The purpose of this thread is to identify the gameplay of solving riddle-like puzzles. It is the most illusive type of gameplay in my opinion. What mental tasks are invoked when you try to solve it? A Puzzle: Decode the following number into something commonly recognizable: 113041103110911021 If you want more hints please ask yes/no questions. For example, if you ask, "Is the answer a word or words?" And I would say, "No."

Ok, I'll bite, and I'm starting with two questions because I'm not sure if you were actually answering the example one or not:

Is the answer a word or string of text?

Do we need any special tools/software to decode this puzzle?



Interesting topic, and I like your approach of using a played example to test things out and give a firm grounding for the discussion. [smile]

This particular puzzle strikes me as a difficult one to get started with, as there's very little information present and no real context.

I've clearly started off by latching onto the possible approach given by your suggested question, and with my own question am trying to get a feel for the possible scope of the puzzle; am I going to need additional equipment, or is this something I can solve by myself? Whether or not it should be approachable using only my own mental facilities should give some idea of complexity.

So, my initial reaction seems to be a fairly cautious approach of attempting to find out a bit more about the puzzle whilst not neccesarily making great (if any) progress towards an actual solution.

Q1) Does the answer contain a word or words?
A1) No.

Q2) Is the answer a string of text?
A2) ( How do you define "string of text?" )

Q3) Do we need any special tools/software to decode this puzzle?
A3) No.


Comments:

I think this is an important step. I guess you could call it "context identification" or "identifying the form of the answer"? I intent to go deeper and think about what it is that a brain does to identify the form of the answer.

I think it is something like associative thinking and recall of declarative concepts based on features. When you ask questions and get the answers of questions, you get clues about the features of the answer. Based on those features, your brain is trying to find something you already know that meets all of the features.

I am talking about the component of cognitive task that is also found in answer a question/riddle like this:

"What has sleeves but is not an item of clothing?"

This riddle is "interesting" because the word "sleeves" is most immediately associated with clothing, but the question specifies that the answer is not a piece of clothing.

(This riddle is made up, it is not an actual puzzle that I know the answer. Whatever you find that matches could be the answer. I am just using it to illustrate what I meant by that mental task.)

[Edited by - Wai on June 5, 2009 4:48:49 AM]

Q4) Is the answer a coordinates or contains coordinate(s)?
A4) No.

Q5) Is the answer a number of contains number(s)?
A5) No.