Answers to Mind Games

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Boxes of Games and Puzzles

I have three boxes in my games room.  One box contains only games, one contains only puzzles, and one contains a combination of both games and puzzles.  One box is labeled “Games,” one is labeled “Puzzles,” and one is labeled “Games & Puzzles.”  Unfortunately, each box is labeled incorrectly.  How many games will I have to look at to determine which box is which?

Answer: One.  Take one game from the box marked “Games & Puzzles.”  Since that box is marked incorrectly, it will contain either all games or all puzzles.  Let’s say you pull a game out of the box, then that box should be marked “Games.”  That means that the remaining two boxes contain puzzles, and a combination of games and puzzles, but they are marked “Games” and “Puzzles.” Since they are marked incorrectly, the one labeled “Puzzles” must contain the games and puzzles, and therefore the other one—labeled “Games”—must contain the puzzles.  The same procedure will prevail if the game you pick out of the “Games & Puzzles” box is a puzzle.

Answers to Ivan Moscovich’s 1000 Playthinks puzzles:

Handshakes

At a business meeting each person shook hands with every other person exactly once.  If there were fifteen handshakes, can you tell how many people attended the meeting?

Answer: There were six people at the meeting.  Each person shook hands five times, but that makes for fifteen handshakes, not thirty, since each shake was shared by two people.

Bookworm

A five-volume set of books is sitting on a shelf, volumes 1 through 5 placed side by side, respectively, left to right.  A bookworm finds itself on page 1 of volume 1 (the book furthest to the left) and begins eating to the last page of volume 5.  If each book is 6 centimeters thick, including the front and back covers, which are half a centimeter each, what is the distance the bookworm travels?

Answer: The trick here is looking at the way the books are lined up.  The bookworm eats through only the front cover of volume 1, all of volumes 2, 3, and 4, and only the back cover of volume 5.  The total distance is 19 centimeters.

Three Coin Flip

You ask a friend about probability, and he tells you the following: “The odds of tree tossed coins turning up all heads or all tails is one in two, that is, fifty-fifty.  That’s because anytime you toss three coins, at least two must match, either two heads or two tails.  So that means the third coin—which is equally likely to be heads or tails—determines the odds.”  Is your friend right?  If not, what are the odds of three tossed coins turning up all heads or all tails?

Answer:  Your friend is wrong.  Because the odds for each coin is independent of the others, there are in fact two possible outcomes for a single coin, four possible outcomes for two coins and eight possible outcomes for three coins.

In only two tosses of eight will the coins land all heads or all tails.

Order! Order!

by Bruce Whitehill

ANSWER: _9N  6F  5C  7M  10O  12K  3D  11E  1J  8H  2L  15G  4A  14B  13I_

LIST OF Games in Chronological Order, with Clues, Dates, Companies, & Notes:

1. Pit- One of the versions of this trading game included a bell

1904, Parker Bros.

2. Mah Jongg- a popular game brought over from China.

1922, various companies

3. Chinese Checkers- This game was in Europe in the 19^th century before it became popular in the U.S. under its new name

Note: Chinese Checkers was not from China, and was based on HALMA, not checkers. Pressman’s first game was titled HOP CHING; one of the first (or the first) Pressman game to use the Chinese Checkers title was a small game in which each player had only 6 marbles (forming a 1-2-3 triangle). Strangely enough, the patent for Chinese Checkers went to Milton Bradley company thirteen years later—1941.

1928, J. Pressman & Co.

4. Monopoly- One early version included a lantern, a rocking horse, and a purse.

1935, Parker Bros.

Note: the lantern, rocking horse, and purse were three of 10 metal tokens in the 1935 “white box” deluxe edition.  MONOPOLY was introduced in 1933 by Charles Darrow who took the game from an Atlantic City folk game that evolved from Elizabeth Magie’s 1904 THE LANDLORD’S GAME

5. Rich Uncle- the character associated with this game went on to become “Mr. Monopoly”

1946, Parker Bros.

