What makes a great game?
Like good crosswords, classic card games and logic puzzles survive because they’re easy to understand, possible to win, but difficult enough to be challenging.
You might remember playing the Fifteen Blocks game where you shuffle around tiles numbered 1 to 15 with one blank space on a 4×4 tray. Your task is to then slide blocks into that blank, swapping their positions, until you return everything to their numerically sorted order. Simple. Until it’s not.
In order to help with a different software project, I wanted to create a small program that would test some new frameworks, so I made a digital version at FifteenBlocks.com. It was the simplest game to program I could think of.
I was surprised (although I shouldn’t have been) that it’s a great logic puzzle! And so much easier to do on your phone or computer. Click one button to shuffle, and then click tiles to move them into place.
It’s hard at first. Well, it was for me. But after a while, you get the hang of the logic.
My version is free, there’s no sign up, there are no ads. It’s just there for anyone to pass time while waiting for a latte at the coffee shop or whatever.
Have fun.