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The IQ line from Smart consists of nine titles that follow a similar format: You, the solver, are presented with a bunch of components, and you must fit them all in the accompanying grid or complete a particular pattern with them after placing the starting elements in the grid based on whichever of the 120 included challenges you've selected. Here's challenge #36 in IQ Twist:
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Here, the red peg must be enveloped by a red piece, the blue by a blue, and the yellow by a yellow. All of the pieces have at least one hole in them, and those holes can either be empty or filled with a peg of the matching color. Following that one guideline, you need to fit all of these pieces into the grid.
For this challenge, you know that the blue piece closest to the camera can't fit on the blue peg since the hole is not at the end of the piece. Similarly, the red "S" piece doesn't have a hole at the end, so you need to use the other red piece. That's all the info you have to work with until you start fiddling with the pieces, and as is the case with all of the challenges in IQ Twist, this challenge has a unique solution.
Challenge #78 — what's the starting point?
All of the IQ titles are similar in how they function. I bought IQ Twist used, and I've also solved challenges in IQ Blox, IQ Focus, and IQ Fit. The included book of 120 challenges gives you a lot to solve — with me typically fiddling with one of these on the fold-down tray in an airplane given that the plastic carrying case is the size of a double-thick smartphone, so it fits easily in my carry bag — but the challenges are also pretty same-y after you do ten or twenty of them. No matter how much you enjoy that pasta-and-sauce dish, if you don't mix up the meal with bread, salad, pine nuts as a topping, or something to provide variety, you're going to get your fill sooner than you think.
Comments on my coverage of logic puzzles often complain about the prize-to-challenge ratio of them, so in that regard IQ titles give you more for your money than anything else, but you're unlikely to blitz through them — or even remember where you stopped unless you leave the pegs in place when you pack it away. With these IQ puzzles, I'll usually solve a dozen or so, then put the box away to do something else until I'm waiting for my connecting flight. You get a little puzzle hit, then move on, coming back for more later once you need another mental twist...
To see this puzzle in action, check out the video below:
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