Note: the moustached character known as “Uncle Pennybags” recently had his name changed to link to his appearance on MONOPOLY games, now that the RICH UNCLE game is no longer being made.

6. Scrabble- a game built on anagrams

1948, Production & Marketing Co.

Note: Alfred Butts began developing a crossword game in 1933 that was named “Scrabble” by his partner James Brunot two decades later; the game was licensed and then purchased by Selchow & Righter, the company that made the boards for Butts & Brunot.

7. Beat the Clock- one of the first games to come from a TV game show

1955, Bettye-B

Note: This was not a quiz game but a game requiring players, like the TV contestants, to perform actual stunts.

8. Risk- a game of many countries

1959, Parker Brothers

Note: each player in this war game represents a different country

9. Acquire- The 1999 version of this game honored the inventor of this game by naming one of the properties “Sackson”

1962, 3M

Note: Inventor Sid Sackson (1920-2002) is considered one of the U.S.’s most prolific inventors

10. Mouse Trap- a “Rube Goldberg” type of invention

1963, Ideal

Note: Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, whose illustrated “inventions” depicted an action that would put a series of events in motion, a notion carried out in the game MOUSE TRAP.

11. Battleship- The Milton Bradley version came out in plastic more than 35 years after it was played under the same name as a pencil & paper game

1967, Milton Bradley

Note: the pencil & paper game of BATTLESHIP was published in 1931, and has been published under other names, such as SALVO and COMBAT, dating back to WWI.

12. Uno- Skip & Reverse

1971, International Games

Note: these are two of the action cards in the game.

13. Boggle- How many words can you make from this game’s title?

1976, Parker Bros.

14. Trivial Pursuit- This game from Canada opened a new adult category of games–and introduced much higher retail prices for games

Note: Until TRIVIAL PURSUIT, which retailed for around $25, few games sold for more that $12 because manufacturers and retailers thought consumers would not pay more than that for a game.

1983, Selchow & Richter

Note: TRIVIAL PURSUIT was created by Chris Haney & Scott Abbott in 1979; they formed Horn & Abbot company before releasing the game in Canada in 1981, then licensed the game to S&R.

15. Settlers of Catan- you can also score with the longest road

1995, Mayfair Games

Note: the game was originally published in Germany by Kosmos, as DIE SIEDLER VON CATAN

To go back to the puzzle page, click here.

Cerebral Classics

One of the many great things about the internet and email is that jokes and puzzles are making a comeback, riding the waves of cyberspace.  Classic puzzles are being renewed and reinvented. If you haven’t heard these (or variations of them) yet, it’s about time you did.  Read these items through just once, and then give your answer. You might enjoy reading these out loud to others.

1.  A bus driver known to all in the community was going the wrong way down a one-way street.  The highly efficient local traffic enforcement officer saw him, waved, and neither stopped him nor gave him a ticket. Why?

1. The bus driver was walking.

2.  How many times does the word “the” appear in the sentence below?

One of the important results of the

the meeting of the members

was the agreement to plan the next race

before the fifth of the month.

2. Eight.  (If you got seven, you missed the double “the”)

3.  A small boat is drifting at sea, its occupants awaiting rescue.  The tide is rising at a rate of two inches an hour.  A rope ladder hangs over the boat, its lowest rung just under water.  If there are five rungs on the ladder and they are five inches apart, how long before the third rung is under water?

3. The third rung will never be under water—the boat rises with the tide.

4.  A frog is trying to jump out of a sloping hole that is one foot deep.  With each jump, he leaps four inches up, then slides two inches back.  How many jumps will it take him to get out of the hole?

4. Five.  On the fifth jump he will reach the top and will not slide back.

5.  You are driving a bus in Washington D.C. The bus has no passengers when it leaves the terminal.  At the first stop, the bus picks up four people.  At the second stop, three people get on and two get off.  At the next stop, one person gets off and two get on.  At the stop after that, three people get on and no one gets off.  What is the name of the bus driver?  (Remember, you’re not allowed to read this a second time!)

