The Christmas Investigations: The Crystal Maze Explaination

Christmas Investigations
Part Six

In the third and final of our Christmas investigations I left you pondering the problem of prisoners. In particular how to decide when it is better to release your locked in comrades in the game show The Crystal Maze.

How do you decide whether to release one of your locked-in teammates?

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?

Never A Crossed Word

Cryptic Crosswords
Part Sixteen

We have reached the end, well, almost the end, of our tour through the world of cryptic crosswords. Before we hang up our pencils for a while, we just have the small matter of three clues to fill in.

Three Cheers for our Queer Old Dean!

Cryptic Crosswords
Part Fourteen

Never let it be said that I pass up an opportunity for a thoroughly rude blog title. In this post we continue our exploration of Cryptic Crosswords with a look at one of the more light hearted and entertaining crossword clues.

Sounds Good

Cryptic Crosswords
Part Twelve

Today we’re looking at another variation on the Charades clue that occasionally crops up in Cryptic Crosswords; indeed there’s a single one hiding out in our master crossword grid.

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.

Definitions, Defintitions

Cryptic Crosswords
Part Two

The simplest type of cryptic crossword clue takes a word and gives it's definition, twice. We call them double definitions. Now it might not sound that difficult, but as we've discovered in our adventures in the world of words, many words have multiple meanings.

So what you get with a double definition is often two quite different definitions with the challenge being to find the one word which matches both.

Something Cryptic This Way Comes

Cryptic Crosswords
Part One

I still remember the first cryptic crossword clue I solved, it was Monday 25th February... 2013. Yes that's right, yesterday. So you might wonder what I can possibly teach you about solving them.

A Matchstick Made in Heaven

Table Games
Part One

So, where exactly can I buy coloured matchsticks, and what on earth would I use them for? The Wandering Puzzler is on the road, shopping as usual, and is getting to grips with the basics of matchstick puzzles

Turning Back The Sands of Time

Time and Space
Part Four

In our continued quest for elegance in solutions to time and space puzzles we revisit the sand timers with a video and more time lines, explaining just how to get the most elegant of solutions.

Breaking the Space Time Continuum

Time and Space
Part Three

We're breaking out the sand timers and the jugs again as we search for increasingly well composed solutions to measuring puzzles. Then we attempt the theoretically impossible when we try to break the space-time continuum, with toast.

A Sandy Situation

Time and Space
Part Two

Today it's a day on the sand - and it's still not all it promises. The second cousin of the jugs problem is all about timing. You are generally presented with sand glasses of known duration, or candles of known burn time, and asked to measure a specific length of time.