Puzzles and Games

Mathematicians are known to love puzzles. What is your favorite (physical or digital) puzzle game? Here at the Center, we asked around the office to get responses from our employees.

Dave: Solving proofs is a puzzle game, but he’ll play classic Sudoku puzzles in the newspaper if he’s really bored.

Adam: He plays ColorKu, a color-organizing game similar to Sudoku.

Tori:  Her favorite puzzles are Tangrams; she even downloaded a simple Tangram app on her phone. She also played 2048 for hours and hours last year.

Zach: He plays a game called “Buzz” with his friends. According to Zach:

"Basically, everyone sits in a circle and begins counting from 1 upward. The first person says "1", second person says "2" etc. However, whenever the digit 7 or a number that is a multiple of 7 comes up [this means 7, 14, 17, 21, etc.], that person is supposed to say "buzz" and the order in the circle reverses. If someone doesn't say buzz, or the order doesn't reverse, the game restarts. The goal of the game is to get as far as you can. We've never gotten past 70."

Let us know your favorite puzzle games in the comments!

Image credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Jigsaw_puzzle_01_by_Scouten.jpg