This article originally appeared in The Games Cafe, a now defunct web site devoted to lovers of board games and puzzles. In the article I occasionally refer to other Games Cafe article. I decided to leave these references as is, even though they no longer link to anything. My favorite definition of "puzzle" came out of a conversation with puzzle collector and longtime friend Stan Isaacs: 1. A puzzle is fun, 2. and it has a right answer. Part 1 of the definition says that puzzles are a form of play. Part 2 distinguishes ...
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This article originally appeared in The Games Cafe, a now defunct web site devoted to lovers of board games and puzzles. In the article I occasionally refer to other Games Cafe article. I decided to leave these references as is, even though they no longer link to anything. My favorite definition of "puzzle" came out of a conversation with puzzle collector and longtime friend Stan Isaacs: 1. A puzzle is fun, 2. and it has a right answer. Part 1 of the definition says that puzzles are a form of play. Part 2 distinguishes puzzles from other forms of plays, such as games and toys. This deceptively simple definition has some interesting consequences. For instance, here's the first puzzle I invented.
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