Combination Puzzles
Combination Puzzles are a topic of interest in the study of critical thinking in games. Another name that they are sometimes given is sequential move puzzles. Some even call them ‘twisty puzzles’. These are essentially a form of a puzzle that has movable pieces that can be turned or twisted into a variety of positions. The puzzle, ideally, begins in a random or scrambled state. The objective is to then rearrange the pieces in such a process that the pieces, as with most puzzles, match or fit in the right place. It often has to do with a matching pattern of some kind, e.g. matching colors for a petaminx cube: a type of combination puzzle.
One of the most well-known combination puzzles is a Rubik’s Cube: a cube shaped puzzle that has nine pieces on each of the six surfaces of the cube. Each of these pieces has a color on it; often one of six colors. Each of the surfaces of a Rubik’s cube can be rotated on its own. To solve this puzzle, one would have to match the colors on each respective surface.
After the introduction of the Rubik’s Cube, there have been several other types of puzzle cubes and combination puzzles that have been created. They lie in a spectrum when as far as the level of complexity is concerned. However, most of them tend to be of a higher degree of difficulty than that of a Rubik’s Cube.
Here is some information on a few of these 3D combination puzzles. It started with the Rubik’s Cube, which is a cube shaped puzzle with a 3x3x3 configuration. Then multiple versions of it started being made, such as the Rubik’s Revenge. This is essentially like a Rubik’s cube, except that it has a 4x4x4 configuration, so more algorithms will be required to solve it.
(To be continued in the next part)