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Here’s a fun example of a puzzle that celebrates our ability to pattern match. See if you can figure out what these are. Once you get them you’ll be blown away by how effectively this puzzle leverages just simple pattern matching to create a challenging puzzle that seems obvious as soon as you’ve figured it […]
April 21, 2012
As an example of how much we love puzzles, this puzzle went viral on Facebook: I think the main reason it went so viral is the copy that says “Pre-school children solve this in 5-10 minutes, programmers in an hour…” This sets up an expectation for surprise that the puzzle effectively delivers on (the solution […]
April 18, 2012
More and more I believe that puzzles represent one of the, if not the, most effective way to approach education. More and more everyone I explain this too looks at me like I’m crazy. This makes me think that I’m either crazy and need to come to my senses (I’m really wrong) or I’m on […]
April 16, 2012
I’ve set out on a path to try and create/discover puzzles for The Puzzle School that will help people learn a myriad of subjects by making the content more engaging and the process more motivating by presenting the content in a puzzle-like format rather than teaching the content directly. Why are puzzles more effective? Well […]
April 15, 2012
I finally have a rudimentary website up for The Puzzle School. As I explore the world of puzzles and develop new puzzles I’ll be linking to everything from The Puzzle School website. Eventually there will be a sign in process that will allow people to keep track of their progress across all of the puzzles […]
April 12, 2012
I just read a fascinating article in the Atlantic, The Most Dangerous Gamer. It details the efforts, life, and thoughts of an independent game maker, Jonathon Blow. At one point Blow provides the following quote: The games I like are ones that have shown me something I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, and Marc’s creating an […]
April 9, 2012
Note to self: the puzzle school should be as hackable as possible. The actual environment should feel hackable, modifiable, unfinished.
April 7, 2012
As you become more experienced/skilled at something you’re really becoming better at recognizing and leveraging patterns. Patterns allow us to load complicated ideas and schemes in to our working memory where we can twist them around more effectively without having to rely on memorization. As a professional software developer I spend every day solving complex […]
April 23, 2012
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