This is just a look at a site, not an attempt at a comprehensive review. It’s more of an informative overview than a critical piece. Hope you enjoy the first proper post on this blog, and please leave any comments below! 
Puzzlin is a kids puzzles site. It’s a relatively new site, so its volume of content is limited. However, the content is there is fun and well designed.
The selection of kids puzzles is currently jigsaws, sliding blocks (otherwise known as 8-puzzles), word searches, hangman, and word jumble. They’re pretty traditional puzzles, and that is one of the aims of the site: quality classic kids puzzles. All the puzzles are fully interactive, for example the jigsaw puzzle simply requires a drag and drop action for each piece to take them from the pile of pieces to the area set aside to construct the puzzle in. It’s obvious and simple, so kids will have no trouble using it.
Other kid friendly features are the generous snapping of things into place. What I mean by that is that placing things like jigsaw pieces, the blocks in the sliding blocks puzzles, or the letters in the word jumble snap into their destination slots with a pretty side margin of error which is ideal for use by kids. For the most part the interface is very obvious, but all of the puzzles have a set of instructions just in case. The site doesn’t require Flash or any other plugins/additional software for its interactivity, so it should just work on computers without any of that installed, which is a nice plus point.
Navigating the site is pretty simple too. You’re presenting with a list of puzzle types on the homepage, it’s then one click through to a list of those puzzles, and another click to be playing — it’s very quick. When puzzles are completed there is a brief interval where a congratulatory image is shown before a list of puzzle suggestions is shown. Each puzzle appears to have a set of tags, so the suggestions are based on those as well as the type of puzzle. It’s a nice approach which keeps the stream of puzzles coming with very little delay, while providing a fun experience to kids that might have an interest in a particular theme.
Content wise, the puzzles are probably best suited for kids of about 5 to 10 years old. The word based puzzles would require a good command of basic English, and the picture based puzzles might require too much attention of younger kids. The artwork is cartoony in style, and there is a cute penguin mascot featured throughout the site’s pages and in some of the puzzles. Everything is suitable for kids — which is obviously important.
In summary; Puzzlin is a new, but fresh and entertaining kids puzzles site. There could be more content, but the works well in terms of interactivity and navigation for kids.
Enough rambling from me, check out Puzzlin’s selection of kids puzzles.
