Braingle.com
http://www.braingle.com
Grade: B+

Date reviewed: 8/13/04

Braingle offers all sorts of puzzles: logic, probability, math, and rebuses, to name a few. Since the puzzles are user-submitted and edited, it is updated constantly, and there is a wide variety of difficulty and content - and quality of writing, unfortunately.

The site is free. If you just want to solve puzzles, you can do that. If you want to become part of a community, you can do that too, by signing up, voting on puzzles submitted by other users, and submitting your own. Eventually, you can even become an editor, approving other people's puzzles before they appear on the site.

Two of the interesting community-building feaures of this site are the discussion forum and the user comments following each puzzle. Like most web communities, they sometimes devolve into tangents and arguments, but generally you can get good tips on how to write your own brain teasers. And you'll need them - other users will rip apart a puzzle that sucks! In fact, part of the fun of the site is reading the criticisms. The people here get very passionate and pretty funny when a puzzle doesn't meet their standards.