Puzzles with Multiple Solutions

[ysabetwordsmith]

Schools have a bad habit of teaching that there can be only one "right answer." This is only sometimes true. In the real world, many problems have more than one possible solution; people can hold different stances in a debate and all have valid points; and so forth.

Some puzzles also have multiple solutions. This is often considered a flaw, but in context of stretching one's mind, it is an asset: Can you find all of the solutions? Are they similar or different? Are some of them more effective, efficient, or aesthetic than the others? This teaches us to look beyond the obvious and to consider all possibilities. Here are some resources for exploring puzzles with multiple solutions:

Multiple puzzle solutions in Sudoku
Sudoko generator (single or multiple solutions)
Adding multiple solutions to puzzles (regarding Her Interactive Games)
The Return of Dr. Sloth -- Puzzle Solutions
Blast Miner game
Puzzles (lists several games that offer puzzles with multiple solutions)
Crazy Machines 2

Of course, another way to expand your problem-solving skills is to take up roleplaying. There are roleplaying games with fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, mundane, and many other genre flavors. You and your friends play characters with certain skills and equipment, with some kind of goal(s), and a game master throws challenges, obstacles, and enemies in your way. Solve them any way you like. You will learn to think of all sorts of weird and sometimes desperate solutions to dire circumstances (often bereft of some or all of your gear). Some good roleplaying games include:

World Tree (high fantasy with anthropomorphic characters whose world is, yes, a giant tree; see also Sythyry's Vacation)
d20 Modern (adaptable to mundane, espionage, mystery, or other real-world-esque genres)
Many of the Atomic Sock Monkey games, particularly:
* Dead Inside (fantasy noir, about rebuilding your lost or destroyed soul)
* Truth & Justice (superheroes, with several styles matching various periods in comic-book history)
* Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies (high to low fantasy, any subgenre of swashbuckling such as pirates, court intrigue, etc.)

What are some of your favorite puzzles, games, or other activities that involve multiple solutions?

Comments

[jolantru.livejournal.com]

Actually, boardgaming is good. Plus war-gaming as well. ;)

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

So are some card games, like Fluxx or Chrononauts. Fluxx has "Goal" cards that change the way of winning the game; Chrononauts always has three ways of winning (though details vary).

We like Quiddler

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I find that it requires one to use an interesting combination of strategy and wordgaming to play well. It's often also necessary to make the decision whether to go ahead and strive for a long and elegant word with the potential of high points, or to stick to short words. As it's a card game rather than a boardgame, and there's a set limit to the number of turns, there can sometimes be a real need to be flexible in this game.

I've played in games with an 11-year-old and an 88-year-old at the same table with me, and boy, were they hard-fought!

Re: Yes...

[christinathena.livejournal.com]

Fluxx is fun. :-)

There's a game I used to play called Mao which involves secret rules. There are a small set of fixed rules that are not told to new players - you have to figure them out by being penalized for violating them and observing other players - and each round, the winner, called the "Mao", who becomes the dealer, adds a new rule that he or she doesn't tell the other players - they have to figure it out by observing penalties.

It can get complicated after a number of rounds. :-)

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I've heard of games like that. I've played a different one, a road-trip game, that has a single category-rule to be figured out. But my mind doesn't tend to work in a way that makes this sort of game optimum for me. I think it's a good way to learn how to think outside the box, though.

[moosl.livejournal.com]

I watch SmartKit in my feed reader. Not all the puzzles there fall within your discussion of multiple solutions, but they do offer quite a variety. Here's a list of their puzzle categories:

# Jigsaw Puzzles
# Sudoku
# Spot the Difference
# Hidden Objects
# Math Puzzles
# Logic Puzzles
# Find the Fault
# Word Puzzles
# Cryptograms
# Picture Puzzles
# Riddles
# Rebus
# IQ test questions
# Printable Puzzles

Cool!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing.

[thirdscenario.livejournal.com]

I think the only subject that the "one solution" rule applies to is mathematics (and even then, not always), but of course they also tend to teach you "this way of finding the answer is the only way" (and "you need to learn this without calculators because those of you who will actually use this later in life are not allowed to use calculators EVER"... I've never liked any sort of math).

There are numerous video games out there that try to offer players more than one or two ways to achieve a goal. Personally, I like these sorts of games better; it can be fun to find out how other people played and possibly learn a thing or two.

There are also words games like Boggle and Scrabble. They don't necessarily involve finding solutions, but players who can see several word combinations and whatnot are more likely to succeed.

[dianavilliers.livejournal.com]

I like fantastic contraption (http://fantasticcontraption.com/), and so does Mum, and so do her classes (9 and 10 year kids).
Auditorium (http://playauditorium.com/) is another good one.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the kind words on the ASMP games!

You're Welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

When it comes to games that are good for learning things as well as just for fun, yours tend to top the list.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Dead Inside strikes several chords with me, and I suspect there may be someone's personal experiences in its list of influences.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That one is unique among games I've seen, or even heard of, because its fundamental premise is different: instead of killing people and taking their stuff, you're supposed to help people and give them your stuff. And the game mechanics support this. In the introduction there's a little description of how the game and its title grew out of a conversation between friends.

[christinathena.livejournal.com]

About the multiple solutions, I once read about a group of psychologists who administered an IQ test to a remote tribe, and were surprised to discover that everyone in the tribe scored very low.

It turned out that the tribespeople simply thought about the problems differently than the psychologists' Western view. An equally logical way, just different. For example, in one question, they were asked to group similar things together. For example, a group that included various plants and tools. The psychologists expected that they'd put the plants in one group and the tools in the other. Instead, they grouped each plant with the tool used to harvest it - certainly just as logical a method of grouping and a more practical one, one that, in fact, displays greater understanding then simply broad categories like "plant" and "tool", specifically the relationship between the plants and tools! The tribespeople, when asked why they didn't put the tools in one group and the plants in another said, in effect "what kind of an idiot would do it that way?"

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I have some experience with that myself. There was a documentary a while back that I taped for linguistic reasons, about some people in the former Soviet Union, with exactly that result. They used practical rather than abstract logic. They thought the abstract version of logic was stupid because it can lead to ludicrous statements.

For myself ... I have multiple logic modes, and abstract/modern is not my favorite. It has its uses. When I was little, it took me a while to figure out that adults always wanted that mode on tests, whether it made any real sense or not, and had no access to any other mode. I learned not to flash the other cards in my hand. *chuckle* But I can still play them at need, if I'm around people who use a different mode of logic.

There are different types of intelligence, different ways of living in the world. Our modern reality tunnel is good for living in a modern civilization, poor at anything else, and occasionally worse than useless. This is readily apparent to people in other reality tunnels. Sometimes, while you're trying to "civilize" someone, they are marveling at your stupidity and wondering how you've managed not to die of it.

Re: Thoughts

[christinathena.livejournal.com]

Abstract categorization does have its uses. For some purposes, it's more useful than practical categorization. But, there are other purposes for which the practical is more useful. Certainly it's better to know which tool is best for obtaining which kind of food, for example.

IMO, the problem comes when someone insists that only a single type of reasoning is ideal for ALL situations.

IQ tests are often, unfortunately, based on that notion, that a single type of reasoning is always superior to another type, which can often lead to people with non-standard brain wirings, to have their intelligence underestimated. I remember reading a study where a group of autistic people who had scored as mildly to moderately retarded on a standard IQ test scored average to above average on another test, for example. That also relates to the tendency in autism for skill-sets to be uneven relative to the typical brain.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

True prtoblem solving and critical thinking aren't included in the school syllabus because the point of schools in this society is to create unquestioning little slaves for the workplace.