence (as shown in the solved puzzle below).There are 38 balls of four colors: two colors have 9 balls (yellow and blue) and two colors have 10 balls(green, red). There are 4 balls between the intersections of the rings. Please note the position of the balls in the solved puzzle.

scrambled puzzle

solved puzzle

Lights Out

Lights Out consists of a grid of lights; when the game starts, a set of these lights (one of a set of stored puzzle patterns) are switched on. Pressing one of the lights will toggle it, and the four lights adjacent to it, on and off. (Diagonal neighbors are not affected.) The game provides a puzzle: given some initial configuration where some lights are on and some are off, the goal is to switch all the lights off, preferably in as few button presses as possible. The Lights Out puzzle app has a menu from which you can choose the 5X5, 4X4, or the 3X3 puzzles. Please see below for the screen shots.

the 5x5 puzzle

the 4x4 puzzle

the 3x3 puzzle