Slider Puzzles

[trampledamage]

These things:

I find them completely impossible. Even the ones that are aimed at little kids, I just can't fathom how to solve them. mr trampledamage, on the other hand, solves them as easy as breathing.

So, how about you all? Easy, impossible or somewhere in between?

 

[Spot's Meow]

I'm really horrible at them. People I know find it unusual because I am very good at almost all types of puzzles, I just seem to have a knack for them. But this kind, I find to be just torture.

 

[thestrangequark]

I've always found them very easy, but perhaps I've just been doing simple ones.

 

[trampledamage]

I'm really horrible at them. People I know find it unusual because I am very good at almost all types of puzzles, I just seem to have a knack for them. But this kind, I find to be just torture.

Glad I'm not the only one

I've always found them very easy, but perhaps I've just been doing simple ones.

I've a feeling if you can do some you can probably do them all, it'd just take longer.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I find them rather easy.

I fins Rubik's Cubes impossible to do.

 

[thestrangequark]

I'm really horrible at them. People I know find it unusual because I am very good at almost all types of puzzles, I just seem to have a knack for them. But this kind, I find to be just torture.

Glad I'm not the only one

I've always found them very easy, but perhaps I've just been doing simple ones.

I've a feeling if you can do some you can probably do them all, it'd just take longer.

Probably. It's like sudoku. It's solved by a very simple series of steps, none of which require too much thought, but the "Ninja," "Evil," "Devilish," etc levels just take longer.

 

[Holdfast]

Dead easy. In fact, they bore me silly to the point that I haven't tried one for well over a decade. The trick is realising you don't have to use any intelligence or problem-solving ability whatsoever to solve them. You start in one corner and just repeat the same revolving sequence of movements until the puzzle is solved. It's like typing in a cheat code on a videogame.

 

[Jenee]

Sometimes they're easy, sometimes they're hard. Picture one's are more difficult than numbers even tho they shouldn't be. Probably has something to do with spacial reasoning.

 

[Small White Car]

Those puzzles are what hell will be like.

I'd say there'd be some kind of twist (a piece is missing and/or labeled wrong!) but, honestly, I don't see the need for them to go to that much effort.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have never successfully solved one. Not without using a screwdriver, anyway.

 

[Kelthaz]

I'm absolutely horrible at them. I usually do my best to avoid them, but every once in a while I'll play a video game with a mandatory block sliding puzzle that nearly drives me to tear my hair out.

 

[B.J.]

I'm an engineer and therefore pretty good at spatial reasoning and problem solving. But these things make me want to find a large sledgehammer.

 

[Geck]

Simple. I learned the technique as a kid and they don't take more than a minute or two now.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I've done them in the past, but I generally don't play with these kinds of puzzles-- I get bored with them quickly.

 

[trampledamage]

Dead easy. In fact, they bore me silly to the point that I haven't tried one for well over a decade. The trick is realising you don't have to use any intelligence or problem-solving ability whatsoever to solve them. You start in one corner and just repeat the same revolving sequence of movements until the puzzle is solved. It's like typing in a cheat code on a videogame.

Simple. I learned the technique as a kid and they don't take more than a minute or two now.

Okay, the two of you say there's a technique. Any chance you could explain it to me (using small words and visual aids ). I'm in need of help!

The kids have a slider puzzle of Woody from Toy Story, and young master trampledamage can't solve it yet (he doesn't turn 4 until January, he may not be as bad at these as his mom!) and whenever there's a puzzle he can't solve he asks me for help...

So, help please


(the two kids take after their dad, they are such gamers - neither will give up on something they're trying to solve no matter how frustrated they get. I would just go "sod this" and do something else.)

 

[Spot's Meow]

I'm absolutely horrible at them. I usually do my best to avoid them, but every once in a while I'll play a video game with a mandatory block sliding puzzle that nearly drives me to tear my hair out.

This brings up bad memories of the slider puzzles in the Professor Layton games. They are the only puzzles that I've had to go online to look up the answer for, whereas other puzzles that seem to give other people a lot of trouble I can solve right away. But these stupid slider puzzles are so frustrating!!!!!!

 

[Mary Ann]

Oh, man, how I hate these things! My spatial reasoning abilities are terrible. My autistic son, however, does these so fast that I can't follow what he's doing.

 

[WillsBabe]

These things:

So, how about you all? Easy, impossible or somewhere in between?

I used to love these as a kid. In the end I found them incredibly easy to solve and lost interest in them. Seeing this one, though, makes me hope that there's one in my Christmas stocking this year! I'm itching to have another go after all these years.

I have never successfully solved one. Not without using a screwdriver, anyway.

Pretty much all of life's problems can be solved with a screwdriver - one way or another.

 

[Holdfast]

Dead easy. In fact, they bore me silly to the point that I haven't tried one for well over a decade. The trick is realising you don't have to use any intelligence or problem-solving ability whatsoever to solve them. You start in one corner and just repeat the same revolving sequence of movements until the puzzle is solved. It's like typing in a cheat code on a videogame.

Simple. I learned the technique as a kid and they don't take more than a minute or two now.

Okay, the two of you say there's a technique. Any chance you could explain it to me (using small words and visual aids ). I'm in need of help!

Well, it's really difficult to describe in words!

Basically you have to start by getting one correct piece into the top-left corner, and then move the next correct piece in the top row into place by following a sequence of actions, sliding the tiles round in a fixed order. It's kind of like an anti-clockwise spiral, spanning 3 rows.

Once you get to the penultimate row, you have to either use a modified sequence than spans 4 rows (slightly more complex), or just rotate the entire puzzle 90 degrees in your hand and repeat the original sequence.

Damn, I just re-read that and it makes no sense at all. I think you just have to have someone show you in person.

macloudt - I bet if you watch your son's movements closely, that he does exactly the same sequence of movements again and again and again, moving along the rows in an orderly fashion, reflecting the fact that the solution is pure repetition rather than insight. It's even possible that his autism may have helped him spot this fundamental computational pattern quickly!

 

[Eyes]

I used to be useless at those things. A few years back, I figured out the technique, and it's been doable since then, but still tedious. Needless to say, whenever one pops up in a game, I don't like it, but I then knuckle down and spend the best part of 10 minutes doing it.

Often I get the spiral round the wrong way, and it takes an age to work out how to swop the two pieces you're moving round the spiral round. That's mainly why I'm not a fan of them.