5. Whatever your name is.  The story begins, “You are driving a bus….”

Answer to Cross-Number Puzzle

Wait! Before you look at the answer, consider these hints:
Hint #1: The number zero (0) appears in the puzzle only once!

Hint #2: Each digit in 14 across is the same.

To go back to the puzzle, click here.

Where to start?  If you had trouble figuring out where to start, you probably looked at the two hints.  Here is where those hints can help you:  26 down is the square root of 30 across.  Since 30 across is a three-digit number, 26 down must be 31 or less (32 squared is 1024).  One square is common to both numbers, so the second digit in each number must be the same. The only times this happens is with the square of 10 (100), 20 (400), 28 (784) and 30 (900). “Hint #1” tells you that zero is only used once in the puzzle, so 100, 400, and 900 would not be acceptable answers, leaving only “28” and “784” as solutions to two of the clues.  Now that you have the second digit for 27 down, you also have the second digit for 12 across and 13 across.

Since “Hint #2” tells you that 14 across is three of the same digits, and the clues tell you it is the same as 6 down, and 6 down times 14 across (the answer to 12 down) needs to be a five-digit number, 6 down and 14 across have to be either 111 or 222 (333 x 333 is too high: 110,889).  Multiplying 222 times 222 = 49284; the second digit, the 9, is too high for 16 across, which, as the square root of a three-digit number, has to be 31 or less.  Therefore, 6 down and 14 across must be “111” and 12 down is “12321.”  You should be able to work your way from there.

Animal Tales

ANSWERS TO ANIMAL TALES, A PUZZLE

Wait! If you’re having trouble, try these hints first:
01_______ lick—outstanding hair
02_______ eyes (not “doe eyed”)—gambling
03_______ tired—in pants
04_______ tail (not “pig”)—girls only (usually)
05_______ call—a whistle
06_______ eared—book or paper
07_______ power—vehicles
08_______ neck—a lamp
09_______ hug—a strong one
10_______ burglar—a crook with nine lives
11_______ sure—conceitedly positive rooster
12_______ kiss—with your eyelash
13_______ brain—not so smart
14_______ walk (not “duck”)—way above ground
15_______ tears—they’re fake
16_______ bumps—scary skin
17_______ feet—an effect of aging
18_______ shines—foolishness
19_______ man—underwater
20_______ grass—a weed
21_______ line—straight ahead
22…copy _________—she does whatever I do
23…stool _________—give him up
24…jail __________—criminal escapee
25…charley _______—an ache

Now here are your answers:
01: COW LICK
02: SNAKE EYES
03: DOG TIRED
04: PONYTAIL
05: CAT CALL
06: DOG EARED
07: HORSEPOWER
08: GOOSENECK
09: BEAR HUG
10: CAT BURGLAR
11: COCK SURE
12: BUTTERFLY KISS
13: BIRD BRAIN
14: CAT WALK
15: CROCODILE TEARS
16: GOOSEBUMPS
17: CROWS FEET
18: MONKEY SHINES
19: FROGMAN
20: CRAB GRASS
21: BEE LINE
22: COPY CAT
23: STOOL PIGEON
24: JAIL BIRD
25: CHARLEY HORSE
Bonus: HORSEFLY (No score for “dragon fly” unless you’ve seen a dragon.)
Score 4 points each; score two points for answers that are not the same as those listed but make sense.
Score ten points for the bonus if your score is less than 90 points; otherwise score one point.

Solution to Crossed-Up Crossword

Score 100 points if you got it all correct, or eight points for each square where two words intersect (there are 12 squares common to two words). Six squares are blank.

To go back to the puzzle page, click here.

