Puzzles in The Shattered Crystal

Problem Solving
Objects scattered around the land should be picked up and used in the appropriate location to solve a problem. Usually one object has only one use. For example: the lake is too muddy to reach, so you have to wear the wellies from the shed. The well is too dark to see down so you have to find a torch. The castle moat is too wide to cross without help, so you’ll need help to bridge the gap. The witch prevents you from entering her house so you have to scare her away with something.

This, in itself, is a useful learning concept as it allows children to make logical and reasoned conclusions about the environment in which they find themselves.

Presented with a problem they have to work out the best way in which to solve it. Where children work in pairs or small groups this prompts a great deal of discussion and is an excellent way in which to promote team working and enhance PSE skills.

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Larger Puzzles
Scattered throughout the game are a number of larger puzzles requiring the children to remain in one location until this puzzle has been completed. The first part of The Shattered Crystal has three such puzzles - a colour mixing puzzle, a weighing puzzle and a sliding tiles puzzle.

The Colour Mixing Puzzle

The colour-mixing puzzle requires the player to use six flasks of coloured liquid - red, yellow and blue - to fill six pots with different colours.

The players turn the handles located below each flask to fill a number of the pots with a colour.

For example, the first handle may fill the first, third, fourth and sixth pot with red paint. The second handle may fill the first, second and sixth pot with yellow paint.

At this point the sequence of colours in the pots would be orange, yellow, red, red, clear, orange.

A pre-defined colour sequence is the goal - for example green, purple, yellow, orange, yellow and green - and the children will need to work out which combination of handles they need to turn on in order to get that sequence.

The Sliding Tiles Puzzle
The sliding tiles puzzle requires children to slide a number of coloured tiles around a board in order to make the pattern shown. The pattern is the same each time, but the tiles are randomly shuffled. Coloured tiles can only slide into the adjacent black space.

The Weighing Puzzle
The weighing puzzle requires children to place six bags of varying weights on each end of a balance beam (three on each end). Once the balance has been levelled, a door will open allowing them through to another location.

Each puzzle only needs to be solved once, but each time the game is played, the puzzle will require a different solution - the weights on the balance bar may have different values or the sequence of colours in the mixing pots will have changed.

Should the children wish to leave a puzzle half way through and return to it later they can do this too.

To cater for a specific teaching topic or to tie in with whole class learning exercises, all the individual puzzles in the game can be independently accessed. This allows a particular concept to be worked through with an individual, small group or entire class of children, furthering the potential benefits the software could have in the classroom.