The Role of Computers in Puzzle World

Abstract

Puzzles have long history and have been developed by many people. Nowadays computers are contributing very much to the evolution of puzzles. First computers were used to make arithmetical puzzles, like earithmetical restoration' or ecrypt-arithmetic,' then to make mechanical puzzles, like eburr puzzles' or epolyomino puzzles' and to make pencil and paper puzzles like esudoku.' So now puzzle creators of all genres use computers and they can make more beautiful puzzles with computers than before. Computers changed not only puzzle creators, but also puzzle solvers. Now many puzzle solvers are also computer programmers, and they enjoy puzzles by finding the way of solving puzzles by computers. Of course humans and computers are different in the way of thinking, so computer-solving isn't usually the intention of puzzle creators. But some puzzles are especially for computer programmers and we can say such are new tendency in the puzzle world.