I love games.  I find that they allow me to clear my head and get more focused.  The focus kicks in after I stop playing the game of course. I enjoy logic puzzles and physics based games the most.  However, I recently found out that I enjoy word games as well.

Physics Based Games

Physics games set up an initial scenario and you have to use the laws of gravity, masses of objects, springs, etc. to reach some goal like putting a ball in a basket or putting shape into a certain spot.  I think what I like about the physics based games is the multiple steps to get to the final solution, as well as the trial and error involved.  I love trying things out, seeing that they don’t work and retrying over and over again.  Each time I get something wrong, I learn something new.

Some of my favorites include:

Assembler Series

Assembler

Over at physicsgames.net, they have loads of physics games.  Assembler 3 is addicting.  You move objects around by clicking and dragging them.  The neat thing about it, is that it knows the center of gravity of each item.  So for instance if you click and raise the corner of a box, it will “hang” by that corner and swing back and forth.  If you run that box into a smaller box, the small box will move around quite a bit.  The goal is to get the green circle into the designated area.  It sounds easy and up to about level 10 or so it is.

Civiballs

Civiballs

Civiballs involves little bowling type balls on chains.  You cut the chains to allow the ball to drop.  Once the ball drops it interacts with other objects to, with the ultimate goals of getting the balls inside the baskets.  You have to match the color of the balls with the color of the baskets.  Some of the levels get pretty complex with mutliple layers of interaction required in order to get the balls in the right baskets.

Word Puzzles

Come to find out I really enjoy word puzzle games.  I haven’t played that many, but the ones I have played I quite enjoy.  I found one in the back of the Southwest Airlines magazine (Spirit) on my last flight entitled Mix and Match.  I was thrilled that I completed the entire game before we got to the magic 10,000 foot elevation.  The game was essentially a crossword puzzle, except the clues were a little more obtuse.  You are given three words.  Two of the words describe the final answer and the third word is an anagram for the answer.  The answer is then placed around a the number corresponding to the clue, but you have to choose whether it is clockwise or counter-clockwise.  It sounds complicate, but once you get two or three it turns out to be a lot of fun.

Logic Puzzles

Puzzles!

I played logic puzzles all the time as a kid, and I am seeking them out now as an adult.  The logic puzzles I enjoyed the most are the ones where you are given a set of rules or statements and you have to infer through the process of elimination and powers of deduction, what the other choices are.  Puzzlersparadise.com has some interactive web based versions of the pencil and paper puzzles I loved as a kid.