5
$\begingroup$

Can anyone help me find out what these kinds of puzzles are?

1. B&W Grid Puzzle

There's a grid with black & white blocks. A black block will turn white if it's surrounded by 3 white blocks. A white block will turn black if it's surrounded by 2 or 3 black blocks.

Example: If the initial shape is a "cross" made by 5 black blocks, what are the possible results given shapes A, B, C, and D? (See image below)

2. Foetus Puzzle

I can't remember exactly how this one works, but generally the contents of an animal's womb is determined by labels depending on the sex of adjacent foetuses.

Rules:

If foetus A is beside 1 male foetus, A is labeled 1M.

If foetus B is beside 2 male foetuses, B is labeled 2M.

If foetus C is beside 0 male foetuses, C is labeled 0M.

They may be mapped out or have related questions, e.g. "What is probability of getting 1M 2M 0M?" or "If there are 2 males and 2 females, what constructions are considered impossible?"

3. Colored Grid Puzzle

There is a 3x3 grid and each square must be filled with a certain colour. There are 3 colours (red, green, and blue) to work with, but there aren't necessarily 3 of each.

Example: With the following statements, you have to guess which colour is in column 3, row 2.

1) The square in Column 1, Row 2 is red.

2) In Column 2, there are 2 green squares and 1 blue square.

... etc.

Notes

I couldn't recall the questions in detail but I hope I explained the type of logic puzzles I'm looking for.

puzzle examples

$\endgroup$
4
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ I don't know about 2 or 3, but your first example seems to just be a version of Conway's Game of Life $\endgroup$
    – Irishpanda
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 21:17
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I agree with @Irishpanda, the #1 appears to be a cellular automaton. We have a tag for those (cellular-automata) but it doesn't have much variety right now. $\endgroup$
    – f''
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 21:36
  • $\begingroup$ Number 2 sounds like a variation of cellular automata, and number 3 kinda sounds like a variation of the game Mastermind, maybe? $\endgroup$
    – Irishpanda
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 21:41
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks guys! It was really worth coming to this site:) BTW is there any special name for this kind puzzles? and where could I get more of these? Thanks again! $\endgroup$
    – jelly
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 22:16

1 Answer 1

2
$\begingroup$

1 is Conway's Life, 2 I don't know, but it sounds like MineSweeper, 3 I think is this, but I don't know it's name:

enter image description here

The colours tell you how many of each colour are in each row/column, and are in the order red/blue/green/yellow, so they only tell you how many with no indication of position.

I am not sure if the solution is unique for this one, but here's one:

enter image description here

$\endgroup$
4
  • $\begingroup$ It is not unique, for instance, you can swap the first and second column. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 18:11
  • $\begingroup$ @CarlLöndahl; yeah i can see that! i might make top-left red as a gven...does it make it unique? $\endgroup$
    – JMP
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 22:11
  • $\begingroup$ Nope, it doesn't :-) For instance, you can rotate the lower-right set of 4 squares (green-red) 90°. It is well within the limits of brute-force search. By simply enumerating the permutations of the columns (satisfying the upper restrictions) which is roughly, $(4!)^4$ give or take, you can count them all. $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 23:12
  • $\begingroup$ @CarlLöndahl; so i should look for degenerate patterns. i would write some code, but i'm very busy at the moment with other stuff. the usual size of these puzzles is larger, say 8*8, so any code might get unwieldy. $\endgroup$
    – JMP
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 23:16

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.