I often think about ways of classifying puzzles, so I’m always interested to see how other people do it. I recently came across a blog entry called “a taxonomy of puzzle elements.“ It’s not bad and it’s a good starting point for thinking about classification.
I tend to think about broader categories though and I’ve come up with three types of puzzles, based on the type of solution given. The three types are:
- Mechanical puzzles – For these puzzles, the solution is an actual physical object in the correct orientation. Good examples of this are the Rubik’s Cube or jigsaw puzzles.
- Pencil and Paper puzzles – The solution to these puzzles requires something to be filled out on paper. Sudoko, kakuro, crossword, wordsearch, all fall into this category. Anything that you would want to print out to solve is probably a Pensil and Paper puzzle.
- Question and Answer puzzles – The solution to these puzzles is an answer that can be verbalized. Riddles and brain teasers obviously fall into this category, along with rebus puzzles and the like. Of course, you can verbalize the solution to any puzzle, but you can’t say a properly aligned Rubik’s cube or a filled-out sudoku.
I’m interested to hear what people think of these categories and flush out what the limitations are and how they can be improved.
