Comments on: Elementary http://tleaves.com/2004/09/21/elementary/ Creativity x Technology Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:09:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jon http://tleaves.com/2004/09/21/elementary/comment-page-1/#comment-601 Jon Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:36:12 +0000 http://tleaves.com/?p=195#comment-601 All of the icons in Sherlock have very short nicknames in my head. I often mutter "baldy must be two away from beardo". I'm sure I've played over a thousand games of this over the last 10 years. I find Dinner With Moriarty to be dull, and I especially don't like how "adjacent" changes meaning depending on whether you're dealing with a "corner" icon or an "edge" icon, but to each his own. Honeycomb Hotel is my favorite because of "the path": a nonbranching path must go through every space on the grid exactly once, beginning and ending at specified points. There's a great interaction between the clues which specify spacial relationships and the clues which specify relationships along the path, and it feels like my entire brain is engaged to get those to balance. Latin Squares is almost overkill, because clues are now coming from four directions: row, column, color group, and "other" (the clues around the edge), and it's next to impossible to build up a chain of deductions without just doing grunt work of looking at each of them in turn. However, this is made fun in an unexpected way because for the first time he gave keyboard shortcuts to the "what-if" and "reject" buttons. If you want to let something percolate in your mind, you can profitably use your time by just poking almost randomly. This is a fast way to find one-step deductions that you'd otherwise miss due to the overwhelming busy-ness of the grid, without mousing up to the toolbar to hit the what-if button for every test. You didn't mention the overll hardest one: Knarly Works. There are no "other" clues to help clarify sub-parts of the board, there's only "row", "column", and "everything must connect to everything else when you're done". Beyond the 5x5 size, almost everything you do is within a "what-if", and the chain of deductions to prove failure can be quite long. The most amazing thing is that, starting with the original Sherlock, there has always been a hint system within the games. They know how to solve themselves, and the hints are (with the exception of Occam's Quilt) presented in terms of the logical deductions that are available and that the player could and/or should be making. If we'd had these games as assignments in my Artificial Intelligence class, I'm sure I would have gotten a better grade. All of the icons in Sherlock have very short nicknames in my head. I often mutter “baldy must be two away from beardo”. I’m sure I’ve played over a thousand games of this over the last 10 years.

I find Dinner With Moriarty to be dull, and I especially don’t like how “adjacent” changes meaning depending on whether you’re dealing with a “corner” icon or an “edge” icon, but to each his own.

Honeycomb Hotel is my favorite because of “the path”: a nonbranching path must go through every space on the grid exactly once, beginning and ending at specified points. There’s a great interaction between the clues which specify spacial relationships and the clues which specify relationships along the path, and it feels like my entire brain is engaged to get those to balance.

Latin Squares is almost overkill, because clues are now coming from four directions: row, column, color group, and “other” (the clues around the edge), and it’s next to impossible to build up a chain of deductions without just doing grunt work of looking at each of them in turn. However, this is made fun in an unexpected way because for the first time he gave keyboard shortcuts to the “what-if” and “reject” buttons. If you want to let something percolate in your mind, you can profitably use your time by just poking almost randomly. This is a fast way to find one-step deductions that you’d otherwise miss due to the overwhelming busy-ness of the grid, without mousing up to the toolbar to hit the what-if button for every test.

You didn’t mention the overll hardest one: Knarly Works. There are no “other” clues to help clarify sub-parts of the board, there’s only “row”, “column”, and “everything must connect to everything else when you’re done”. Beyond the 5×5 size, almost everything you do is within a “what-if”, and the chain of deductions to prove failure can be quite long.

The most amazing thing is that, starting with the original Sherlock, there has always been a hint system within the games. They know how to solve themselves, and the hints are (with the exception of Occam’s Quilt) presented in terms of the logical deductions that are available and that the player could and/or should be making. If we’d had these games as assignments in my Artificial Intelligence class, I’m sure I would have gotten a better grade.

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