Your readers ❤️ puzzles

Puzzles form daily routines that increase engagement and retention.

We offer online puzzles and print services to help publishers increase retention and reduce churn.

Check out our puzzlesContact us
About us

We take puzzles seriously.

We’re a team of puzzle fanatics, operating from offices in Amsterdam and The Hague, with over 20 years of experience in digital production for large international brands. We believe puzzles are key to user engagement by anchoring daily routines that play a fundamental role in building a sustainable subscription business.

We offer a full service partnership and work closely together with publishers of all sizes. Our tailor-made approach helps turning passive users into active participants by taking puzzles seriously and looking at all the steps needed to move puzzles into the daily routine sweet spot of your audience.

Q42 Office

We know digital.

With over 20 years of experience in mobile and web development, partnering with international publishers and having won 8 Webby Awards, we’re an experienced partner, here to help with your print-to-digital strategy.

A hand holding an iPhone with Sudoku

Millions of touches.

Our digital puzzles are mobile, tablet and desktop friendly and offer a delightful user experience. With millions of sessions each month, our puzzles bring a smile to many faces every day.

A printed newspaper

Promote your brand.

Customize puzzles using your own brand and content. Create custom puzzles based on your own articles, and let users read the article after finishing the puzzle. Boost your brand engagement!

Clients

These brands went before you.

Here is a selection of brands that use our puzzle services.

Leading publishers turn to puzzles.

Puzzles have always had a high perceived value and play an essential role in a reader’s daily routine. So it is no surprise that renowned publishers such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian have recently turned to puzzles as a compelling way to invite readers to keep coming back.

The most searched-for terms on the New York Times website last year [2020] weren’t “Trump” or “Biden” or even “coronavirus.”
They were “crosswords” and “Spelling Bee,” the name of the Times’s online word game — part of the newspaper’s attempt to grab a bigger piece of the $100 billion market for mobile games.
Source: Bloomberg
Our puzzles

Original experiences and usual suspects.

Our portfolio includes many original handcrafted experiences and tailor-made signature puzzles, as well as the most popular usual suspects such as Sudoku, Crossword and Wordfind. All puzzles are easy to integrate in existing websites and apps, and our team is ready to aid you with all steps in the process.

And if you already have a strong partnership with a local puzzle provider or different authors, know that we love to work together and mix and match these services to offer the best content and experience to your audience.

Sudoku
Sudoku
Digital
Print-READY

With our intuitive responsive interface, different grid sizes and difficulty settings, our Sudoku is considered the Rolls Royce among digital players.

Users easily scribble notes or plot final values and never get stuck due to a smart progressive hint system.

Play sudoku
Crossword
Crossword
Digital
Print-READY

Our crossword player comes highly recommended by its users due to its friendly interface.

Combine it with existing puzzles from your current authors, or let us provide you with unique daily content that's a perfect fit with your brand.

Play crossword
Wordfind
Wordfind
Digital
Print-READY

Word Find (or Word Search) has always been one of the most popular puzzle games that caters to players of all ages.

But swiping words on mobile can block your view of the grid, so our unique magnifying glass highlights where you're going.

Play wordfind
0h h1
0h h1
42 puzzles exclusive
Digital
Print-READY

Did you know that our take on binary sudoku has been a popular mobile game for years?

Used by Google as a showcase for mobile  developers, 0h h1 has been a wildly successful puzzle game and frequently listed among giants such as 2048 and Threes.

Play 0h h1
0h n0
0h n0
42 puzzles exclusive
Digital
Print-READY

Together with 0h h1, this logic game has been wildly popular among puzzle fans and has been awarded the People's Choice Lovie Award in London.

Frequently, our clients are surprised to see this game rise high in their puzzle analytics :)

Play 0h n0
Quento
Quento
42 puzzles exclusive
Digital
Print-READY

Quento is a fun and delightful little math game for all ages that improves players' mental calculation abilities.

Originally launched as a mobile game, Quento has received international critical acclaim for its unique design and gameplay.

Play Quento
Headline
The Headline
42 puzzles exclusive
Digital
Print-READY

Our exclusive and popular puzzle game The Headline turns your daily headlines into a unique blend of Wordfind and the traditional Snake.

Players read the intro of the article as a hint, and are asked to plot its article headline on the grid.

The Headline is our first in a series of combining news content with puzzle games.

Play the Headline
Tents and Trees
Tents & Trees
Print-READY

In this classic logic game, players must find all the spots on a camping ground to place tents. A tent is always placed right next to a tree, and numbers along the grid give away how many tents must be placed in each row and column.

Tents & Trees can be played in a wide variety of sizes and difficulty settings.

Play Tents & Trees
Battleship
Battleship
Print-READY

Most people in the world have experienced a two-player game of battleship where both players plot their ships on the water right before firing off missiles to destroy those of your opponent.

But only few are aware of the mind bending fun this single-player puzzle game has to offer.

So print this game with a description and your readers will thank you for it.

Knights Move
Knight's Move
DIGITAL
Print-READY

A quick mini-game in which players use knight moves from chess to jump from letter to letter in order to form an 8-letter word.

Knight's Move is the perfect appetizer that draws users into to your puzzle page.

Play Knight's Move
Killer Sudoku
Killer Sudoku
Digital
Print-READY

Think Sudoku but with an extra challenging layer. The grid has been subdivided into smaller regions, each showing the total sum of its cells in the top left corner. Players use this extra information to deduct possible candidates and solve the entire puzzle merely by reason.

Hyper Sudoku
Hyper Sudoku
Digital
Print-READY

Known as the signature puzzle of the Dutch NRC and topping their "most read page" list 365 days a year since using our digital player, this special Sudoku offers a fun extra challenge with extra regions that also require the numbers 1 to 9.

Our Hyper Sudoku goes beyond the "hyper" boxes and allows for tailor made regions, for instance based on the initials of your brand.

Play Hypersudoku at SZ
Tectonic
Number block
Digital
Print-READY

Also known as the Japanese Suguru, Number block is akin to Sudoku but still a fresh logic experience on its own merits.

A grid is filled with variable sized regions, each containing the numbers 1 to its size (so a region with five cells has the numbers 1,2,3,4 and 5).

With only a few rules, this game can be learned quick but can still be tough to master.

Play Number block
Numolition
Numolition
42 puzzles exclusive
Digital
Print-READY

This highly addictive puzzle game offers a fun blend of simple calculation, spatial thinking and the classic match-three mechanic.

In a gravitational grid, numbers can be moved around and combined to form new (higher) numbers. The goal is to clear out the entire grid by tapping adjacent similar numbers.

Numolition offers manually crafted levels as well as infinite dynamically generated challenges.

Get the Numolition app
Contact us

We look forward to hearing from you!

If you have any questions, go ahead and fill out this quick form. We're swift responders and look forward to planning a video call to discuss your questions. Plus, it's always great to see a friendly face behind an e-mail.

We're Dutch.

We work from our offices in Amsterdam and The Hague, meaning we're on Amsterdam time (CET +1 ).

If you send us a message using the form, we usually get back to you within a business day.

You can also send an e-mail to martin@42puzzles.com

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