Jon Jolly

This is less of a game and more of a simple logic puzzle. However by dressing up and acting out the scenario, our Ignite group (11-14’s) has had a lot of fun playing!

Numbers: groups of up to 10. Around five or six works well.
Suitable for: older children and younger teens (8-14’s).
Preparation time: Around 10 minutes
Safety First: There are no real safety concerns with this game.
Equipment needed:

• An empty space.
• A ‘river’ marked out on the floor.
• Props for each of the 3 objects; chicken, fox and corn. You could use clip art pictures printed and laminated for them to hold while playing. We have been lucky enough to have costumes to dress up in.
• Optional: a ‘boat’ to cross the river in!

The premise of the river crossing is very simple, a farmer has to get his three items (chicken, fox and corn) to the market by crossing the river. Unfortunately he can only carry one in his boat at a time and if he leaves certain items on the riverbank together, they will get eaten! (If left together, the fox will eat the chicken and the chicken will eat the corn). The team have to work out how to get all the items across the river without losing any items.

When we’ve played this game, we’ve given out roles of farmer, chicken, fox and corn to members of the team and they’ve had to act everything out in the space we have. The other members have to direct them and work out the solution. For example, if they want to take the fox across the river, the farmer and the fox have to get in the boat, row across the ‘river’ and climb out the other side. This adds a touch of silliness to the whole thing and helps to give it a practical focus rather than simply an abstract problem.

To make it easier for you if you want to play, I’ve created some instructions and images which you can print out and use with your group. Download here (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader).

The solution:

1. Take the Chicken across, leaving the Fox and Corn together.
2. Come back with an empty boat.
3. Take the Fox across, leaving the Corn behind.
4. Bring the Chicken back across.
5. Take the Corn across leaving the Chicken.
6. Leave the Fox and Corn on the far bank, come back with an empty boat.
7. Take the Chicken across.

We’ve found that most children initially get confused about bringing items back across the river. There have been times when we’ve needed to suggest it as an option. Normally though they crack it in about 10 minutes.

Kirsty has just started getting into this amazing alternate reality puzzle adventure game Perplex City and I have to say I’m hooked too.

The basic story is that the Receda Cube (an unusual artifact) has been stolen from Perplex City (an alternate reality) and hidden somewhere on Earth. All you have to do is find it and win £100,000! Unfortunately it’s not quite that simple.

To get started you need to buy some of the 256 puzzle cards from Firebox (my favourite toyshop) and solve the clues which you enter into the website at PerplexCity.com to gain points. Some cards give you info about the theft of the cube, some tell you about Perplex City, while others point you to phone numbers and websites that expand the story further! Combined with real-life radio interviews, newspaper ads and events in London & New York (so far) the game demands a great deal of time and skill in solving mazes, crosswords, illusions, etc.

People from all over the world are now invloved in this quest and have helped to further the story significantly. To find out the story so far and the incredible puzzles that have already been solved, Click Here.

To highlight quite how brilliant the game is, here is a quick example: one of the characters in the game developed a computer programme before he died which was posted on ‘his’ website (available to all at www.salkfamily.com). Players found that it was a series of invisible mazes and by running the programme on Apple powerbook computers, they could guide a ball around the maze just by using the inertia sensors and tilting the laptop! After fully mapping the mazes and stacking them ontop of each other they found various links to hidden urls on the website which unlocked scraps of email conversations, which in turn led to further clues. Incredible eh? and that’s just a small portion of what’s happened so far. Check it out, but make sure you have plenty of time on your hands!