Hello! I need some help in designing of a level from a logic game. The concept of the level described below is illustrated in the following image: http://www.magicindie.com/media/1.jpg The idea behind this level is that on a closed stoned door, there is a mechanism consisting of 4 individually rotating disks. If each disk is rotated correctly, the mechanism opens the door. Each of the disks has several compartments. The player must rotate each disk selecting a compartment which by some logical rules is not equivalent to the rest of compartments on the disk. Example: on one disk could be scrabbled the series of number: 2,4,8,12. The wrong number is 12, because it is not a power of 2. So the player will rotate the disk in such a way that the compartment of disk on which is scrabbled 12 will stay on the top. Can you please help me with some ideas regarding what could be represented on each disks and what logic to use for solving of the disk riddle? Thank you.

Thanks NathanRunge!

Some fresh ideas! Regarding the "geometry" theme, I could use a triangle, polygon, rectangle and one sphere. And the sphere is the element which must be excluded because it is not done of straight lines!

What about musical notation? I can't figure out, how can I use them?

I'm no musical expert, but I believe that there is a certain rule about which notes sound harmonious together. Have 4 pairs of notes, and have 3 of them be harmonious, whilst the odd one out is unharmonious.

How about pictures/silhouettes of 3 fish, and then one of a whale? Whale = mammal = odd one out.
How about having a sequence (shapes, numbers etc.) and using the next step in that sequence?
How about 3 pictures rotating, and 1 flipping? Or 3 rotating clockwise, and 1 anti-clockwise?

Thanks Staggy11!

Any other ideas? By the way, shall I use one style for all disks (only numbers or only pictures/silhouettes) or each disk shall have an individual theme (first disk - numbers, second disk - geometry elements, third disk - pictures/silhouettes).

How do you think?

Be careful with stuff like this: I tend to fail this sort of test pretty conssitently because I think differently. The problem is that there's usually more than one way of categorizing things.

For example Triangle, polygon, circle rectangle. My first thought is that the rectangle is the odd one out, because it is not a regular figure(assuming it's not an irregular polygon), and the others are.

2, 4, 8, 12 IT is much simpler to say that 2 is the odd one out, bacuse it is not a multiple of 4.

I think the Harmony one is pretty deterministic, but I have no music brain, so I couldn't tell you.

How do the puzzles fit in to the game is it like Resident Evil where you need to read pieces of paper around or more broken sword just a case of trial and error with some logic if you can understand the creators mind.

What's the underlying theme to the game, having puzzles that have nothing to do with the story or plot (feel out of place) will spoil the experience. Base the themes for the locks on the game world may be this means adding more depth to the back story.

industrial:
e.g car, plane, locomotive, diesel powered ship. the odd one out being the locomotive as old trains were steam powered all the others are powered by combustion.

nature:
pick four trees either 3 evergreens or just one evergreen. then depending what way you do it either the one that sheds it's leaves will be it or the evergreen will.

Also consider other things would it not be more likely that the correct ones had something in common, this could also be used to allow the player two methods to solve the problem.

Thanks for feedback!

First of all I would like to give more details about the level:
It's a kind of ancient civilization riddle, thus I cannot use English words and modern objects as reference.
Second, it is intended as a mini game for a casual oriented gamer, thus the complexity of the riddle must not be very high.

Finally I have arrived at the following solutions:

Task 1/Disk 1: 4 silhouettes/pictures
Task 2/Disk 2: 6 geometrical/logical structures
Task 3/Disk 2: 8 numbers

Please take a look at two preliminary versions of the problems and please tell me how complicated/adequate are they, and how fast did you solve them.

variant 1:
www.magicindie.com/media/variant1.jpg

variant 2:
www.magicindie.com/media/variant2.jpg


Answers here:
www.magicindie.com/media/answers.jpg

Thank and looking for feedback!

Looking OK myself I'd just do it and forget it, which is fine if you don't want it to be memorable. The puzzles may be to easy you may want to increase the difficulty so one or two may be mistaken as the odd one. Possibly allow the player to set the puzzle difficulty, and also come up with some ingenious reason why the character can solve the problem like a skill that can be used, that in effect lowers the difficulty setting of the current puzzle.

You say using a disk it is more common to see buttons in ancient society as circle/rotation is more complex so it stands to reason that ancient civilizations developed linear movement and pressure devices first it really depends if the wheel has been invented yet or not.

Your geometry one seems fine.

There's a small issue with the numbers one the decimal system is an extremely modern system using a numeral system would make this less obvious but the only one you can be sure most players will know is Roman numerals and this is once again newer than the setting. Also most people can't count much past ten in Roman numerals.

The animal one you need to ensure that the animals you pick can be found in the same area of the world and if the puzzle is in a building in a forest then the animal's natural habitat should also be a forest. Remember ancient civilizations didn't travel as far as we do today.

I take it you'll be carving the images into stone, it was not as easy to write in stone as it is with pen and paper. But a lot of ancient civilizations had equivalents to modern day pen and paper. When you do your animal one I'd make it just representation not actual likenesses. Look at cave writings you can understand what they are but they are no where near to an artist representation.