This game is......its alright

Its not really a game though

how are you suposed to do this?

Did I say it is a game? Sorry, I meant to call it a puzzle.

(To me, though, a puzzle *is* a game)

If you don't know how to do logic puzzles like this, try doing one over at Puzzler's Paradise using the nice chart-type interface they give you. That will give you a good idea how to solve these types of puzzles.

Done. But I want that pizza, so I'm not going to post the answer :)

Can someone just post the fourth movie type - apparently I'm missing something - i have action thriller, romantic comedy, and sci fi. Help please :)

Is this puzzle explicitly solvable?

Angelique - read the instructions very carefully.

Brad - True. It seems to be implied that all of the information provided applies to some member of the lunch party. Technically, you could get a correct answer by making half of the info up. (#2 didn't return from Tokyo? Well, they might have returned from Pluto!) Then again, you could take this logic to the extreme and say that the puzzle didn't specify the table in question, and assume that all the info applied to the table next to the one with the actors.

Actually, I think Brad is on to something. There is a crucial piece of information missing.

I had the same problem as mikey. I get two possibly correct solutions (discrepancies bolded):
Solution 1

Solution 2

Ya I think you guys are right. As was said before, there appears to be multiple solutions unless you assume that seat #1 and seat #4 are not next to each other.

Ok, i think i solved it. I'm sent it in and am waiting for an response. Here it is:

if anyone finds something wrong with this let me know.

I'm with mikey on this one. I'm usually good at this kind of puzzle, and unless I've missed something here I've found multiple solutions to this. I can go down the list and each of the eight solutions applies to more than one solution I've found.

Beyond the problems already brought up (Not from Tokyo? How about Pluto! Heh.) this puzzle is missing some other information that has to be inferred. You have to assume which names are first names and which are last names since only one, Smith, is explicitly labeled as either. I assumed that Glory, Julia, Robert, and Hannah were first names and that Moon, York, and Marks were last names. But I'm sure you could find examples of some of these being both first and last names, and changing those assumptions opens up even more possibilities than I've already found.

I got two solutions that worked...

Is it safe to assume...

I found five solutions that satisfy all 8 conditions...

Is it just me or was this pretty easy? Here's what I got -

Anyway, it seemed a little too easy - this is either because I made a huge mistake that I'm not noticing, or it's because I teach the LSAT and this stuff is just another logic game for me...

admittedly, i haven't looked at any of the above comments because i fear spoilers to the solution. but if someone could tell me...

usually, logic puzzles like this will be clearer about this sort of thing.

and if the above is true, then... i think i hit an impasse. X( so much for a free pizza...

I assumed the following first names

and the following last names

and I assumed "sat next to" could mean either on the left or the right because it didn't specify. I figured something out that works with all the clues, so it's definitely possible without the left or right thing.

I thought this was very fun :) It reminded me of the puzzles I did in elementary school only a tad harder. Plus, the added possibility of a pizza is awesome :D

That's pretty sneaky and misleading. You would assume from the picture that the puzzle involves 2 men and 2 women. Poor Glory, from birth she was cursed with male pattern baldness and hairy forearms.

I did this in 15 minutes. I wrote the answers down. They're now in the bin so I can't clarify. But what's being said about whether they sit to the left or right, I remember there being an explicit condition that had to be adhered to if you worked your way around the given conditions...

I love this kind of puzzles.

Unfortunately, this one isn't very good, providing there are at least 2 correct solutions. I have them in front of me just now and am fool-proofing them three times, just in case I missed a sneaky clause (like a he/she or something like that).

I found one and only one way to satisfy the restraints given:

Seat 1

Seat 2

Seat 3

Seat 4

Hi everyone

I think there is only *one* combination of firstnames/surname pairs that provides a unique solution. All other "assumptions" about which are firstnames and which are surnames yield multiple solutions ... and are therefore wrong.

J

Just throwing it out there - I haven't had the time to go through it yet, but here's another way of thinking of it, might help some of you. (It's not an answer, just an interpretation of the names).

I tossed the conditions into a constraint solver. if you don't assume which names are first or last names, then there are 29 solutions.

example solution

actually, it's more than 29, because my solver thinks "Moon York" and "York Moon" are the same name. the rules only clearly identify that "Smith" is a lastname, and either "Glory" or "Robert" is a firstname.

so each of those 29 solutions has 8 permutations, which means there are 232 solutions.

