Types Of Logic Puzzles
A logic puzzle is a puzzle designed in such a way that it requires you to use your deduction skills and logic among the types of puzzles. A logic puzzle is typically characterized by various principles of logic, different girds, shapes, and themes. In this article, we are going to look into the details of types of logic puzzles and techniques used for solving a logic puzzle.
There are 10 broad categories of logic puzzles. They are battleship puzzles, tour puzzles, nonograms, elimination grids, syllogisms, river crossing, star battle, skyscrapers, the path between cells, puzzlegrams. Look deep into each of them and try all of them to test your logical, reasoning, and deduction skills.
1. Battleship Puzzles
The usage of Battleship Puzzles as a two-player puzzle dates back to the early twentieth century. But a typical battleship puzzle has a single player. This type of logic puzzle is designed with a theme of an ocean and a set of battleships are hidden in a 10X10 square grid. You need to find out all the battleships based on the number given at the end of each row and column.
There are 4 kinds of ships hidden in the grid. They are
- 1 battleship which is hidden in 4 squares
- 2 cruises with a length of 3 squares
- 3 destroyer ships that are 2 squares long each
- 4 submarines with 1 square length
Here is an example of a battleship logic puzzle.
The first image shows you a puzzle that requires you to find out all the ships hidden in the grid. The number given at the end of each row and column denotes the maximum limit of squares to be filled by the parts of ships.
2. Tour Puzzles
A typical tour puzzle requires the player to travel in different directions on a board using a peg or a coin that denotes a character. In some subtypes of tour puzzles, the player has more than one token to travel with, and some other types need you to move or slide through a set of wooden blocks in a specific order. There are starting and endpoints to the game. The different subtypes of tour logical puzzles are mazes, mizmazes, logic mazes, hiroimono, etc.
Here is an example of tour logic puzzles.
This picture denotes a tour puzzle that requires you to move through the line starting from one point and come back to the same point with a coin.
3. Nonograms
A nonogram logic puzzle is designed with simple rules to follow but has solutions that are tough to find. There are several names for nonograms like picross, griddles, etc. The difficulty levels of a nonogram vary from easy to infinity. Yes!! you have read it right. If a user of the puzzle is not able to solve the puzzle fully, then it can be called a logic puzzle with an infinite level of difficulty. A cloud puzzle also comes under this category with a few subtle differences.
Here is an example of a nanogram type of logic puzzle.
This is a nonogram featuring a martini glass. You will be required to fill the squares of the given grid based on the numbers given at the beginning of each row and each column.
4. Elimination Grids
In the case of an eliminating grid logic puzzle, it is advisable to actually create a grid for yourself depending on the facts and figures about the persons involving to solve them or based on the objects or theme of the event in which the puzzles are being used.
For an elimination grid puzzle, a grid is designed using several facts about a group of persons or a list of objects present at an event or related to a theme, and the puzzler is required to match the rows and columns correctly according to the facts with a tick if it is true or with a cross, if it is wrong.
Here is an example of an elimination grid logic puzzle.
In this puzzle, you will be required to match the interests or facts about pets, their owners, and the year in which the pets were adopted by them.
5. Syllogisms
As we have seen earlier, that a few logic puzzles require you to implement various principles of logic to solve them. Syllogisms are one of those types of logic puzzles that require the usage of principles of propositional logic and predicate logic. Propositional logic is a discipline of logic that depends on the links between the propositions and logical connectives. Unlike propositional logic, a predicate logic does not have quantifiers.
To keep it simple, a syllogism logic puzzle has a list of statements given and you will be required to find out the statements that are true by interchanging the places of propositions and predicate to understand the exact meaning of the given statement and answer the questions based on your findings.
Here is an example of syllogisms.
The syllogism here has a set of statements and conclusions. You need to analyze both the sets and answer what among the four options is correct.
6. River Crossing Puzzles
A River Crossing Puzzle is the most common type of logic puzzle that requires you to take a group of persons or animals or objects from one side (or an obstacle) to the other side of the river with the least number of steps. There will be a list of conditions you need to keep in mind while solving the puzzle.
Here is an example of a river crossing puzzle.
This is a river crossing puzzle designed using various aspects like a river, people of different ages, and their speed in terms of crossing the bridge. Try solving it in as lesser steps as you can.
7. Star Battle
The origin of the Star Battle puzzle is the Dutch. This type of puzzle is invented by Hans Endebak especially for the World Puzzle Championship that took place in the year 2003 at Arnhem, The Netherlands. Star Battle puzzle has eventually become popular across various countries.
Star Battle is a type of puzzle that requires you to place a specific number of stars in each row and column. Wait it’s not over yet, there’s a twist here!! There are several partitions in the grid. You will have to make sure that each partitioned area in the grid has only the given number of stars in it and keep in mind that the two stars cannot be adjacent to each other in vertical, horizontal, and diagonal directions. The level of difficulty depends on how many partitions are made in a grid and how many stars are specified for you to place in each row and column.
Here is an example of a star battle puzzle.
The first picture features a star battle logic puzzle that requires you to place 2 stars in each row and column.
8. Skyscrapers
A Skyscraper literally means a tall tenantable building with multiple floors. Hence it is known that the taller building has the ability to block the view of the shorter skyscrapers behind them. The same rule applies to the design of the skyscraper logic puzzle!! This type of logic puzzle can be made in three-dimensional design and also on a sheet of paper. The level of difficulty depends on the number of rows and columns.
A skyscraper puzzle is designed with a grid with an equal number of rows and columns. This puzzle requires you to place a skyscraper making sure that no two skyscrapers have an equal number of floors. The number with an arrow given at the beginning or end or a row or a column denotes the number of skyscrapers that are visible from the direction of the arrow.
Here is an example of a skyscraper puzzle.
The first picture features a 3D skyscraper puzzle. As you can see, you are able to see only the number of skyscrapers mentioned.
9. Path Between Cells
Logic puzzles in general are designed to be tough and a path between cells is considered one of the most difficult ones. The name of it makes it seem easy but it isn’t. Since this type of logic puzzle with hexagonal cells resembles a honeycomb, it is also called a honeycomb puzzle.
A honeycomb structure has a few numbers already placed in some cells. This puzzle requires you to draw a line along the perimeters of hexagons with numbers places in them. make sure to keep the number of sides you used to draw the line is equal to the number placed in that particular cell.
Here is an example of a path between cells.
The first picture features a honeycomb puzzle that requires you to mark a path between the cells. The second picture is the solution for it. Try it yourself if you want to.
10. Puzzlegrams
A puzzle gram is a type of logic puzzle that requires a little math to solve. This type of puzzle is designed using a number of circles, each filled with a number and four empty squares surrounding each circle. To solve this puzzle, fill the squares with numbers such that the sum of numbers in the surrounding four squares is always equal to the number that is placed in the circle.
Here is an example of a puzzle gram.
This puzzle needs you to fill the spaces with numbers such that the sum is equal to 23, 37, 30, 27, 40, 24.
Conclusion:
The different types of logic puzzles given above can be used for improving one’s thinking capacity in a systematic way since the solutions for them are obtained only by using a predetermined sequence of steps. Solving logic puzzles are also said to build confidence levels and also can be used just for fun on a weekend. Learn about them and practice all of them to keep your brain active or just to kill boredom.