Welcome to the Voolworld !

This world is inhabited by fairy characters and full of different riddles and puzzles.

You will enjoy solving the puzzles together with the citizens of the Voolworld: magicians, dwarves, yeti, knights, funny little creatures and many others.

Step by step you will learn how to solve various puzzles ranging from the simplest to the complex ones. This is the fun journey through the world of puzzles.

Best regards. Alex.

History of rebus puzzles

Rebus puzzle is a type of a French puzzle which consists of various parts such as little pictures, letters, numbers, symbols and geometric figures. Rebus puzzles made with these parts cryptically represent a word.

The first collection of rebus puzzles was published in 1582 by French poet Etienne Tabouro. After that rebus puzzles became popular in the neighboring countries: Germany, England and Italy.

In 1783 at Hodson’s publishing house in London English illustrator Thomas Bewick released the Bible for children which represented the events of Holy Scripture in a form of rebus-puzzles. This Bible was called Hieroglyphic. 

In 1788 American writer Isaiah Thomas produced hieroglyphic Bible in the USA.

Eventually rebus puzzles became very popular. For example English writer Lewis Carroll often resorted to hundreds of rebus puzzles in his letters. Rebus puzzle designs were printed on cards, plates, advertising boards.

Although the popularity of rebus puzzles has decreased as the result of the growing video games industry, puzzles are still very good instrument for the brain development.

Rebus Puzzle Rules

If a letter stands above the other one put "ON" between these two letters. In this picture you can see that the letter "B" standing on the letter "E" makes "BONE".

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If a letter is within the other one put "IN" between these two letters. In the next picture you can see that the letter "N" inside the letter "E" makes "NINE".

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If there is a picture or a geometrical figure you need to decipher the picture/geometrical figure to reveal the word.

If there is a scored letter above the picture you need to remove that letter from the word. In the picture you can see the word "TABLE" with the removed "B" turn into "TALE":

If there is another letter next to the scored letter you need to replace the scored one with the adjacent letter. In the next picture you can see how one can convert the word "SQUARE" into the word "SQUIRE" by replacing the letter A with the letter I.

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A comma next to the picture means that you need to remove either the first or the last letter in the word. Comma tail will show you the picture the comma belongs to. If there are two commas you need to remove two letters. In the picture you can see how to turn the word "SWORD" into "WORD".

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To decipher an upside down picture you need to spell the word back to forward. See, how we have turned "WOLF" into the "FLOW", added "ER" and here we go -  "FLOWER".

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The "v" sign  indicates an extra letter. Each letter in the word of the picture has the number, the "v" sign above the numbers shows between which two letters an extra letter should be placed.
In this picture we have put the letter H between 1 and 2 (the letters T and R) and converted TREE into 3 (THREE).

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Look at these two puzzles bottom.
They used the same pictures bull and encoded the same word - bell. But in the first case of crossed out the letter "U", while in the lеtter crossed out the position №2. These two cases are the same, as in the word "bull" letter "U" is in place at №2. In the puzzles you will encounter and the first and second choice.

If you are still clear, then let's begin.

Albuy the magician

It's Albuy.

He is Vool's brother and also a magician. He is a scientist and explorer and sometimes he comes up with challenging puzzles, which are really hard to solve even for Vool.

Albuy likes to change his appearance with the help of various hats.

Beezy the architect

It's Beezy.

He is an architect, you will meet him while solving various geometric puzzles. But it happens that sometimes he needs your help too.

Vool. King of rebus-puzzles.

It's Vool.
In fairy world Vool is called Rebusking, because he enjoys solving rebus-puzzles.
He also comes up with a lot of puzzles for his friends and for himself too. 
Besides Vool is a magician, he uses magic in different situations. His magic stone hammer helps him all the time.

About autor

Alex has been engaged into the development of puzzles as a technique to improve creative thinking of children as well as adults.