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Culture editor / Hunter Riley
Eightfold wholesome fun by Candace Hsu Daily Lobo
Doug Gardner of Arlington, Va., is revolutionizing the world of paper puzzles in his spare time. Gardner, a computer security specialist, created the “Octo” puzzle in the summer of 2007. Like Sudoku and Kakuro, the puzzle plays with positional logic and adding numbers together. It requires players to place numbers 1-8 in a certain order to match a sum diagonally and linearly. There are numbers at the end of each diagonal and line. “I am a huge puzzle fan, I have liked them all my life,” Gardner said. “I have always been interested in crosswords, word searches, things like that. I also was very interested in math at an early stage, which led to puzzles. Like a lot of
people, I was taken by Sudoku. It’s really neat how it makes you think about how things fit uniquely into a pattern.” Gardner said he tried different shapes for the puzzle, and the octagon proved to be the best fit. “After I got the structure right, I started filling them out by hand,” he said. “Eventually I created a computer program that could generate puzzles within minutes. There was still trial and error on top of the computer program because I had to set certain rules to make sure there is only one valid answer.” Gardner said solving a puzzle can take 10 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on the level of difficulty. The “Octo” puzzles can be completed by players of any age, particularly late elementary students and up, Gardner said.
“My 9-year-old daughter can do the easiest ones,” he said. “They can be done by anyone. College students have really been taken by it too because it has a competitive edge to it.” Gardner said no major publishing company has expressed interest in the puzzles yet. He said the puzzle needs to reach a group of people who are willing to “convert” to a different kind of puzzle. Gardner wants the puzzles to be published in newspapers, in books, and on Web sites. “It is fun to go through the learning processes,” Gardner said. “I didn’t know about patenting and marketing, so I am learning as I go. Now the puzzle is done, in the sense that it isn’t just an idea
see Octo puzzle page 10
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Thursday October 22, 2009
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