Letters

The ANSWERS:
A major question of scientists:  _why_ = _Y_
A British line:  _queue_ = _Q_
What a Boston Party was all about:  _tea_ = _T_
Not me:  _you_ = _U_
An exclamation:  _oh!_ = _O_
A sheep:  _ewe_ = _U_
Last name of America’s first chief justice: (John) _Jay_ = _J_
A seer:  _eye_ = _I_
A swarmer:  _bee_ = _B_
What you can do with money:  _owe_ = _O_
A metric unit of land measure equal to 100 square meters:  _are_ = _R_

YQTUOUJIBOR

Answer: QUIT YOUR JOB
Bonus: a QUOIT, a ring used in the game of QUOITS

What’s New?

The ANSWERS:
Score 3 points for each correct answer, except for question 34, which is worth only 1 point.  Perfect score is 100; 90 or above is excellent; 78 or more is very good; 66 or better is good.

1.  The only state whose most populous city shares its name.  New York
2. The economic and political principles adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt to cope with the Great Depression.  New Deal
3.  A label used to describe new and different modern trends and advances in art, music, and popular culture.  new wave
4.  The country that is home to the Maoris.  New Zealand
5.  The event during which millions of people used to watch the ball drop in Times Square.  New Year’s Eve
6.  The Western Hemisphere.  New World
7.  The phrase used to describe people hired by a company to bring in fresh ideas and a renewed vitality.  new blood
8.  The Dutch colonial town on Manhattan Island, before being renamed in 1664.  New Amsterdam
9.  Part of the wedding sentiment that includes something borrowed and something blue.  something new
10. The name given by Captain John Smith to the area including what is now Massachusetts and the states surrounding it.  New England
11. A style of instrumental music using repetitive, simple melodies and attempting to elicit feelings of tranquility.  New Age
12. Something you can’t see in the night sky.  new moon
13. A thick soup made with potatoes, salt pork, clams, milk, onions, and seasonings.  New England clam chowder
14. The state with the shortest ocean coastline of any coastal state.  New Hampshire
15. Papua.  New Guinea
16. Mountain state admitted to the Union in 1912.  New Mexico
17. A political movement developed in the 1960s by mostly young people seeking radical economic and social change.  New Left
18. The team that lost to the Florida Marlins in the 2003 World Series.  New York Yankees
19. A province of Southeast Canada named to honor George III.  New Brunswick
20. One of the 13 original states, named after one of the Channel Islands.  New Jersey
21. The state of which Sydney is the capital.  New South Wales
22. Historic American city named after Philippe II.  New Orleans
23. The largest island of the Bismarck Archipelago, as well as a city in Connecticut.  New Britain
24. “All the news that’s fit to print.”  The New York Times
25. A French island of 7,172 square miles in the South Pacific.  New Caledonia
26. The Neolithic period.  New Stone Age
27. What 2000 signified to some people while to others it was 2001.  The new millennium
28. The island of the Bahamas on which lies the capital, Nassau.  New Providence Island
29. The system of waterways connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River.  New York State Barge Canal
30. Peter Allen’s song title that begins, “When Everything….”  “When Everything Old is New Again”
31. The old name of the country that now consists of Colombia and Panama.  New Granada
32. Prestigious medical journal that publishes the latest research and findings in medicine.  The New England Journal of Medicine
33. The Egyptian language between the years of about 1600 B.C. and 700 B.C.  New Egyptian
34. A breed of dog named after a dominion now a part of Canada. Newfoundland
Extra Credit:  Give yourself 5 points if you got any of these three.
A. The territory or viceroyalty which in the 17^th and 18^th centuries included Mexico, the West Indies, the Philippines, and parts of the U.S. and Central America.
New Spain
B. The method of figuring time according to the Gregorian calendar.
New Style
C. A group of islands in the central Solomon Islands, and the name of the largest island in the group.
New Georgia

Don’t Put Your Foot in Your Mouth!

