Lights On.

[tablesaw]

So, I've been writing a column for Game Set Watch for a few months now. Yesterday's piece on Lights Out is probably my favorite so far. It was hell to write though. The history of the puzzle had a lot of twists and turns, and I know I wasn't able to run down them all. On the other hand, there was a lot of great information that I found but couldn't quite fit in.

• The mathematics behind Lights Out involve elementary cellular automata. This seemed interesting and important, but I have a hard time understanding what exactly cellular automata are anyway, beyond knowing how Conway's Game of Life works.
  
• The Orbix is Lights Out on a dodecahedron. For some reason, this puzzle never made it into the article.
  
• In Lights Out and many of its variations, the order of the steps of a solution is unimportant.
  
• I went out to toy stores to see if Lights Out was still available, but instead I found a rerelease of Merlin, a predecessor of Lights Out.
  
• Merlin was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 1979.
  
• The sequel to Merlin, Master Merlin, was modified to be used as a prop in the first-aired episode of Firefly.
  
• The holders of the original Lights Out patent were all from Israel.

Back to work tonight. Phooey.

Comments

[chocolatemamba.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about puzzles....but it sounds impressive *nods vigorously*

[jeffurrynpl.livejournal.com]

I still have my Merlin. You couldn't tear it out of my hands when I was a kid.

[akkanvader.livejournal.com]

i would totally want a lights out that played conway's life.

[lpsmith.livejournal.com]

Hey, those are cool articles. Would you be up for posting a link to them from here when you write one?

[nothings.livejournal.com]

Is that middle link about Master Merlin / Firefly supposed to link to something showing the connection? It's the same as the first link.

[tablesaw]

Dammit, yeah. That's the second time I've done that. It's supposed to go here, with pictures from the episode.

[(Anonymous)]

That HandheldMuseum's "handheld games in movies" page is what made me get a Lakeside Computer Perfection - it just looks so retro-future cool.

Anyway, thanks for the very nice article, and the many links to my site.

Jaap
Jaap's Puzzle Page
http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/

[limax.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine had the original Merlin. I loved to play with it every time I went over to his house, and not just Lights Out. Some of the other games were fun as well.