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Puzzle & Thinking Games · 58

A hint is most useful when it changes the player's question rather than simply supplying the next action. The category's past supplies the companion fact: Sliding-block puzzles are difficult because open space is the real resource; every move spends and relocates the one gap that makes future moves possible. The phrase 'there must be a trick' is often correct and rarely comforting.

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Odd but true

The '15 puzzle' caused a craze in the late nineteenth century. Some scrambled positions are mathematically impossible to solve, which is a wonderfully cruel property for a puzzle sold to the public. And then there is this little gem: Matchstick puzzles work because humans automatically accept familiar symbols and shapes. Moving one tiny stick can change a number, an equation or even the meaning of the whole picture.