Puzzle Theory 102
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Transcript of Puzzle Theory 102
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Puzzle Theory 102
Scott Blomquist (Team Shark Bait) | GC Summit (Feb 18, 2010)
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Agenda
• What is Puzzle Theory?• Recap from last time• Overview of confidence and acceleration
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Puzzle Theory
• Provides a structured framework within which to study construction and solving of puzzles.
• Not quite math yet.• Needs your help to develop! (
http://groups.google.com/group/puzzletheory)
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What do we know so far?
• Information Reduction Puzzle (IRP)– Describes most Game puzzles (as well as
Mystery Hunt, Puzzle Hunt, etc.)– Solver is provided with an initial set of data
and the goal is to reduce the information content of this data to a word or short phrase
• IRPs consist of Layers (or steps) of Transforms applied to Information Streams
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New stuff
• Information: less refined info, usually provided explicitly by the puzzle
• Knowledge: more refined info, usually obtained by Transforming Information
• Fact: an atomic bit of Knowledge (e.g. a word in a crossword, or a digit in Sudoku)
• Confidence: The amount of trust that you put in a particular Fact
• Acceleration: Emerges from later Facts being partially determinable from earlier Facts, and thus easier and quicker to fall
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The story of a crossword
• Empty grid: no “Knowledge”, only “Information”
• Seeking answers to clues which yield “Facts”
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The story of a crossword
• Start by filling in “the easy stuff”– Usually means “high
confidence stuff”
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The story of a crossword
• Fill in more Facts, building on earlier Facts
• Look, a sled! (probably)• Bonus points: guessable
Facts?
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The story of a crossword
• Oh, crap. No sled.• Tie broken by comparing
approximate Confidence.• OAF is probably not
OAS, and the O and A are Locks from the down clues.
• So must be FLED, a totally reasonable word.
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The story of a crossword
• Fill in still more Facts, probably getting down further in Confidence– (i.e. wth is GSA? LAC?)
• Might have enough Knowledge to apply the next IR Transform– (How many of you have a
teammate who like to get 100% on each Layer?)
– (How many of you are that teammate?)
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The story of a crossword
• Almost done--one pesky letter remains..– This means we failed to
resolve two clues.– Beware puzzles where
there’s only one way to get critical information.
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The story of a crossword
• Done!– We now have 100% of the
Knowledge for this Layer.– All Facts are gettable two
ways.• Crossword constructors call
that a “fully checked grid”.• (Cryptic crosswords get a
partial hall pass on this because each clue reads two ways.)
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Applying these topics
• Construction– The best puzzles give you multiple ways to
get each fact, or require less than 100% of the facts. (Good to have an idea what fraction you’re shooting for.)
• Solving– Be aware of Confidence. Don’t let low
Confidence info distract you even if you wrote it down. If you ever reach a Contradiction, focus on low Confidence info first.
– Communicate Confidence explicitly to your teammates.
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Puzzle Theory awards
• Best self-appointed lab rat: http://solvingpuzzles.tumblr.com/
• Best recent puzzle construction advice: http://foggyb.livejournal.com/2010/01/
