Lemurs Unite

Smartest iPhone User in the World Also Most Generous

2008-11-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

We're told by Puzzllotto Prize winner Dave Hayden that he'll be donating $1000 of the prize to the Madagascar Fauna Group. Talk about your gracious winners!

Meet Dave

2008-11-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

Halloween comes only once a year, but something tells us Dave Hayden will remember Halloween 2008 for a while to come.

On the afternoon of All Hallows Eve Eve, Dave solved Puzzllotto for reals. By morning, the wheels had already started turning to commit his name to the halls of Puzzllotto Championship history. Our own Ash Ponders took a chance to talk to him about it.

Ash: Congratulations on solving Puzzllotto, Dave.
Dave: Thanks! It was a good puzzle!
Ash: I'm glad you liked it. Were you tempted at all to try and hold off and let the pot grow?
Dave: Not at all. I was trying hard to convince myself that someone had already gotten it.
When I realized it was a phone number I spent about half an hour trying to convince myself it wasn't, otherwise I'd be stuck dialing random phone numbers all day.
Ash: How did you figure out the last screen?
Dave: In retrospect, I'm really surprised no one had figured it out, even without sorting out the logic of the levels. I nearly had a coronary when I finally saw that the lemurs were ██████ ██████ (Solution redacted for your safety)

Puzzllotto 1.1 is available worldwide for your puzzling ~~torture~~ pleasure. But try not to Google the solution, you'd only be cheating yourself.

One Point One

2008-11-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

Puzzllotto 1.1 is now available worldwide!

This new version fixes several problems with audio playback, saves your game progress, and adds a new ending for players now that the Puzzllotto Prize has been claimed. Check it.

Puzzllotto Prize: Claimed!

2008-10-31T13:24:00.000-07:00

Dave H, from Portland, is our new Puzzllotto Champion! Once the independent judges are done verifying, Dave will receive the Champion's Trophy and $8,000 in prize money. Congratulations once again to Dave!

Day Eight

2008-10-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Another day, another thousand dollars. The Puzzllotto Prize is now $8.000. That's what you call walking around money. The male lemurs are the ones with the wrist glands. This has no relevance to the puzzle whatsoever.

Day Seven

2008-10-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

With the prize now standing at $7,000, could it be that Puzzllotto is harder than Chuck Norris? The hint lays it out: finishing Puzzllotto is not the same as solving Puzzllotto.

Day Six

2008-10-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

Challengers are beginning to drop off, stymied by the impossibly frustrating — yet easily solvable — Puzzllotto! The prize stands at $6,000. The hint? The order of the puzzles in Puzzllotto has more to do with playability than solvability.

Day Five

2008-10-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Puzzllotto has stumped everyone for yet another day. The prize has swelled to a ridiculous $5,000. That's like two new MacBook Pros!

Today's hint, for those new to the game: The lemurs are there to help you. The butterflies are there to guide you.

Day Four

2008-10-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

See what people are saying about Puzzllotto:

"I really, really hate you guys... Keep it up."
"Ridiculously confusing"
"Extremely hard and very well thought out"
"REALLY frustrating"
"This game is not easy"
"★"
"★★★★★"

Love it or hate it, the Puzzllotto Prize remains unclaimed! Today it stands at $4,000. The hint: "Solving Puzzllotto doesn't require rhythm or arcane gestures. Think twice, tap once."

Day Three

2008-10-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

The Puzzllotto Prize is still unclaimed. You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?

The total prize pool currently stands at $3000 (plus the Champion's Trophy). Keep an eye on Twitter for announcements.

Today's hint: "If the game were called Nunnllotto, the Fosa would be a ruler."

Day Two

2008-10-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

The Puzzllotto Prize remains unclaimed, with the total prize pool now standing at $2000 plus the Champion's Trophy. The next announcment will be on Twitter at noon tomorrow.

