For several years we've offered a Puzzle Assistant, designed to allow users to play either their own puzzles or ones created specially for site. Offering online assistance on demand, the Assistant saved thousands of users from frustration, exasperation and blind fury across the world.

Unfortunately, during that time we've been unable to keep up with the changes and upgrades in web browsers. The last browser to work properly was Firefox, and with the upgrade to version 10 it is no longer compatible with the site.

Therefore we have put the Assistant on haitus until we are able to produce a new Assistant, compatible with the latest browsers.

If you'd like to keep in touch, or be notified when a new Assistant is ready, why not drop us a line?

Frequently Asked Questions

Since I made this change to the site, I've had literally hundreds of emails from you all asking about the situation. I've written up this FAQ to try to answer some of your questions.

I've been really rather overwhelmed by how nice you've all been - thank you all very much for your messages of thanks, support and encouragement. It's been really very surprising and kind.

• Is the site coming back?

  I certainly hope so!

  I would very much like to bring it back, with new working assistants and new puzzles. It all depends on how much time I have; at the moment, I have hardly any.

• Can't you just fix the bit that's broken?

  Er, well, no, and it's a bit embarressing. A while ago the source code for the site was lost. Although I could keep the site running, I couldn't easily make changes; and I couldn't make any changes at all to the assistants.

• What if you fix it for just one browser?

  As you can see, it's not that simple. To fix it for one, I have to rebuild the source code; once I've done that, it will work for all browsers anyway.

• But it works in my browser!

  In fact I don't think there was a single modern browser that worked completely. IE8, IE9, Chrome 8+, Firefox 10+, Opera - they all had problems (different problems for each browser). In the end though I think once I'd lost IE, Firefox and Chrome, the game was up.

• Well, ok - how long do you think it's going to take?

  Well, in all honesty it's probably going to be a while. I have commitments that will take up all of my time for the next few months at least. After that things should calm down again and I'll be able to look again.

• Can I buy puzzles?

  A few of you have asked if you could buy packs of puzzles direct. I'm having a think about how I could do that. It may be that I can generate some packs of PDFs. If you're interested, drop me a line. If you've already asked, then I will get back to you as soon as I can.

• Hey! I donated to this site!

  It's true, some of you did donate to keep the site running. Some of you were extremely generous, but all donations were welcome, and although they never quite covered the cost of running the site, it was still very nice to get them.

  However, I'm certainly not trying to rip anyone off; I've contacted those of you who made donations recently and refunded them, and if you've made a donation and feel it was misplaced, let me know and I'll refund you too.

• Can I help you get things going again?

  Some of you have offered to help to bring the site up again. In some cases it was offers of donations, and in other cases it was offers of software development.

  This is very kind - thank you! I'm considering what's the best way to do this. Certainly it's not about the money, so although I'm very grateful for the offer, I'm going to say no to further donations. But I may talk to one or two of you about software development. I have to figure out what the plan is first.

• What are you going to do with all our account details?

  I've only ever been holding account details for the purpose of running the site. I'm going to delete all the user account details.

• Will you let us know when the site's back?

  Some of you have already emailed to ask for a reminder when the site comes back up, and I've made a note of your details. If you haven't specifically asked to be reminded then I won't contact you again - but feel free to drop me a line to ask to be put 'on the list'.

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p.s. For those of you who are worrying about them, the Sudoku monks have not been thrown out into a cold, cheeseburger-less world. They've all been sent on vacation to Hawaii instead, where they're taking a well-earned rest and sampling the local delicacies. It turns out Sudoku monks also love ham and pineapple pizza.