It’s another badge finished from book 2 for me. When I saw the Brain Games badge, I knew I would be doing it. It would have been easy to backdate it, but that really isn’t the idea of these badges, so I started from the date I got book 2 - and as I had ordered the hardback copy I had to wait for about a month after people had received the paperback version.
It was obvious that I would do this badge, especially as my first badge was Code Breaker. I love puzzles - the trickier the better - and the Brain Games and Code Breaker also tie in with another badge that I completed last month (which I still need to blog about) - and that is the Geocacher badge.
Back to the current badge. I regularly do puzzles in our local free paper - arrow word, battleships, and I attempt the cryptic crossword - some weeks I get more words than other weeks - it all depends on how my brain in working, and whether I am in tune with the mind of the crossword setter. In September or October last year I had started dong some nonograms on my iPad. I will do sudoku puzzles - but I leave the ones in the free paper to my husband.
For this badge the challenge was to spend at least 2 hours a week over at least 8 weeks completing different brain games, practising at least 5 different types. There is the requirement to try 2 totally new games, and also to play one with someone else - either in person or virtually.
The games I have played: Nonogram, Killer Sudoku, Jigsaw, Battleships, crosswords, arrow words, Tap Away, Pull The Pin, Chain Cube, Full Rainbow, Water Connect, Connect4Words - to name a few. The games I had not played previously - Chain Cube, Tap Away, Full Rainbow, Water Connect - and Killer Sudoku - in fact most of them were new to me. I have previously looked at Killer Sudoku - but then ignored it as it looked far too tricky, and took a lot of effort to try and work it all out. Doing the puzzles on the iPad is a lot easier than trying to write notes in the squares on paper!
This game is Chain Cube - you have so many cubes which double once you knock them against themselves. The idea is to get as high a score as possible, making the largest cube possible, without building up so many cubes that they get to the white line. The screen shot was taken today - and I haven’t had to restart this game since I started playing it. I have a 4 million cube hiding at the back. When you start this game, one of the prompts that comes up is “I bet you can’t get to 64,000” - or similar. Well, I soon proved it wrong!
Once you start playing these games on a device, you end up getting adverts for other games - which is how I’ve ended up playing quite a few.
This game is Tap Away - another that was advertised, and this is one I quite like doing - it requires spatial awareness, and logical thinking - looking at which direction various cubes have to go, working out where paths are blocked and trying to get to a cube that isn’t blocked. The challenge is to remove all the cubes within the allotted number of moves. I’ve found this game can be a little more tricky depending on the different look of the cubes - which you can change. I’ve chosen the ‘skins’ where the arrows are obvious, and I don’t bother with any additional animations.
During lockdown (and the two years that followed) I would play (like others) Quiz Planet, Wordle, Quordle, Worldle - and I would start my morning by playing these, and then going out for the allotted exercise (Couch to 5K or walking the dog). Last year when I was training even more, I stopped doing all the puzzles first, but this badge has led me back into the old ways - and I’m now playing Merge Mansion too - not a Brain Game really, but I’m pretty hooked (although not to the extent of paying real money for any of the games.
The brain game I’ve played with others is Quiz Planet - I love a bit of trivia, and am always happy to improve my knowledge. Another game I’ve found recently is Connect4Words - this is basically the Connecting Wall in Only Connect, although in this version you don’t have to say what the connection is. We regularly watch Only Connect; when I first saw it I thought it was rather peculiar, and how could anyone work it out. We left it for a few years, and then watched it again - and started working out some of them.
The great thing about doing this badge is that the Facebook group has lots of ideas - one person shared an app called Puzzle Page - which has a great selection of puzzles. I looked and did a few puzzles, but as I don’t really want to spend all day playing games (well, it could be good, but there are so many other things I want to do as well) I haven’t looked at it regularly.
The last puzzle I’m going to share is the Killer Sudoku which was the daily challenge for today. This puzzle was a bit of a challenge - as it is what they class an ‘Expert’ one - there are no numbers filled in for you at all - you have to use logic to work out what needs to go where. In some ways, Killer Sudoku is easier than ordinary sudoku as you know that in the shapes of numbers there can be no double or numbers - so in a L shaped block of 3 that overlaps two or three large blocks all the numbers in the L shape are different (so if the L shape adds up to 11, it can’t be 5, 2, 2). This is a puzzle type that my husband encouraged me to have a go at, as he’s been doing them since before Christmas - and I’m glad I’ve tried them, as it is extremely satisfying to work out a grid where no numbers are given to you to help out!
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