Today's hint: "Puzzllotto keeps returning you to the beginning because it makes the puzzle easier to solve."

State of the Lemur

2008-10-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Shipping a product is a lot like leaving for vacation. The realities of getting out the door mean you're inevitably going to forget something. After going through it a few times, all you can hope is whatever it is can be dealt with when you get there.

These past few days have been very educational, and I'd like to share what we've learned, and what we're going to do about it.

The elephant in the room is the fact that many people find Puzzllotto infuriating. People want to love this game, and they want to support us and our cause, but if the game isn't fun for them, they feel, frankly, betrayed.

We can't go back in time to write a different game, but we can address the feeling you've wasted your money. When the contest is over, everyone who bought Puzzllotto will get a second game free — but more about that in a moment.

Whether you're puzzle-curious, or just want to support what we're doing, go ahead and purchase Puzzllotto. If it turns out to be your cup of tea, fantastic. If all it does is raise your blood pressure, set it down and wait for the contest to be over.

Now for the nitty gritty details: when designing Puzzllotto, we actually designed two games. One is the frustrating puzzle game, designed to not only confuse, but deliberately mislead. The other is a more traditional game, with game play modes and instructions and all the other things normal people enjoy.

Once the puzzle is solved, the new game, called "Lemur Grotto," will appear as an upgrade to Puzzllotto, alongside a re-release of the current game as "Puzzllotto classic."

Confused? This is why we didn't say this in the beginning. If you want to just think of the second game as a "fun patch," that's cool too.

If you've already purchased Puzzllotto, and still feel ripped off, email me personally — mike at United Lemur org — and I will do what I can to make you whole.

Puzzllotto is my baby, so the blame is all mine. I'm sorry to the people who've been frustrated-in-a-bad-way. Thanks all for your patience, and for your continued support.

For the people who love Puzzllotto, hurry up and solve this thing before we lose our shirts.

Day One

2008-10-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Puzzllotto Prize Remains Unclaimed!

The total prize pool stands at $1000. The next announcment will be on Twitter at noon.

Today's hint: "If you think you've solved Puzzllotto, you haven't. When you solve Puzzllotto, you'll know."

The Puzzllotto Prize

2008-10-20T14:19:00.001-07:00

We've finally announced the big secret of Puzzllotto: we're giving up to $30,000 USD to the first person to solve it! (Check the press release, if you're into that kind of thing)

Starting Wednesday at noon, the Puzzllotto Prize begins at zero dollars and zero cents (plus a wicked-sweet trophy). Then, every day after that for a month, one thousand bucks goes into the pot until somebody solves the puzzle and claims the prize. Pretty simple really.

Well, maybe not so simple. Even if you do solve the puzzle in five minutes, is a (wicked-sweet) trophy all you desire? It's a cool trophy and all, but it's not exactly a vacation on the Acapulco beach (or even the Jersey shore). Will you claim the prize immediately, or will you wait for the prize to jackpot and risk someone else nabbing it from under you? Quite a conundrum.

In addition to giving you the chance to win a boatload of money (and prove that you are smarter than everyone one else, ever), we're giving 10% of all Puzzllotto's App Store revenue to the Madagascar Fauna Group. The MFG is an awesome charity we've worked with many times in the past. They're 99% efficient, so almost all the money donated ends up where it's really needed. They're all about saving lemurs and helping farmers learn the benefits of crop rotation (as opposed to slash and burn which has ravaged the precious Madagascar Forest).

Check the official rules for all the gibberish our lawyers made us put in. But the basic rules are these: don't be lame, have an iPhone (or iPod touch), buy Puzzllotto, solve the puzzle, win the prize. Easy peasy.

Hey Guys!

2008-10-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

"Hey Guys" is the new "Hello World," right?

Most of us have blogs of our own (see Mike Lee, Ash Ponders, Tristan O'Tierney, and Chris Clark), but sometimes the troop needs its own voice. Welcome to the United Lemur company weblog.