Mathematical Puzzles
No thanks to Elayne Riggs, where I saw the game mentioned, I have now wasted something near to 20% of the last two days playing a game called Planarity. She's usually such a sensible person, too, so I don't know what happened here.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, this is just the type of game that can keep me quiet and still for hours at a time. In this game, you get a bunch of circles in the game arena, and each circle is attached to two or more other circles by lines. The objective is to move the circles about so that none of the lines cross. Successive "levels" of the game have increasing numbers of little circles.
Solving puzzles like this often gives me the feeling that I can almost see an algorithm to use that will produce a solution, or that I can start to see some significant tactics. I used to play lots of solitaire on my computer ("Seahaven Towers", a Free Cell variant), and felt that I should write a monograph on winning tactics n solitaire games. Although I never discovered an algorithm, I generally one 3 out of 4 games provided I was feeling persistent. The conclusion: stare at something long enough and one starts to see patterns, whether they're really there or not.
So, to someone pattern-oriented like me, with a taste for mathematical conundra, this is the perfect diversion. For others, including some friends whom I won't mention and — apparently — Ms. Riggs, a game like this one is a fast track to frustration.
It's not with the intention of irritating those same friends that I mention that I did manage to complete a "level 10" puzzle this afternoon. It may, however, be a little while before I make it any further than that.