Newsletter #42 : Peg Solitaire and Advent

A long time ago, when I was just starting Dr Mike’s Math Games for Kids, my wife bought two puzzle games for our eldest child, then still in kindergarten. One of them was the Traffic Jam Game. I quickly made an online traffic jam game, and it’s become one of the most popular games on the website. (There’s also a printable version). The other was a game called ‘Flip-It’, but somehow, until today, I never got around to making an online ‘Flip-It’ Game.

Well, recently, my wife encouraged me again to make an online Flip-It. It is, after all, a really nice game. Starting with a bunch of turtles all on their backs, you have to make the turtles jump over each other. Each time a turtle gets jumped over, it flips. The goal is to make all the turtles the right side up.

So I started.

I quickly realised that there are many games that have similar rules – and as I started writing the computer instructions for Flip-It, I tried to make them as general as possible. So, while I don’t have ‘Flip-It’ ready for you, I do have a different game to announce : Peg Solitaire! You are almost certainly familiar with this one. I’d like to invite you to try out my online version.

At the moment there is only one variant of peg solitaire in the online game. I’ll soon add more, so check back often and see what’s new. I’ll also try to make it faster to load – if you are on a dialup connection, you’ll see what I mean.

You might be thinking – “why is Dr Mike sending this email out when the game is not complete?” Well, it is complete – it’s just not as complete as my perfectionist nature would like it to be. However, I figured that it is a playable online math puzzle game, and if I delay the email any longer, it would be too late to remind you that Dr Mike’s Math Games for Kids has a printable Advent Calendar. If you’ve been thinking of getting an Advent Calendar for your kids, but somehow didn’t get around to it, pop over to the website now, and get busy with printer, scissors and glue! Advent calendars are a great tool for helping young kids understand about calendars and counting – and the need to wait and wait for Christmas Day!

The last thing I’d like to tell you is about the traffic jam game again. I recently paid a programmer in Egypt to make an Android version! If you like my traffic jam game and have an Android Smartphone, hop over to the Android Market and search for “Dr Mike Traffic Jam”, or else scan the QC code at the right. You can also find the QC code at the bottom of this page

That’s all for now! Have a great Christmas, or whatever else you celebrate at this time of year!