Created as an entry for our recent game design competition, Quadra Pair 42 is an innocent looking puzzle that will quickly have you in tears. Frustratingly difficult to figure out, the puzzle was devilishly designed and developed by JR of JR Visuals in Buffalo, New York.
The objective? Complete the puzzle in the fewest of moves possible, of course. Rumor has it that it can be done leaving just 21 in the display. But the tricky part is figuring out how to solve it first.
And I'm not sure what's more impressive about this one: whether it's the fact that even after knowing the 'rules' in the game I am still able to come back to it days later and struggle to solve it again; or, the fact that the entire game was created from scratch with just a couple of hours work. It's an excellent little puzzle game. But be warned: keep a soft pillow nearby; you may need something to hit. Click.
When you solve it, does it just exit? Because I can easily get the counter to 22, then click the last position and the game just jumps back to the main jayisgames competition screen. Did I win?
Total and complete spoiler:
Imagine the grid:
123
456
789
Click in this order: 191298123987123698745
Hey Otto, good work! =)
JR had sent a revised version of the game with a congratulatory animation. I must have somehow reverted back to the older version. If you empty your cache and reload the game, you'll get your reward, as I've just reuploaded the latest version of the game. Cheers!
Pretty easy, after 3 attempts I got it ;-)
follow the colors
I'm not used to find the clue that fast...;-)
I have been stuck on this game for a while. Then, when you said it could be solved in 21 moves, I realized that I had been assuming that the puzzle was to get some end result in exactly 42 moves. I got it on the first try with that knowledge.
wasnt too hard. got it on my 4th go... and on my 5th got it at 21. ^__^ thanks for the game
otto mine was different to yours but still the same number of hits.
My question involves the (a?) solution, so I'll wrap it in spoiler-tags. However, this is aimed at those who had solved it, so please peer inside:
I "solved" it by putting two of each non-white color on the board, on opposite tiles (ne-sw, nw-se, e-w, s-n), then clicking the middle tile. The order hardly mattered at all - I first put two yellows, then two greens, then blues and finally the reds.
So, why was this accepted as the solution? What exactly have I supposedly figured out? I don't get it.
Well I'm glad there was a puzzled solved moment. Because I didn't know if I got it during the competition. The first clue above seems way overly complicated.
An addition to the clue that xinix gave in case you still don't get it:
Click the upper left spot 4 times to turn it yellow, then continue like a telephone key pad turning the two spot green - each the next color in the strip at the top. At the end I had to click on the one unclicked White square in the middle to complete the game.
@ dorfl
i think the aim was to colour all the squares in
anyway i noticed that if you colour 2 at a time you can colour the next two and then if you colour the same colours again in order, you can colour another 2 and so on till you get the middle
111199992228883377465
Not so impressed; once you get the pattern (red blue green yellow, same order every time, just color in two opposite blocks yellow (4 clicks each) then green(3) blue(2) finally red (1 each) and click the middle.
I suppose the puzzle is figuring out what the goal is, but there's no feedback until you win.
I'm with evan... I think it's entirely too simple with way too many possible solutions. Plus when I won the first time, I didn't really know WHY I won (not to mention that at the time there was no congratulations screen, so I wasn't really sure I had won).
But the look and feel are elegant. I think this puzzle has way more potential than it actually reaches.
I think what would really make it a challenge would be having two or three goals to hit in a certain order... and possibly starting with a pre-configured board instead of a blank one
I dont get....got 21 in the first try
Just colored the tiles in the order shown above...
Must be harder than that...cant see the puzzle in it.
I did the same thing as Johan. After trying it a few ways I think winning condition might be...
Two of the same color cannot be on the same row, column, or diagonal (only the diagonals throught the middle count). This means that the solution must have the white block in the center, otherwise it's impossible to find a place for the second block of the color in the middle.
errrrrrrrrrr ...... easiest game i have ever played. well first time i tried it a while ago i couldnt master it but this time it was simple . i didnt use the key at the top but the logic i used to slove it made it work out that way any way.
oh by the way my other acount and messages i left would be under motzo but for some reason my password would not work and i had to make this one
Afaik, there's no real complex 'design' to how you place the colours. It just has to be symmetrical. Of course, you can only have two of colour X on the grid at one time, but other than that the placing of nor the order of clicks doesn't matter one iota.
if the colours yellow, green, blue, red, and white are numbered 1-5 in that order, then:
123
454
321
is just as correct a combination as:
431
252
134
or
241
353
142
They're just all symmetrical, and you can put both corners in first, or going around clockwise, or counter-clockwise, or whatever.
Have you tried:
123
451
234
I don't understand. It just goes straight to the board. What, um, are the rules for this game? What's the point, what am I trying to do?
Update