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        riddles >> hard >> The Crazy Christmas Game
        
(Message started by: Jimmy Hansen on Jan 10^th, 2003, 12:56pm)

Title: The Crazy Christmas Game
Post by Jimmy Hansen on Jan 10^th, 2003, 12:56pm

Wow, this is an amazingly basic, but hard (and fun!) puzzle.

There are 9 small squares that you put together to make one big (3x3) square . On each side of the small squares, there is either the top or bottom half of a shape. There are four different shapes: horse, toy, ornament, or present.

Here is a list of the small squares' shapes going clockwise.

SQAURE1: horsebottom, ornamenttop, toytop, presentbottom
SQAURE2: toybottom, presenttop, horsetop, ornamentbottom
SQAURE3: ornamenttop, presenttop, toytop, toybottom
SQAURE4: presentbottom, horsebottom, toybottom, ornamentbottom
SQAURE5: horsetop, presentbottom, toytop, ornamenttop
SQAURE6: ornamentbottom, horsetop, presenttop, toybottom
SQAURE7: horsetop, toybottom, ornamentbottom, presentbottom
SQAURE8: toytop, horsetop, horsebottom, ornamentbottom
SQAURE9: horsetop, presenttop, toytop, ornamentbottom

So you can just cut out 9 small squares of equal size, and put those shapes on it, then try to match them together to make the big square. To make it easy, I'd suggest just A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2. A-D representing the 4 shapes, 1-2 representing top or bottom.

I know there's some work involved, but this is such a great one. :) You can also solve it in code.

Title: Re: The Crazy Christmas Game
Post by Garzahd on Jan 10^th, 2003, 3:45pm

A long time ago my parents bought a puzzle like this, except with colored snakes insead of christmas-ish stuff.

Cute, but I don't think it's necessary to cut out squares and do it again.

Title: Re: The Crazy Christmas Game
Post by SWF on Jul 25^th, 2003, 9:11pm

Being that this problem has been sitting around unsolved for 6 months, I thought it would be pretty tough. I made the pieces and solved it on first attempt. Made a reasonable guess for the center piece, placed the pieces around it without a whole lot of thought, and everything matched up right away. Maybe it was just luck. Here is limited amount or reasoning I used:

Hint: [hide]Noticed there was an excess of certain segments, and figured that some of these must therefore be on the edge of the big square. The small square with the most sides which match the excess segments was chosen for the center piece. I then placed pieces around the center piece trying to get the excess segments on the perimeter.[/hide]
Full solution:[hide]The squares are numbered 1 through 9 as defined in the question. For each square I also give an orientation A, B, C, or D. 'A' has the first segment given in the original post at 12 O'clock, B has it a 3:00, C at 6:00 and D at 9:00. Solution is
4B 9C 3D
6D 1A 8A
5C 2A 7A[/hide]