Wait! Don’t give up. Try this hint first.
Each of these words is used only once:
• leg • thumbs • toe • lip • ears • cheek • knuckle • hair • tooth •
tongue • shoulder • hands • brow • chin • heels • eyeball
• throat • teeth • heads • face • foot • nose • neck • eye • hip

ANSWERS to FOOT-IN-MOUTH QUIZ
1.      first, eyeball this quiz
2.      a lump in my throat
3.      keep your ears open
4.         heads up!
5.      she’s long in the tooth
6.      he’s tongue-tied
7.         knuckle down and get some work done
8.      get a leg up on the competition
9.      don’t stick your neck out
10.    keep your chin up
11.    keep your nose out of it
12.    in your face
13.    sink your teeth into it
14.    keep your eye on the ball
15.    don’t give me any lip
16.    don’t be so cheeky
17.    try to toe the line
18.         missed by a hair
19.    he’s a real brow beater
20.    she won hands down
21.    give it a thumbs up
22.         shoulder some of the responsibility
23.    head over heels
24.    she really put her foot down
25.    He’s kind of dorky, but she’s pretty hip

Score 4 points for each correct answer.  If you got them all correct, consider yourself head over heels above the lot if you did it in under 3 minutes.

Word Search Crossword Jigsaw Puzzle

What’s in a Name?

Answers:
1. Knowledge – Ken
2. Might – May
3. A live recording device – Mike
4. Fishing pole – Rod
5. To go up and down in water – Bob
6. Blunt – Frank
7. Fool’s day – April
8. Litigate – Sue
9. You can do this to a ballot – Mark
10. Part Gemini, part Cancer – June
11. Touch lightly – Pat
12. “Over and out” – Roger
13. A cat – Tom
14. To whom the spoils belong – Victor
15. A bear – Teddy
16. Second to the sun – Venus
17. Rights of arrest – Miranda
18. Altered drink – Mickey
19. Burnt wine – Brandy
20. After afternoon – Eve
21. Tropical plant spice in ale – Ginger
22. Translucent fossil resin – Amber
23. Talkative – Gabby
24. Surrounding pupils – Iris
25. Light spear – Lance
26. Auto raiser – Jack
27. Emerald and aquamarine are varieties – Beryl
28. Bright, yellowish green – Kelly
29. Bivalve sand covering – Pearl
30. A purple swallow – Martin
31. Ballot punch – Chad
32. What some artists do (past tense) – Drew
33. Passed by Congress – Bill
34. Enclosed breeding ground – Warren
35. A fish catcher – Barb
36. A wire nail of thin, uniform thickness – Brad
37. The word about town – Buzz
38. Evergreen foliage often woven into wreaths – Laurel
39. Ground round (or toss away) – Chuck
40. Precipice – Cliff

To go back to the puzzle page, click here.

Puzzled States

Answers:
1.  Poser = enigma  – g = enima = Maine
2.  Spanish for avenue = avenida – i = avenda = Nevada
3.  2000 lb lifter (two words) = ton mover – o = tnmover = Vermont
4.  Writer = author – ro = auth = Utah
5.  Fighter = warrior – rrr =waio =Iowa
6.  A single monster (two words) = one ogre – e = onogre = Oregon
7.  Survey instrument = sextant – tn = sexat = Texas
8.  Backpacks = knapsacks – kpc = nasaks = Kansas
9.  Equal (to) = tantamount – tut = anamont = Montana
10. Bringing back vigor = revitalizing – zelt = rviaiing =Virginia
11. Spanish nobleman ranked below a grandee = hidalgo – gl = hidao = Idaho
12. To mislead or dupe = hoodwink – kwnd = hooi = Ohio

Proverbs and Clichés

Answers:
Scoring: Give yourself 100 points to begin. For every real proverb that you thought was fake, subtract 3 points. For every fake proverb that you selected as real, subtract 4 points. A score of 78 or above means you should apply for the Diplomatic Corps.

