Monkey Pod Games Blog

Apparently, Day Light Savings Time is on March 14th.  Now that it is the beginning of spring time, we will be moving our clocks forward one hour. There goes an extra hour of sleep! But hey, who doesn’t appreciate a 7 or 8pm sunset? It is terrible when it is 4 o’clock and the sun is down and you feel like it is midnight.

Forgetting the day light saving time benefits on energy, health, economics, and public safety, now everyone has the opportunity to sit out longer in the sun and play a Monkey Pod Game!

At least we know the summer and all its fun is close by

The version that is helping us be better to the environment and get a break from technology!

Computers, television, video game consules, portable video games, movies, MP3 players that do everything, cell phones, portable dvd players, where does it end?

Technology is great but like everything, it has its limits. Unfortunately it seems everywhere we turn, more and more technology is springing up. One obvious instance is with the game Sudoku. It used to be a pleasurable game played in a newspaper or booklet. Now there are endless websites selling or offering free Sudoku. Instead of being a quiet game away from our technology centric society, it has joined the masses. Now we stare at the screen burning out our retinas trying to solve a very hard Sudoku game.

One of our aims at Monkey Pod Games is to not join the masses! We want to bring leisure into your life that isnt just another technological gimmick. That is why we have created our own Sudoku game!

We have created a wooden Sudoku that is perfect for your home or to take with you on vacation. You still get your classic 9 x 9 Sudoku game but instead of being glued to your computer screen, this can be played in your bedroom, the livingroom, in the car while on a long trip, or wherever you are comfortable.

But we have taken our concept a step further! It is very important for us to do what we can to improve our Earth. We only have one as it is. Most people have ecological footprints 4-6 times the size it should be. By choosing to use our wooden Sudoku version you are doing two good things for the environment:

1) You are not longer having to buy booklets, meaning hundreds of trees do not need to be cut down in order to make the pages for an endless amount of books to be produced.

2)By being able to play the game not on your computer, you are conserving electricity. When we save electricity, we are not using as much oil. When we are not using as much oil, we are saving money both by nation and by globe.

Therefore we highly suggest an investment into the wooden Sudoku game. Not only is it the best way to play the game without harming the environment, it is also just as fun! No more running out of puzzles inside booklets or erasing so hard that the ink on the page starts to fad. This has to be the perfect way to play Sudoku! We would love to hear your thoughts on the subject! Order your own copy here!

Tangram Puzzle

This deceptively simple appearance of the tangram puzzle belies its rich history and folklore.  The seven pieces of the tangram—a square, a parallelogram, and five triangles—make up a larger square.  The challenge of the tangram puzzle is to form a specified shape using the seven pieces, which are called tans.  In each configuration, the tans must lay flat and touch but not overlap each other.

The tangram dates back thousands of years.  According to an ancient Chinese legend, a young man wished to present the emperor with a gift, a beautiful glass tile.  But on his trip to the palace, the tile shattered into seven different pieces. The man tried to reconstruct the tile from the pieces but did not succeed.  Instead, he decided to create pictures using the pieces of tile, and presented the emperor with the picturs.  Thus, the seven-piece puzzle known as the tangram was born.

The earliest evidence of the tangram dates back to the early 19th century, when the tangram puzzles were brought over to American from China on American ships.  The tangrams were sometimes constructed from expensive material like ivory and jade.

Since then, tangrams have taken off: Napoleon was said to own one, as was Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll. 

An American puzzle inventor, Sam Loyd, even wrote a spoof about the history of the tangram, called The Eighth Book of Tan.  The tangram puzzles has become popular with both kids and adults who enjoy the mind-bending challenges, and with mathematicians and geometry fan who study all the possible combinations of the Tangram puzzle pieces.

Don’t forget to check out Monkey Pod Game’s version of the Tangram wooden puzzle!

Tangram Shapes