Introduction

From 2005 to 2010, I worked with two co-founders on ‘Vitamine P’ (Vitamin P), a puzzle/brain training website. It presented five new puzzles each day in five categories. It was aimed at the elderly, who at the time of this project were not very computer savvy yet. Therefore, we paid a lot of attention to the UI, which was very straightforward and consistent across all puzzles. Additionally, each puzzle contained animated help instructions. This page lists all the puzzles we created; notice how similar the UI was.

The website kept track of your personal PQ, or puzzle performance. Most of the puzzles were generated in advance and were identical for all players, allowing users to chat about the puzzles with each other.

We sold Vitamine P to Keesing, part of De Telegraaf, the largest Dutch newspaper.

My role

• Concept development (I came up with most of the puzzles, I marked my ideas below)
• Development of the puzzles in Flash ActionScript (all puzzles, ActionScript is similar to JavaScript)

Five levels per puzzle

Each puzzle can be played on 5 levels. A higher level often means a larger playfield. Here is an example:

Tweaking the right difficulty took us a lot of time and effort.

Puzzles in the category ‘Logic’

Place one or more lamps next to each red square. The number of lamps is specified inside the red square. Each lamp broadcasts light horizontally and vertically. When you are done, all the grey squares should be illuminated. Watch a video

Capture stones like in checkers until only one remains. Watch a video

Conceived by me. Each stone can be swapped with its horizontal or vertical neighbor. You may make a limited number of swaps. When you are done, each stone must have at least one horizontal or vertical neighbor of the same color. Watch a video

Conceived by me. Each stone has three properties: shape, color, and filling. A correct group meets the following two requirements:

• The stones in the group are in a straight line next to or below each other.
• For each property, such as color, all stones in the group must either be the same or all different.

Find all groups. Watch a video

Puzzles in the category ‘Spatial’

Conceived by me. A sliding puzzle with a twist. With an arrow key, you shift an entire row or column. If a photo box slides out of view, it reappears on the opposite side.

Move all cars in their driving direction, forward or backward, until the orange car reaches the exit. Watch a video

Conceived by me. Click on groups of blocks of the same color. They disappear, and the blocks above fall down into the created gap. Clear the entire field this way. Watch a video

Puzzles in the category ‘Memory’

Conceived by me. Make sure to let the right people into the castle. Don’t let too many of the same type in. Watch a video

Conceived by me. You get to see a face for a short time. After that, you must identify this person in a ‘line-up’. Watch a video

Conceived by me. A series of numbers are shown in different places one after the other. Remember the numbers and their locations. Watch a video

Puzzles in the category ‘Language’

Find words in a grid of letters. Watch a video

Conceived by me. Letters fall down, stacking up. Just like in Tetris, you can move them left and right during their fall. If you form a word (of at least three letters) horizontally or vertically, the letters of the word disappear, giving you some breathing room! Watch a video

Conceived by me. Create as many words as possible from a given set of letters. Watch a video

Puzzles in the category ‘Math’

Place the numbers 1 to 3 (or 4 or 5, depending on the size of the playfield) in each row. Ensure that the comparisons with ‘<’ and ‘>’ are correct. Watch a video

Conceived by me. Cross out all numbers that form a certain sum. The numbers must be adjacent to each other, either horizontally or vertically. Watch a video

Conceived by me. Adjust the quantities of the groceries until the total price on the receipt is correct. Watch a video

Serverside generated puzzles

Most of the puzzles were generated in advance, by our ‘Puzzle Factory’ server. That way all users saw the same puzzles and could chat about it. Watch a video (Dutch)