Optimisation
Optimisation puzzles teach a specific, real way of thinking, and the honest evidence on whether it transfers is more mixed than the marketing suggests.
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In this topic
Why your first solution is never the best one
In an optimisation puzzle the game starts after you solve it. Here is why the first working answer is only a draft, and how the compression pass actually works.
Games that improve spatial reasoning, and how they work
Games that make you rotate, fit and route things in your head genuinely exercise spatial reasoning. Here is which ones, how it works, and what to expect.
Games for smart people: moving beyond sudoku
The best games for smart people are the genuinely hard ones, not the brain trainers that promise to raise your IQ. Here is what to play, and what the evidence really says.
Cost versus speed versus space in puzzle games
Why no single solution wins on cost, speed and space at once, what a Pareto front is, and how to read one, using the three-way squeeze at the heart of 5q0.