Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Theory5

do you guys know of an online version of this game so I can play at school? It looks challanging.

I searched a bit to find a version of the puzzle game that my windows box could play (the flowix game installer errored as “installer corrupt or incomplete”, Kaser’s “Sherlock” installed OK), and didn’t find any that would play via Java or Flash in a browser.

The more traditional sort of logic puzzle can be played online at several sites, such as logic-puzzles.org. This site is neat in that it keeps internet-wide average and best times for each puzzle.

Some major difference between traditional logic puzzles, which long predate computers and are intended to be solved on paper, and computer games like Sherlock, are:

• traditional puzzles don’t correct your mistakes as you go
• traditional puzzles don’t automatically fill in the puzzle grid for you
• traditional puzzles usually use words, not graphics
• traditional puzzles have more kinds of clues.

Sherlock puzzles are therefore a subset of traditional logic puzzles.

The differences between Sherlock and traditional logic puzzles, while minor, are interesting. In addition to its more forgiving and automatic play and limited kinds of clues, because it doesn’t use language, it seems to me to engage different brain centers. Also, you don’t need to know any written language to play it. Traditional logic puzzles sometimes try to trick you with subtly twists of language in the clues. Sherlock is incapable of such cheap tricks.

I encourage everybody who likes Sherlock to try playing some traditional logic puzzles. Though it’s doubtful Einstein really said the quote attributed to him about a particular logic puzzle, it’s certain that if he did, he was talking about one printed on paper, not a computer game-ized one.