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When you log in to your puzzlemix account you are presented with the main puzzle menu, listing all of your puzzle subscriptions and the puzzles contained within them.

The screen looks something like this, with coloured rectangles added to aid the explanation below:

Your puzzle subscriptions
The orange rectangle at the top highlights the box showing your current subscriptions. When you first sign up you have only one - "Free puzzles every week". You can see at a glance if you have any puzzles in your subscriptions that you haven't yet played.

Every puzzlemix user gets a free subscription to new weekly puzzles - each week several new puzzles appear in your puzzle list for you to play, and there may be occasional bonuses when new puzzle types are added to the site.

If you add further subscriptions then these also show up in this orange rectangle - you simply click on the subscription you wish to view and the rest of the page will update automatically. To add a subscription you just click on the 'Extend or add subscriptions' line in the same area.

Playing puzzles
Just click on a puzzle in the puzzle list, on any of the regions shown in the green rectangle, and it will pop open in its own resizable player window. Its status in the puzzle list will then change to remind you whether you've tried it before, have a current saved game or have completed it - or even if you've given up on it! The 'State' column shows an appropriate picture for the current state of the puzzle. Scroll down the puzzle menu page for a full key at the bottom of all the symbols on the page.

The column headings in the red rectangle can be clicked on to sort the puzzles. Pay particular attention to the 'Expires' heading - your free puzzles will expire two weeks after they are published unless you play the puzzle first, in which case it will never expire so long as your puzzlemix account remains open. Puzzles in other subscriptions never expire whilst your subscription remains active.

Saving puzzles
You can save a puzzle from the player at any point and come back to it whenever you like. You can see which puzzles have saves because the play icon in the 'State' column will turn to an orange 'paused play' symbol.

Comments
You can comment on puzzles you've played by clicking in the 'Comments' column of the puzzle table, shown in the black rectangle. This allows you to read any existing comments and discuss the puzzles with other puzzlemix users. It also provides access to more detailed statistics for each puzzle.

Filtering and sorting your puzzles
To help organise your puzzles there are a range of display option in the left column, shown in the purple rectangle. Try selecting from these to filter the selection of puzzles shown - you can, for example, choose to see only Sudoku puzzles published in the past month that you have a saved game for. You can also decide how many puzzles you want to see per page. You can move between pages by clicking on the page numbers in the blue rectangle.

You can also sort your puzzles by clicking on any of the headings in the red rectangle. If you click a second time then the sort order will reverse, although any non-empty fields will always show before empty fields wherever numerical values are concerned.

Once you alter the filter or sort settings a 'reset to defaults' option also appears in the purple rectangle.

Other statistics
When you finish a puzzle or give up on it you are given the option of rating the puzzle for difficulty. This rating can then be used to sort your puzzles should you want to play them again, and the average rating can be viewed by other puzzlemix users to help them choose which puzzles to solve. It's a good idea to rate your puzzles because then other users will also do it and the average ratings are useful in deciding which puzzles to play - it can also be fun to see how your own opinion compares with those of the average puzzle player.

A range of other statistics are shown in the puzzle list. Scroll to the bottom of the list to see an explanation of the various headings. More statistics are also displayed on the Comments page.

Back to the general how to play page