Logic Ladder
Get the wolf, the goat and the cabbage across the river; four friends over a bridge by torchlight; exactly four litres from two jugs; frogs past lizards; every light out; the tiles home; two knights past two others; an ambulance out of a jammed car park; a penguin across the ice to its fish; marbles sorted by colour; crates pushed home. Every rung is a different classic puzzle and opens when the one below is solved — on par for three stars.
Logic Ladder is thirty of the best-loved puzzles there are, one a rung. Some are a thousand years old — the farmer with a wolf, a goat and a cabbage is in a book of riddles written for Charlemagne. Each rung is a different puzzle with its own rules, and each one opens when the one below it is solved. Every rung has been solved by the computer to find its fewest moves, its par, so you know exactly what to aim for.
How to play Logic Ladder
- River crossings: tap who gets in the boat, then Cross. The boat sails, and they step off on the other side. Somebody who can row has to be in it every time.
- The bridge: tap one or two people on the side where the torch is, then Cross. Two together go at the slower one’s pace, and the torch has to come back for the next ones.
- The jugs: tap a jug to pick it up, then another to pour into it. Where there is a tap, Fill and Empty work on the jug you are holding.
- The tower: tap a peg to lift its top disc, then the peg to put it on. A bigger disc can never go on a smaller one.
- Leapfrog: tap a frog or a lizard to hop it forward — onto the free stone, or over one other onto it. Frogs only go right and lizards only left, so a wrong hop can leave everybody stuck: undo it.
- Lights out: a tap flips a light and the ones touching it. Put every light out.
- Sliding tiles: tap a tile beside the gap to slide it in. Put the tiles in order, 1 to 8, with the gap last.
- The knights: tap a knight, then the square it jumps to — an L away, as in chess. Swap the white and the black.
- The traffic jam: tap a car, then a square along its length to slide it there — the squares it can reach light up. A slide of any distance is one move. Clear a way and the ambulance drives out on the right.
- On thin ice: slide the penguin with the arrows, or tap a square in line with it. It only stops at a rock, the edge or a patch of snow — and it has to stop on the fish.
- Colour sort: tap a tube to lift its top marble, then the tube to drop it in. A marble only goes onto one of its own colour, or into an empty tube. Every marble has a shape as well as a colour.
- The warehouse: walk the worker with the arrows, or tap a square in line. Walking into a crate pushes it; a crate can never be pulled, and every step counts.
- A move that would break a rule is never made — the boat rocks and the rule says why. Undo steps back; Start again goes back to the beginning.
Scoring
- A rung solved is worth 1,000, less 50 for every move over its par and 150 for every hint, and never less than 300.
- Three stars for par with no hints, two for close, one for getting there. Nothing for stopping, and the rung waits for another go.
- Between equal scores, the quicker solve wins.
Tips
- In a river crossing, bringing somebody back is often the trick: the farmer takes the goat over, and later brings it back again.
- At the bridge, send the two slowest over together, so the slowest time is only paid once — and have the quickest ready on the far side to bring the torch back.
- With the jugs, keep pouring the same way round: fill one, pour it into the other, empty that when it is full. The amounts that appear are the ones you can measure.
- The tower is a rhythm: move the smallest disc every other move, always the same way round, and the move in between is the only one it can be.
- Leapfrog: never let two of the same kind end up facing each other with no gap — move so the frogs and lizards stay interleaved.
- Lights out: the order of the taps never matters, and tapping the same light twice undoes it — so each light is tapped once or not at all.
- The knights go round the edge of the board like a ring of eight squares; walk them round it the same way, all together.
- In the traffic jam, work backwards from the ambulance: which car is in its way, what is in that car’s way, and so on, until you find one that can move.
- On the ice, look for the rocks the penguin can stop against next to the fish, and work back from there.
- In colour sort, keep an empty tube for as long as you can — it is the only place a marble can always go.
- In the warehouse, never push a crate into a corner that is not a spot: it can never come out. Think about where you need to stand to push it the way you want.
Play it with friends
- On your own, against the characters — each plays the game by its own rules the moment it starts, so there is always somebody to beat.
- With friends, each on their own phone or laptop: one of you shows a code, the others type it in, and everybody gets exactly the same game on the same Go.
- Taking turns on one device — pass it round, and each turn is scored against the turns before.
Related
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