A Brief History of Zengaku...

I think that the real origin for Zengaku is probably when I went to a cottage in 2000. One of the necessities on a good lazy cottage vacation is a puzzle book. The puzzle book on this particular vacation had about a hundred different types of puzzle, and I enjoyed about four of them.

My favourite type by far was the "Sum Total" puzzles. There were about 4 of them in the entire book. Much later I would find out that they were in fact Kakuro puzzles. 2000 is Ancient. Sudoku madness had not struck yet. And Kakuro was completely unheard of (even though I was playing them of course).

I don't know where I found the patience for it (I can easily get distrac) but somewhere in 2000 and 2001 I found the patience to put together my first Kakuro puzzle generator. I don't remember if the first puzzles were even playable - I was a pretty green programmer, still in school at the time. But it kept my mind working, it was programming that wasn't just fulfilling some silly useless course work, and it probably saved me from destroying my wrist playing Quake 2.

By 2003 I was pretty sure that my puzzles were the coolest thing ever and if I just put them on the web then riches and happiness would be mine. So I did what any conscientious computer engineer would do. I found free hosting, I did no marketing, and I made sure the webpage was pretty ugly. I don't think I even got a domain at the time. Obviously the overnight sensation failed to kick in. Still - SumTotalPuzzles.com was born.

In 2004, one of the Coop students employed where I was working was a math student who shared my love of puzzles. He let me know about the World Puzzle Championships, and sent me a link to their 2004 Championship warm up package. As I worked my way through it, low and behold, there was my puzzle! But wait - there was something special about this puzzle. It was a Kakuro with a Sudoku twist. Rows and Columns have each number once and only once? Consecutive numbers are indicated? The depth that these simple modifications added to the puzzle were like candy to me.

The first thing I did when I got home was I started modifying my puzzle generator to follow the same rules. It took a lot of tinkering - but eventually I had it producing nice looking puzzles - it even had a usable user interface!

Eventually I got the website looking better, and I posted a free version of the game up there, with a Paypal option to purchase a version that will literally generate 1 million different puzzles. I even made some sales. Probably about 15, maybe 20. But still, it sure felt good!

It was probably around 2006, maybe 2007 that Sum Total Puzzles became Zengaku. The origin of that is simply friends at work giving me feedback that "Sum Total Puzzles" is a terrible name. You should find something Japanese sounding. Yeah - Sudoku was in its prime around then. So I used several online translators and searches to try to figure out an appropriate Japanese sounding name for my puzzles. Zengaku is literally "The Total Sum" in Japanese. At least I hope it is... it would be pretty terrible to find out it meant something offensive at this point!
Well - a quick Google found this: EUdict translation. So not only does it mean "total, full amount, sum" but it can also mean forehead. Ha - I guess if you get a hard one that could be considered a face-palm. :-)

With the name change came more effort being put into the website. I had been generating puzzles and literally posting screen shots of them so that there was a daily puzzle on my website. I spent some time (not enough to do it well) to figure out style sheets and all that jazz to put together an interactive puzzle. And then life just kind of happened. Every once in a while I'd realize that I needed to generate more puzzles for the site (often after it went blank for a day or two or five). Sales ground to a halt and I was probably one of the least responsive webmasters of all time.

Fast forward to 2009 and I find myself working at a company with lots of smart people, who are great programmers and the iPhone invasion is in full swing. One person at my company hit it big with an app. Like quit-your-job big. I'm pretty sure that when news about that broke out, everyone who owned a Mac immediately went home and downloaded the SDK. And everyone who didn't own a Mac seriously thought about buying one.

Well, a few months went past, and no one else hit it big with an app. I don't know how many have tried. The reality was that you didn't just need to be a good programmer, you needed a good idea. And the ability to stick with something all the way to completion. It can be so easy to start programming something and then get distracted. The first couple of days are literally like you are eating manna from heaven, but it can quickly become a grind. Or at least boring enough that TV, or computer games seem like a better time investment.

So we're at work one day talking about writing apps, and how you needed motivation and commitment and a good idea. Or at least something easy to create for the first one. Well - I don't own a Mac, but I did have my puzzle website. So there we are talking about it and suddenly we are committing to each other that we are going to get this done. Together we'll have enough social pressure to actually follow through to the end. I knew that that was what I needed. Someone to kick me in the pants. Or at least make me feel guilty enough that I would stop playing games, or reading books, or watching TV and just program something to completion. Not 50% complete, or 90% complete just don't touch the big red button it'll crash, but 100% complete - rock solid.

It was probably Kevin's willpower that got us creating a partnership agreement, and getting a business number - I think the rest of us were just kind of in a daze. Regardless - we committed to each other to get it done, and I think the result is fantastic.