Limes with Orange

I've become hooked on this online puzzle game called Puzzle Freak. It's like a board game that you play with a computer and every square you land on requires you to solve a new puzzle. You then get "IQ" scores depending on the outcome of your puzzle. My highest score so far is 174.

Puzzle types:

Mazes: Unfortunately, if you have a good score then you don't want the easy mazes because those are too easy and bring your score down.

Jigsaws: Surprisingly, the jigsaw puzzles don't seem to have that effect and they're pretty easy, too. (You can rotate the pieces by holding the pointer near the edges of the pieces; I add that because that took me some figuring… pretty pathetic, eh?)

Find 5: These ones are your basic find five items in a picture. They're pretty straightforward, but just in case you have problems, I have included full solutions.

Compare: This is when you have two images and you have to find the five differences between them. Again, straightforward but sometimes that last difference just eludes you, so I've posted full solutions for these, as well.

Concentration: For this one you have to memorize 12 photos in 10 seconds, then they'll turn them over and give you one image that you have to remember where it was in the 12. Pretty straightforward also, especially because they always use the same photos. But there are several with foliage in them that are easily confused, so just pay attention.

Make the dogs stand up: This is your basic "lights out" style game where you click on one light and it turns on (or off, depending on how it started) and all of the neighbouring lights switch from on to off (or off to on) also. I don't know why, but I actually find it easier with these silly dogs. If you want advice on these types of puzzles, head over to Hamusutaa's Lights Out page. (This one offers good point values, so it's worth getting the hang of it.)

Donuts: For this one you have to move the donuts from the left hand side stick to the right hand side. Smaller donuts can only go on larger donuts. This isn't too tricky either, it just involves a lot of moving back and forth. Start each of them by moving the smallest donut to one of the free sticks, the second smallest donut on the other free stick. Then put the smallest donut on top of the second smallest donut, freeing up the other stick and so on and so forth. One tip: if there is an even number of donuts, the smallest donut goes on the middle stick first. For odd numbers, the smallest donut goes on the right hand stick first.

Watch the dice: The old dice under a cup, watch them move and figure out where the dice is now. I actually hate this one. It starts out easily but I usually end up missing one near the end as it speeds up. The only tip I can offer on this one is to watch the top of the cups rather than the bottom. Maybe it's just me but it helps me follow the cup that I'm trying to follow. (Pet peeve: singular of dice is actually "die" but they use "dice" which is why I'm grammatically incorrect here.)

Slide puzzles: I know some people don't like these slide puzzles, but I quite like them. I don't really know how to offer hints on these, though. Except to say that in all of the puzzles, the upper left tile is the one that's missing. And I can offer some practice: Sliding Grid Puzzle.

Space station: This is your basic get your space ship to the space station game, where the ship flies in a straight path, stopping at planets where you can then turn left or right (or up or down). If there's no planet in the path of your ship, it will fly right off the screen. I haven't taken screenshots of any of these because I think they're fairly easy. But if anyone would like more help with these, just leave a comment and I'll take some screenshots and offer hints.

Water jugs: These puzzles require you to end up with a specified amount of water in two of three jugs of differing sizes. There are three variations on this puzzle, and I've got links to solutions for each: 12-7-5, 10-7-3 and 8-5-3.

Balls: These puzzles require you to shift the positions of the blue balls to match the pattern of the yellow balls. Some are very easy, some are quite tricky. I haven't taken screenshots while I've done these puzzles though, but I'll add these in eventually if people want more guidance. Just leave a comment here if you think that would help.

Parking lot: This is very similar to Grid Lock over on eBaum's World (good practice). I will not provide step-by-step solutions for these puzzles, but I do have screenshots of various stages of each puzzle to help guide you. These are the five different versions that I've come across. (If you find any other ones, please email me a screenshot.)







Pegs: I always liked these types of puzzles, too. But if you need some help, I've done the same screenshot hints that I did for the parking lot puzzles. You still need to figure out the in-between steps, though. And there's usually more than one method for each of these puzzles, so you may well find different routes. My hints are just guidelines. If you want to practice, head over to this site.

I might come back and tweak the format of these hints so it's easier to use for reference, so let me know if you have any additional information you would like me to include.

P.S. You can also access the game as Puzzlefreak on I am Bored.com, but the screen size is only half of the screen size on the original site. This makes the match and find puzzles a lot trickier. Oh and for some reason the dice game is faster on I am Bored.com... faster not being a good thing here. So I definitely recommend the link at the beginning of this post instead.

Labels: games