|
The tricky brainteasers in Mind Aerobics are captivating Zoners every single day. We've decided to publish some hints and tips, written by the Zone community, to help you over some of the stickier parts of each of the puzzle types. Keep checking out this section, as we'll continue to publish more tips and strategies for Mind Aerobics. The tips below were submitted by Grey_Falcon.
Chains
There are several different methods to working Chains:
- Work individual links. Find a link, and work on it until you find the previous or next link. Keep going in order until you connect all of them.
- Write down the links (I used to do this, but found it took more time than #3). Get a piece of paper or note card, and write down the words as you reveal them column by column. Then you can go back and, while referencing the notes, make the chain of words.
- Use your memory and work several links at a time. (This one takes practice.)
- Finally, note that not all Chains puzzles work a phrase. Sometimes they use word association: game clock --> clock speed --> speed skate --> skate board --> board game.
Honey Way - First of all, draw honey paths from every available port to the next cell. This will help you see a path quickly. You'll also see what cells have some flexibility as to which way you can go. (For example, I always draw a path to the next cell from the beginning and ending point, and out of each flower.)
- If a bee is in your way, a black object that you cannot get through, use the supplied beetle to wipe out the bee. There will always be a beetle if the bees are blocking a necessary path.
- If you think you have solved the puzzle but you get a warning that not all flowers are used, just wipe out a part of the path and connect it through another flower.
- Often there are many different paths that can be used. I do not think I have ever seen a puzzle that has only one solution.
- Practice, Practice, Practice. Honey Way used to be my least favorite puzzle, but after a few weeks I got much better at it, and can now solve every puzzle I have run across.
Jotto
The object of Jotto is to guess the secret word in 14 tries. On the Easy setting, the answer is a three-letter word, Medium is a four-letter word, and Hard is a five-letter word.
- Try to choose words that use different letters for your first guesses. This will help you to narrow down the secret letters.
- The word you enter must be a real word. You can't type in ABCDE for a five-letter guess.
- Don't forget that a word may have the same letter twice in its spelling, but not three times.
- If you rule out a letter, color it gray by right clicking on the letter at the bottom of the screen.
- Once you've narrowed it down, start changing just one letter at a time and continue refining your guess.
- The most common consonants in the puzzles seem to be: LMNRSTBCD.
Overlapse
In the game Overlapse, the object is to fill in the picture with overlapping jigsaw-puzzle-type pieces. Here are a few hints to speed up your time:
Work with the pieces that show a part of the background first (blue background and black-and-white lines). These are easier to line up than trying to figure out where an all-white piece goes in a picture of a snowman in winter. Rotate the piece so the white lines and black lines are aligned with the background, and note the tone of the blue color. The tone will give you a hint to the piece's location in the puzzle, whether it be upper right or lower left.
Next, try working the borders of the puzzle. Sometimes this can easily be done; sometimes it is difficult if the border is just sky.
Look for individual pieces that may provide a clue to their location. For instance, in a puzzle with a lot of sky, the probability is that pieces of light blue will be in the upper portion. Green pieces could represent grass, so try placing them in the lower portion of the puzzle.
Tumblers
This puzzle is one of the more visually busy puzzles in the Mind Aerobics area. Basically, numbers are rotating by you and you must find them in sequence from #1 to #50, #70, or #100, depending on the difficulty you select.
Here are a few tips:
- Work with a sequence of numbers. If you can't find a certain number, go ahead and look for the next sequence, and you will be all set to click on four or five numbers when you see the primary number you are looking for; just remember where the next ones are.
- As you work through it, track where the numbers are. I usually think about the sequence placements: up, left, up, up, right, down. This will let you work faster if you are using tip #1.
- You have three chances, so don't get all worked up if you make a mistake; you can still finish the puzzle.
- As you near the end, you will be selecting numbers faster, because there will not be as much visual data to sort through. After each number is gone, a black X will replace it. Just train yourself to ignore the X, and focus on finding the numbers that are rotating through.
WordHai
The object of WordHai is to use all the letters to form three- (easy), four- (medium), and five-letter (expert) words.
- The only letters you can use are the ones that are highlighted in white.
- You can take letters back to the board by clicking them on the answer sheet.
- Use the tough letters as early as you can, to get rid of them.
- If you see the letter Q, plan ahead to use the letter U as you work through the puzzle.
- Always use the ideas button if you start to get stumped. Each click of this button will bring up a new idea, until there are no other words that can be made from the letters left.
- The ideas button is not enabled at first, so you need to wait a few minutes before you use it.
- If you get down to one last set of letters, experiment; it is quite possible the computer will recognize a word that you didn't know was legitimate.
- Count up the number of vowels in the list, and divide that by the number of words you need to create. This will let you know if some words will have more than one vowel.
|
