Lloyd King is a puzzle designer living in the UK.
King specialises in creating novel and unusual puzzles with "Aha!" answers. Most of his puzzles require lateral and "outside the box" thinking. Many lateral thinking puzzles are open ended, with numerous possible correct answers, but King strives to create puzzles with a single answer, which should become obvious with the illuminating "Aha!" moment on discovering the solution to a puzzle.
He has written a number of books, and his puzzles are often quoted and used as illustrative examples in works by other authors, including "Riddles of the Sphinx" by David J Bodycombe. King's puzzles have also appeared in the "Get Smart in a Week" creativity test on BBC1 in 2006, in OMNI, The Times , The Independent , GAMES and various other publications, games and advertising.
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Word games are spoken, board, or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.
A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle. There are different genres of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. The academic study of puzzles is called enigmatology.
Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organisation open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. Mensa formally comprises national groups and the umbrella organisation Mensa International, with a registered office in Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, England, which is separate from the British Mensa office in Wolverhampton. The word mensa is Latin for 'table', as is symbolised in the organisation's logo, and was chosen to demonstrate the round-table nature of the organisation; the coming together of equals.
A brain teaser is a form of puzzle that requires thought to solve. It often requires thinking in unconventional ways with given constraints in mind; sometimes it also involves lateral thinking. Logic puzzles and riddles are specific types of brain teasers.
Situation puzzles are often referred to as minute mysteries, lateral thinking puzzles or "yes/no" puzzles.
Marilyn vos Savant is an American magazine columnist who has the highest recorded intelligence quotient (IQ) in the Guinness Book of Records, a competitive category the publication has since retired. Since 1986, she has written "Ask Marilyn", a Parade magazine Sunday column wherein she solves puzzles and answers questions on various subjects, and which popularized the Monty Hall problem in 1990.
David J. Bodycombe is an English puzzle author and games consultant. He is based in London, and his work is read by over 2 million people a day in the UK, and is syndicated to over 300 newspapers internationally. He devises puzzles for the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Metro and BBC Focus magazine.
Dr. Brain is a series of educational games made by Sierra On-Line in the 1990s. The objective of each game is solving a series of puzzles in order to proceed further into the game. The series was later picked up by Knowledge Adventure who turned it into a more action-oriented game.
A ditloid is a type of word puzzle in which a phrase, quotation, date, or fact must be deduced from the numbers and abbreviated letters in the clue. An example would be "7 D S" representing "seven deadly sins".
The Decamentathlon is a multi disciplined games event that was created as part of the first Mind Sports Olympiad. It was founded to try to find the best games all-rounder in the world and hence possibly the best games player. It was given a prize fund of £10,000 for the inaugural competition, that equalled that of the highest funded event at the first MSO sponsored by Skandia. However, the other events were spread over multiple playing sessions whereas the Decamentathlon was held over just a single session. This event was initially hailed as the MSO flagship event. Although, the Mind Sports Olympiad's other new event the Pentamind has since become regarded as the more significant event despite not having a fixed format.
A metapuzzle, also known as a meta-puzzle or meta, is a puzzle that uses the solutions to a set of puzzles to create or provide data for a final puzzle.
MindTrap is a series of lateral thinking puzzle games played by two individuals or teams. Invented in Canada, it is the main product of MindTrap Games, Inc., who license the game for manufacture by various companies including Outset Media, Blue Opal, the Great American Puzzle Factory, Pressman Toy Corporation, Spears Games and Winning Moves.
Vertical thinking is a type of approach to problems that usually involves one being selective, analytical, and sequential. It could be said that it is the opposite of lateral thinking. Unlike lateral thinking that involves using added intuition, risk taking, and imagination through unconscious and subconscious processes, vertical thinking consists of using more of a conscious approach via rational assessment in order to take in information or make decisions. This type of thinking encourages individuals to employ a sequential approach to solving problem where a creative and multidirectional response are seen as imprudent. Vertical thinkers prefer to rely on external data and facts in order avoid failure or counterfactual thinking.
Terry Stickels is the author of numerous puzzle books, calendars, card decks and posters featuring critical thinking skills. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he is the oldest of three children. Stickels is a lifelong member of Mensa, One In A Thousand Society and The International High IQ Society and the Epimetheus Society. He currently resides in Fort Worth, Texas.
Victor Serebriakoff was one of the early members of Mensa. Serebriakoff is known for his contributions to lumber technology, writing intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, as well as organising and promoting Mensa.
Steve Ryan is an American author who specializes in the creation of games and puzzles. Ryan is also a television game show historian and creator. Ryan was a long-standing staff member of Goodson-Todman Productions and Mark Goodson Productions, where he created the concept for the game show Blockbusters. Ryan also created the rebus puzzles for the game show Classic Concentration. He was also a writer and creator of puzzles for the game shows Body Language, Catch Phrase, Password Plus and Trivia Trap.
The eureka effect refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. Some research describes the Aha! effect as a memory advantage, but conflicting results exist as to where exactly it occurs in the brain, and it is difficult to predict under what circumstances one can predict an Aha! moment.
Atamania (アタマニア) is a series of casual puzzle video games published by Level-5. The series comprises two, unrelated series of puzzle games. Tago Akira no Taisō is a collection of puzzles created by Akira Tago, a Japanese professor who has authored a series of books within Japan under the same name. Players read through stories and solve puzzles at their own leisure. Surōn to Makuhēru no Nazo no Sutōrī is based on the concept of lateral thinking puzzles, books authored by Paul Sloane and Des MacHale. The games have drawn comparison to the Professor Layton series, which is also published by Level-5.
A self-test of intelligence is a psychological test that someone can take to purportedly measure one's own intelligence.
Star Wars: Pit Droids is a puzzle game developed and published by Lucas Learning. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh on September 13, 1999. It was later ported to iOS and released on February 9, 2012. The game develops skills such as hypothesis testing and geometry.
