This page is an attempt to create a list of online games that can be used to test your rationality, your problem-solving skills, etc. Unfortunately very few of these games directly test bayesianBayesian reasoning, and the puzzles tend to be unrealistic, which means that they test how good you are at puzzle games, rather than how good you are at real-world rationality. Still, creating this list seemed like it would be worth a try.
Difficulty: Advanced
Description: "Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve."
Skills required: Programming in any language.
Difficulty: Advanced
Description: Anagrams + block-sliding puzzle = fun :)
Skills required: Anagrams. Block-sliding-puzzle skills. General logic skills.
Description: A series of puzzles, each of which has a deliberately counterintuitive, and often malevolent, solution. Don't worry if you can't solve all of them, some of the solutions require specific computer hardware or softwaesoftware to win.
Skills required: Programming. Optimizing code for limited computing resources. Understanding wikipedia:spaghetti code.
Difficulty: Medium
Description: An innovative platform puzzler. The objective is to find a way to kill your character. Harder than it sounds.
Skills required: Intermediate platform-puzzle skills. Outside-the-box thinking.
Anyway, here are the games:
Unless someone thinks this page should be removed from the wiki, I plan to continue adding more games to the list. There are hundreds of free puzzle games like these on the internet. --PeerInfinity 18:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
(Another motivation for creating this page was an attempt to extract at least some value from the countless hours that Peer Infinity has spent playing these games.)
Difficulty: Medium
Description: Place the shapes so that they don't fall off the screen.
Skills required: Physics-based puzzle-solving skills. Some levels require quick reflexes and precise timing.
Difficulty: Medium
Description: Guide the ball to the destination by cutting objects.
Skills required: Physics-based puzzle-solving skills. Some levels require quick reflexes and precise timing.
Difficulty: Advanced
Description: Construct complex machines to navigate from the start area to the destination area, or accomplish other tasks.
Skills required: Physics-based puzzle-solving skills. Constructing machines with many interacting parts.
Difficulty: Advanced
Description: Use a small set of instructions to program a robot to light a specific pattern of tiles.
Skills required: Programming. Optimizing code for limited computing resources. Understanding wikipedia:spaghetti code.
Difficulty: Advanced
Description: Create paths between nodes of the same colour, without the paths overlapping.
Skills required: Visual-spatial logic skills. General logic skills.
Difficulty: Hard
Description: Create portals to solve puzzles and reach the exit. Based on the original game by Valve.
Skills required: Advanced platform-puzzle skills. Understanding how portals work and using them effectively.
This page was inspired by Better thinking through experiential games, and some of the comments on this post.
This page is an attempt to create a list of online games that can be used to test your rationality, your problem-solving skills, etc. Unfortunately very few of these games directly test bayesian reasoning, and the puzzles tend to be unrealistic, which means that they test how good you are at puzzle games, rather than how good you are at real-world rationality. Still, creating this list seemed like it would be worth a try.
(Another motivation for creating this page was an attempt to extract at least some value from the countless hours that Peer Infinity has spent playing these games.)
Most of the game links are from Kongregate.com. If you sign up for a kongregate.com account, the site will keep track of your achievements in the games. You can then link to your badges page to show off which badges you've collected.
But be warned: THIS CAN BE EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE!
Anyway, here are the games:
Difficulty: Medium
Description: A series of duck-themed puzzles, each of which has different rules.
Skills required: Basic puzzle-solving skills.
Difficulty: Medium
Description: A series of key-themed puzzles, each of which has different rules.
Skills required: Basic puzzle-solving skills.
Difficulty: Hard!
Description: A series of puzzles, connected by other puzzles, each of which have different rules, and most of which have a counterintuitive solution. Hints about the solutions are cleverly hidden in the game.
Skills required: Advanced puzzle-solving skills, finding and interpreting cleverly hidden clues.
Hint: Gur cevagfperra ohggba vf lbhe sevraq. (rot13'd)
Difficulty: Hard
Description: A series of puzzles, each of which has a deliberately counterintuitive, and often malevolent, solution. Don't worry if you can't solve all of them, some of the solutions require specific computer hardware or softwae to win.
Skills required: Interpreting deliberately counterintuitive clues. Guessing what the game designer could possibly have meant. Some of the puzzles require specific computer hardware or software to solve.
Difficulty: Almost Impossible
Description: A series of quiz questions and other challenges that have deliberately counterintuitive solutions.
Skills required: Some questions require trivia knowledge. Some questions require logic skills. Some questions require "thinking outside the box". Some of the questions are solvable only by trial and error. Some of the challenges require extremely fast reflexes. Many of the puzzles are blatantly evil. Do not expect to win this. You have been warned.
Difficulty: Easy
Description: Given a plain white ball, a few tools, and a picture, change the ball to make it match the picture.
Skills required: Figuring out what the tools do, and how to use them in to achieve the goal.
Difficulty: Medium
Description: Given a few parts,...
Related Pages: Games (posts describing)