It's Da Bomb!

This comes straight out of Challenges for Game Designers.

The challenge: You're designing a game based on the old TV show MacGyver, and part of the storyline in the game involves the main character diffusing a bomb.  Rather than making it a non-interactive cutscene, you've chosen to make it into a timed puzzle, where taking too long to solve the puzzle or solving it incorrectly results in the game being over.

Consider the different kinds of puzzles mentioned in this chapter, choose your favorite type, and create a working prototype puzzle.

First, the kinds of puzzles mentioned in the chapter: riddles, lateral thinking, spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, logic, exploration, and item use.

I found myself eyeing the riddles pretty aggressively.

Riddles are questions that have one right answer, but that answer is not obvious.  Typically, a riddle involves a play on words that requires the player to interpret it in a nonstandard way in order to solve it.

For fun, grab a stopwatch and see if you can solve each of these in a minute or less.  Read fast!

Riddle 1:

Before you sits a bomb and a handwritten note.  You're actually not sure if it's a bomb, but there's a mess of wires sticking out of an ominous looking metal case with a timer strapped to the top.  So, it's probably not a bad guess.  You are confident that the note is a real note however.  And what a befuddling note it is!  You've got 30 seconds left before the timer hits zero.  Still not entirely convinced what sits before you is capable of exploding, you feel compelled to be proactive.  Following the directions on the note and with no better ideas, you decide to cut one of the wires.

The wires sticking out of the case, connecting the case to the timer exist in the following order:

Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange.

Besides telling you that you must sever the correct wire to save yourself from painting the wall behind you, the note offers only a single line:

"My primary focus is avoiding compliments."

Riddle 2 (identical setup):

Before you sits a bomb and a handwritten note.  You're actually not sure if it's a bomb, but there's a mess of wires sticking out of an ominous looking metal case with a timer strapped to the top.  So, it's probably not a bad guess.  You are confident that the note is a real note however.  And what a befuddling note it is!  You've got 30 seconds left before the timer hits zero.  Still not entirely convinced what sits before you is capable of exploding, you feel compelled to be proactive.  Following the directions on the note and with no better ideas, you decide to cut one of the wires.

The wires sticking out of the case, connecting the case to the timer exist in the following order:

Blue, Yellow, Purple, Red.

Besides telling you that you must sever the correct wire to save your current dimensions, the note says the following:

"I live in a well-known circle with all of my best primary and secondary friends.  Including myself, our circle numbers six.  Today, my neighbors are absent, and I seem to be the only one receiving any compliments."

If you're looking for a hint, highlight between the vertical bars.

| The Color Wheel |

I'll post my solutions and reasoning tomorrow.

Author's note: It's Da Bomb! is the title of the challenge as printed in Challenges for Game Designers, and it's my favorite title ever!

Cheers,

Danny