Numbers 2, 6, 9, 10, 15, 20 and 27 are fake.

The literal meanings of the true proverbs and clichés are shown below.

To go back to the puzzle page, click here.

The Polished Perpetrators

Answers:
They were ALL lying (and, as it turned out, all guilty of their respective crimes).

1. Roman Aristopolis could not have owned a coin that was marked “B.C.,” since nothing could be dated “before” an event. We believe he now wanted to run his business without a partner.

2. Roland Johnson would not have been able to unscrew a light bulb with his bare hand without burning himself after the bulb had been on for over 20 minutes. It seems he did not want to share the family silver with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

3. Tod Laker’s old-fashioned alarm clock would have gone off at 9:00 PM, not 9:00 o’clock in the morning. Police are still investigating his motive for the murder.

4. Juliet Bartholomew apparently had a sentimental interest in the insurance money. The glass window must have been broken from the inside in order for most of the glass to have fallen in the flower bed outside.

Bruce Whitehill—in addition to his numerous game duties—runs and writes the scripts for a national, live, interactive murder mystery dinner theater company, The Mystery Game (www.themysterygame.com).

“Pat Pending,” The Name Game Puzzle

Answers:
Part 1: #s 01-16, score 3 points each (maximum total = 48);
Part 2: #s 17-26, score 4 points each (maximum total = 40);
Part 3: #27-30, score 3 points each  (maximum total = 12)
Total 100

Part 1:  FOR THE JACK OF ALL TRADES

Supplying a common first name of a person.
(#1-16 score 3 points each)

1.   Jack O’Lantern     2.  Billy Club         3.  Jack Hammer      4.  Terry Cloth
5.   Billy Goat             6.  Tommy/Ray Gun          7.  Ray/Tommy Gun             8.  Jack Knife
9.   Bobby Pin              10.  Nick Name     11.  Jack Rabbit        12.  Tom Cat
13.   Jack Pot              14.  Jim Dandy    15.  Bobby Socks         16.  Johnny or Patty Cake (score 2 points for Angel or Honey)

Part 2:  THE REAL MCCOY

Supplying the last name of a person.
(#17-26, score 4 points each)

17.  Graham Cracker     18.  Ferris Wheel      19.  Morse Code      20.  Bunsen Burner      21.  Mason Jar             22.  Melba Toast       23.  Murphy Bed        24.  Salisbury Steak (score 1 for Porterhouse)      25.  Dewey Decimal System                       26.  Gladstone Bag

Part 3:  DAVY JONES’S LOCKER

Supplying a place name or a person’s first or last name
(#27-30, score 3 points each)

27.  Epsom Salts     28.  Adam’s Apple    29.  Jacob’s Ladder     30.  Phillips Screwdriver

To be Frank, we think you should have gotten at least an 80!
Between 60 and 80 tells us you’re on the Mark.
But if you scored below 60, then we know you’re not Abel!
A score of 90 or better means you’re a real cracker Jack.

French Fries and Russian Dressing

Answers:
1.   French horn     9.    Canadian bacon   17.   Indian club
2.   Belgian waffle  10.   Chinese checkers            18.   Spanish moss
3.   Turkish towel   11.   Irish setter            19.   Roman numeral
4.   Persian rug       12.   Siamese twins            20.   Mexican jumping bean
5.   Japanese beetle   13.   English muffin            21.   Swiss/American cheese
6.   Dutch treat     14.   Welsh rarebit            22.   Russian roulette
7.   Maltese falcon  15.   Swedish massage            23.   Italian ice
8.   German measles            16.   Australian crawl   24.   Scottish terrier (score 2 pts. for Scotch)
25.   Portuguese man-of-war

Score 4 points for each correct answer.

HOW DO YOU RATE?

0-59   =  Homebody                                           80-87   =  World Traveler
60-67   =  Tourist                                               88-95   =  Jet-setter
68-79   =  Business Executive                             96-100 =  Diplomat

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