I have always loved a good puzzle. You know there’s a problem, and a solution, and you just have to figure out how to get from one to the other. Lately I’ve been especially enjoying puzzle games where the problem itself is part of the mystery — you’re given some information and have to figure out where to start.
My brother is especially good at finding these kinds of puzzle games. For Christmas, he gave me a subscription to Hunt a Killer. It’s a detective game in a box, but no one tells you what you’re trying to solve. You just get puzzles and clues to put together, and each month (for 6 months) a new box arrives with more details. There are “aha!” moments when you solve an individual puzzle, and the slow burn of fitting together clues and piecing together theories about the underlying story.
Another game that came from my brother is Gorogoa, a computer puzzle game with beautiful illustrations and simple yet incredibly clever gameplay. Once again, you enter the game with no idea of what’s happening, but as it continues you get a sense of the logic and storyline. This one is relatively short but full of enjoyable moments.
In many ways, this is similar to how I approach testing. I want to know just enough about what I’m testing to have a purpose, but not so much that I am just blindly following someone’s directions. I try things out, see where my intuition leads me, and watch for the places where I get stuck. I look for the story, the journey taking me from one screen to another. My challenges turn into opportunities to improve the product, and my “aha!” moments are the places where I see why I’m having trouble. In my testing I may not always arrive at a solution (although I enjoy being part of those discussions, as well!) but the satisfaction is in the hunt, in putting myself in the right frame of mind to uncover what I’m looking for.
Do you enjoy puzzles? Any good ones you’d recommend?
Happy Linguist 