Earlier this year I sat down with a family friend to help out with some IT issues on her iPad, and noticed she’d been doing the newspaper Sudoku. I asked “Do you like puzzles” and ended up showing her an early prototype for an interactive jigsaw idea I’d experimented with years ago but put on the shelf. Her husband was called in – “Look at this!” – and they ended up fighting over the iPad to complete a few levels I’d created as a testbed. I asked “Did you do Wordle?” and then the interesting part - “I don’t like the wordy ones, or crosswords – I have dyslexia. But I love this - it’s completely visual.” So the seed was set. Jigscale (my working title) was back in development. I leant into the coworking community in Bath (the lovely new Gather Round church) and ran some early group test workshops and the feedback and interest was great. It felt like there was potential. Fast forward to today – meet Jigsy.app – a brand new puzzle concept that takes elements of Tetris, but leans more to the puzzle/brainteaser aspects of Rubik’s Cube and spatial reasoning. But it has a totally unique play mechanic based on being able to SCALE pieces. It’s early days – this is a beta release. But you can play the ‘Daily Challenge’ like Wordle, and try to complete the 10 Levels to enter a prize draw for £50. I’m also entering a Startup Challenge for funding and development support – longer term I plan to release a realtime tournament version (race a friend online) and maybe even ‘build your own custom level and share with friends’.

Jigsy.app – daily web puzzles

A brand new puzzle concept

A brand new puzzle concept