My view upon the whole firstname/surname thing.

I also seem to have discovered multiple solutions. I worked through the puzzle alone, before reading the comments here, using logic to link the facts together until I was left with three possible solutions, each one seeming to satisfy all the necessary criteria.

Having the following piece of information would undoubtedly narrow it down to one unique solution:

Actually, I think there's another that I overlooked because I was too lazy to check something again.

If this is the case, knowing the following would be useful too:

Guys,

If you're coming up with multiple possible answers, they're wrong. There is only one combination that fits all the criteria *and* where none of them can be swapped further. If you've got Glory and Robert easily shifting firstnames, for instance, you've gone wrong elsewhere.

I'm sorry, but all things considered, this is a pretty lousy logical puzzle. A misleading picture, needless name/surname confusion, faulty use of negative clause...

I hope someone at least gets a pizza out of this mess.

baba, a misleading picture? If you're referring to the fact that you can not count on the sexes displayed on the picture, that is perfectly normal. It's like that with most logic puzzles that have illustrations, and they do say on the website that the picture is only there to show you the ordering of the seats. Knowing the sexes too from the picture, it would begin to be a little too far from a logic puzzle.

And I'm not really sure what you mean with a faulty negative clause.

I can see why the names could potentially cause a little confusion, but I'd say that if you think logically about it, and you've done these before, there's nothing new to or bad about this particular logic puzzle.

A bit of common sense is always a good idea too.

"If you're coming up with multiple possible answers, they're wrong. There is only one combination that fits all the criteria *and* where none of them can be swapped further. If you've got Glory and Robert easily shifting firstnames, for instance, you've gone wrong elsewhere"

Why do you say this? I've come up with two solutions that have relatively easy swapping (Julia and Hannah can switch last names and movies), which clearly fulfill all of the criteria. I have read through the instructions several times and am convinced that my answers meet all of the criteria (I came up with three answers that meet every criterion before getting cranky.)

I too have found multiple, provably correct solutions, under the sensible assumption that Hannah, Richard, Julia and Glory are first names and the others surnames.

My feeling is that the puzzle is broken, but it's certainly possible that a a single unique solution exists for one and only one assignment of first and second names, working from no initial assumptions about which are first names and surnames (i.e. precisely four of {Hannah, Richard, Julia, Glory, Moon, York, Marks, Smith} are surnames and the others first names, with no restrictions).

It strikes me that there are a lot of people contributing to these comments who lack a formal education in logic or mathematics.

What do you consider as a formal education in mathematics or logic? I have to note here that this is a game site, and everyone here is trying to have a good time. Naturally, most people here are pretty average and may not have that type of education you described. (as i interpret it, formal education means at least a degree)

I have found two solutions for which I'm ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY sure they fit all the clauses. I'm also fairly certain there are at least two more, and perhaps as many as sixteen in total.

So, yes, with being pretty sure my sense is quite common, I think this is a pretty lousy logic puzzle.

baba44713, the easy way to show you are right is to share the two solutions you claim to have found with us, then we can all take a look and see if there is, ahem, some minor flaw in your reasoning!

I found my solution without having to resort to any guesswork apart from a minor point about only half of the names:

Could anyone tell me

Ryuko and anyone who can't get in to this:

One of the key logical techniques you need here is called "The process of elimination."

Simply put, you create a grid of all possible combinations, in this case I recommend a circle as there are spatial clues which are easier to use if you have the seat positions laid out visually. You then start crossing off the combinations as the clues dictate. Sometimes, you will be able to say that one result is definitely true and therefore it is false elsewhere

Sometimes, as you keep on doing this, you will find that you are left with only one choice for a particular result. When you have this situation, you have eliminated all the other possibilities and you have another answer!

It's not the logical process that's eluding me here. I have a grid, a table (the chart kind) that clarifies what's on the grid, and a diagram of the table (in the puzzle). My issue is that I can't pull anything more out of the information given that helps. I'm stuck. I was asking for an explanation of your logic on that point, to see if it would help identify what I was missing.

I haven't even thought of this puzzle all day and I still can't figure anything more out.

Well, the solution was posted today, and it reveals what many of us had expected