Thinking Further Outside The Box

Driving You Dotty
Part Two

In the last lateral thinking post we started to look at how to think outside the box and tackled a puzzle in different ways to get increasingly elegant solutions. Today we explore three more solutions that require further stretches of the imagination.

Thinking Outside The Box

Driving You Dotty
Part One

Recently I went on a departmental training and bonding trip to Northamptonshire. On the first night I performed in a scheduling based micro-musical with songs based on the works of Abba. The evening was filled with singing and dancing, getting to know our colleagues from London who we rarely get the chance to meet.

What has this got to do with lateral thinking, well think a little outside the box and I will show you.

Types of Puzzle

Puzzle Classification
Part 1

 Well back in 2012 we took a look at what defined a puzzle, we decided after some experimentation that it was all in the method. A question commands an answer from memory or from a given method. A puzzle asks you to find the method yourself.

Today we begin the epic task of sorting all of the hundreds of type of puzzles into categories.

The Christmas Investigations - Adventure Game: Part Two

Christmas Investigations
Part Five

In our Christmas Investigation into The Adventure Game we visited Arg and tried to learn a little something about their culture, their ways of thinking and, most importantly, their currency. The task I set was a simple one:

How can you pay for your ticket home with the exact change.

The Christmas Investigations - The Adventure Game

Christmas Investigations
Part Two

In our second Christmas Investigation we travel to Arg, the planet featured in the classic BBC game show - The Adventure Game. We'll tackle some multi stage lateral thinking puzzles before we get down to the serious business of money and tackle a mathematical problem with a difference.

Can you decipher the hidden values of the Argond currency?

Give Us A Clue!

Cryptic Crosswords
Part Eleven

Find out how you fared with Charades clues and fill in some more spaces in our Cryptic Crossword as we examine the solutions to the clues I set in the last post.

Cryptic Playtime

Cryptic Crosswords
Part Nine

From dipping our toes into the waters of cryptic crosswords with the relatively simple 'double definition' style of clue we've arrived at the defiantly choppy seas of proper wordplay clues.

We have looked at the manipulation of letters in a source phrase to produce an answer, but true word play clues mix and match all kinds of techniques to hide a solution.

Lateral Thinking with The Creepy Dolls

Relatively Speaking
Part Two

Oh yes, the Creepy Dolls are back with another puzzle all about birthdays, and like the previous puzzle this is a lateral thinking test. Lateral Thinking might be tough, but puzzles from this genre are also very gratifying to solve.

Trust No One

Puzzling Parables
Part Three

In the third and final entry in this little series of puzzling parables we'll be looking at the strange relationship between the puzzle setter, and solver. It's an odd little relationship because while it is based entirely on trust, it is one that the setter will try to abuse mercilessly.

Accepting the Impossible

Puzzling Parables
Part Two

In our second puzzling parable we look at two puzzles that require that we throw off the shackles of what is achievable; our second lesson is 'accept the impossible.

By this I of course mean that you should accept that the circumstances in the puzzle are impossible to reach by usual means, and start working on the unusual.