A human centered approach to logic puzzles.

Pen & Paper puzzle games are popular form of entertainment, that lends itself well to computational solving and generation. They are also used in education, both to teach their intrinsic concepts and as a tool to support learning in other areas. There has been extensive research into generating and efficiently solving puzzle game levels, though comparatively little has focused on creating a challenging yet intriguing puzzle solving experience for a given human player. We conducted an initial study into how human players approach the solving of paper puzzle games, using Sudoku, and how that corresponded to the assumptions made by computational solvers. The intention is to use this insight to build a general help system that better reflects and supports the solving process employed by human players when solving puzzle games.